Today in Fascism

[Desert Hound]

The most insane part of the Trump catering cart story isn't that he hid in a food truck. It's that he used a plane full of reporters and staff as a decoy against a credible threat on his own life.

You should read up on Clinton and a trip to Pakistan where there was a threat and they put the journalists and everyone on the Presidential plane to land first. Clinton came in later on a smaller unmarked plane.

I know you like to get spoon fed your talking points....but what happened recently happens frequently.

You are either too ignorant to know that, or too partisan to admit it. Either way it isnt a good a look.

 

[Hüsker Dü]

You should read up on Clinton and a trip to Pakistan where there was a threat and they put the journalists and everyone on the Presidential plane to land first. Clinton came in later on a smaller unmarked plane.

I know you like to get spoon fed your talking points....but what happened recently happens frequently.

You are either too ignorant to know that, or too partisan to admit it. Either way it isnt a good a look.

That was wrong as well. You people are stuck in the mud.

 

[Hüsker Dü]

More evidence we need to move forward

Two thousand years ago, Rome's ruling class had a remarkably familiar way of talking about poor people.

The indebted were irresponsible. People demanding relief were dangerous. Politicians who appealed to ordinary citizens were demagogues. Redistributing land threatened property. Providing grain encouraged dependence.

And when the lower classes became angry enough to organize or protest, their anger wasn't treated as evidence that something might be structurally wrong.

Nope. They were a mob.

I've been reading Michael Parenti's The Assassination of Julius Caesar, and one of the most fascinating parts isn't Caesar. It's how the Roman ruling class understood the people beneath them.

Cicero is particularly revealing. He didn't invent contempt for the poor, and I'm not claiming modern attitudes descended directly from him. What's fascinating is how little the argument has changed.

Rome had enormous wealth alongside enormous poverty, concentrated land ownership, chronic debt, and displaced farmers. Yet somehow the problem kept becoming the people demanding something.

Not concentrated wealth. Not exploitation. Not debt.

Apparently the real emergency was that poor people had become unpleasant about being poor.

And remember who wrote much of the history that survived.

Cicero left volumes.

The poor bastard hauling stones across Rome didn't.

Ruling classes don't merely possess disproportionate wealth. They possess a disproportionate ability to explain society to everyone else.

That language still sounds familiar.

Food assistance becomes "dependency." Debt relief becomes "rewarding irresponsibility." Workers are greedy. Tenants are entitled. Homeless people made bad choices.

But when wealth moves upward, everybody suddenly finds the thesaurus.

Corporate subsidies become "economic development." Tax breaks become "incentives." Bailouts become "stability."

The poor pursue their material interests and it's greed.

The wealthy pursue theirs and it's economics.

America isn't Rome. Two thousand years have changed a hell of a lot.

But societies with concentrated wealth keep producing remarkably similar explanations for why those with the least deserve their position and why interfering with those who have the most threatens "freedom."

Freedom for whom?

Empires disappear. Religions change. Humans split the atom and walk on the moon.

And somehow the guy with twelve houses is still explaining that the guy with none needs to learn personal responsibility.

 

[watfly]

That was wrong as well. You people are stuck in the mud.

What is wrong about it? Are you claiming that AF1 wasn't used as a decoy plane and that Clinton didn't fly on an unmarked plane? What's your source?

 

[Chelsea dad g09]

The last person that agreed with El Sayed is Hassan Piker, you sure you want that association?

This is also straight out the the dsa playbook, no need to look further than mamdani in Ny, using taxpayers funds to subsidize groceries then selling it back to them. Sure, advocate for government run everything and then when those taxpayer subsidies aren't enough because its the US government, they'll only ask for more money and eventually when it gets too large, they'll start their own farms. Its straight from Das Kapital. Oh you want the Scandanavian model, you'd need to lower our population by a couple hundred million, deregulate business, change the entire financial system that the rest of the world relies uopn and strictly enforce the border, does that sound like El Sayed?

Fitting that today in 1986-

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

 

[Hüsker Dü]

The last person that agreed with El Sayed is Hassan Piker, you sure you want that association?

This is also straight out the the dsa playbook, no need to look further than mamdani in Ny, using taxpayers funds to subsidize groceries then selling it back to them. Sure, advocate for government run everything and then when those taxpayer subsidies aren't enough because its the US government, they'll only ask for more money and eventually when it gets too large, they'll start their own farms. Its straight from Das Kapital. Oh you want the Scandanavian model, you'd need to lower our population by a couple hundred million, deregulate business, change the entire financial system that the rest of the world relies uopn and strictly enforce the border, does that sound like El Sayed?

Fitting that today in 1986-

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

You can cling to that if you wish but the reality doesn’t match what you are told. There’s a whole great big world out here full of great people wanting the best for America! Separation of corporate interests and state is on the agenda. Going back to a time before the corporate takeover and a more equitable system will make America great again.

 

[Hüsker Dü]

The last person that agreed with El Sayed is Hassan Piker, you sure you want that association?

This is also straight out the the dsa playbook, no need to look further than mamdani in Ny, using taxpayers funds to subsidize groceries then selling it back to them. Sure, advocate for government run everything and then when those taxpayer subsidies aren't enough because its the US government, they'll only ask for more money and eventually when it gets too large, they'll start their own farms. Its straight from Das Kapital. Oh you want the Scandanavian model, you'd need to lower our population by a couple hundred million, deregulate business, change the entire financial system that the rest of the world relies uopn and strictly enforce the border, does that sound like El Sayed?

Fitting that today in 1986-

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

Corporations should be once again a separate entity and not entwined in policy decisions. That and the government should NOT be taking stakes in companies like Trump is doing. You are being lied to by your sources. Branch out and look around. It’s an easy cop out to just say we can’t do that here. Don’t be lazy. Think! It’s the patriotic thing to do!

 

[Hüsker Dü]

I think it's important to remind folks that the Republican Party was a cult long before Donald Trump took it over. Back in 2013, I wrote an article where I referred to the party as the "Cult of Republicanity," a group of people who chose to believe in things that were objectively not backed by reality.

For a moment, let's ignore all the MAGA nonsense of the past decade.

Prior to Trump, what did Republicans always say they were about?

Fiscal conservatism, small government, family values, the Constitution, personal accountability, pro-life policies, religious freedom, border security, and states' rights.

Except that was all bullshit long before Trump.

Fiscal Conservatism: This is one of the easiest ones for me, dating back to when I was much younger. It never made sense why a party looked at Ronald Reagan as the "icon of fiscal conservatism" when he nearly tripled the national debt during his eight years in office. How in the world is that "fiscally conservative"? Since then, Republican presidents have added more to the national debt than Democrats, and a president from the GOP hasn't balanced the budget since Eisenhower left office in 1961. So, how in the world do you claim to be the party of "fiscal responsibility" when your "icon" nearly tripled the national debt — and your party has added more to it than the opposition you claim is built on "out-of-control government spending"?

Small Government: This has always been a joke as well. The only time the GOP backs small government is when that government is trying to prevent them from using that very same government to impose their views on others. In nearly every other instance, such as gay marriage and abortion, they want a massive, controlling government. Even at the state level, they're hypocrites. Here in Texas, when a local city or county passes something Republicans oppose at the state level, Gov. Greg Abbott signs legislation that overrides the will of that smaller local government. Republicans love themselves some big government whenever they can use it to force others to follow their ideologies.

Family Values: How? Where? Newt Gingrich was the House Speaker in the '90s who led the impeachment effort against Bill Clinton over his affair while he himself was having multiple affairs during both of his marriages. But it gets worse: He divorced his first wife, whom he was cheating on, while she was being treated for cancer. Then he divorced his second wife, whom he was cheating on, just months after she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Then the very next Republican House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, sexually abused and assaulted male students when he was a high school teacher. And now the party is represented by Donald Trump, with Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr. right there with him — three men with multiple affairs, divorces, two confirmed legal cases involving sexual assault, as well as multiple other allegations.

The Constitution: Like with everything else in the GOP sphere, such as the Bible, they cherry-pick what and when they want to look to the Constitution. Similar to their stance on small government, they want to use the Constitution when it benefits them, then ignore it when it doesn't.

Personal Accountability: Absolutely none. Again, these are the folks who impeached Clinton for having an affair while embracing practically any scumbag with an "R" next to their name. And while the Epstein files have proven that Republicans will clearly ignore the need to go after child predators, let's not forget Roy Moore, another accused child predator, who nearly won the Senate seat in Alabama, getting 48.3% of the vote even after multiple victims had come forward with details of his abuse of them while they were minors. That was in 2018.

Pro-Life: That's always been nonsense. The question I always ask conservatives is this: Tell me a policy besides abortion where anything else your party supports could remotely be considered "pro-life." They oppose programs that feed impoverished children, they oppose any sensible gun regulations to save lives, and they oppose health care access, which would also save lives. The term "pro-life" is just a slogan they use for their abortion stance, but outside of that, they do absolutely nothing else to protect life.

Religious Freedom: By this, they mean they want the religious freedom to force their warped views and fake "Christianity" on others, but they damn sure don't mean total religious freedom for all religions. By "freedom of religion," they mean their right to restrict the religious freedoms of others by forcing their views into our laws — which is the exact opposite of religious freedom.

Border Security: Here's a secret — Republicans really don't want to solve the issues with illegal immigration. If they did, how would they use illegal immigrants to demonize and manipulate their base? I've lived in Texas my entire life. Republicans have fully controlled this state for over 30 years. So, why haven't they shut Texas's border down? They have the power and money to do so. It's all about small government and states' rights, right? Then what are Texas Republicans waiting for? Oh, I know — they're going to blame Democrats even though Republicans have controlled Texas for three decades. Like a lot of "boogeyman" issues Republicans use, they really don't want to solve a problem because then they can't use that issue to scare their voters and distract them from the other policies they have that are screwing all of them over.

States' Rights: Again, same with the Constitution and "small government." Republicans have only ever believed in states' rights when the federal government was trying to block them from violating the constitutional rights of others. Yet when it comes to Republicans controlling the federal government, they're more than willing to do whatever they can to force big government on every American in every state so that every American is made to live their lives according to the GOP's values.

So, you see, Republicans were a cult long before Trump rose to take the party over: millions of people who believed in a political party whose actions and policies didn't back the propaganda they were pushing about what they supposedly supported.

Which is exactly how a con artist like Donald Trump took the party over in the first place: someone who realized that you could get these people to believe anything as long as you told them what they wanted to hear.

Now they've not just contradicted everything I've already listed, they're now against free markets — a pillar of the GOP economic platform for decades — and, after spending the last 10+ years saying how much they were against America getting involved in new wars, they're all on board with Trump's war in Iran.

You know, the war he warned these same voters they better vote for him to avoid because Kamala Harris would absolutely start one.

The party of "Christian family values, personal responsibility, small government, the Constitution, and fiscal conservatism" completely sold out to...

A multiple adulterer, the antithesis of Christian values — a man who takes absolutely no personal responsibility for anything he does, has effectively torn up the Constitution as he tries to rule like a dictator, and will go down in history having added more trillions to the national debt than any other president in history.

It wasn't a matter of if a lowlife piece of crap took over the Republican Party, just when and who it would be.

Because Donald Trump isn't the cause of what made the Republican Party a cult; he's just the result of the Cult of Republicanity that existed long before he took the party over. ~ AC

 

[Hüsker Dü]

America’s most powerful socialist?

Fox News tried to get a Wall Street insider to pile on New York Mayor Mamdani's pied-à-terre tax on the second homes of multi-millionaires. Instead, they got a masterclass in exposing Trump's own rank hypocrisy.

Robert Wolf, former CEO of UBS Americas, sat down with Sandra Smith to discuss New York City's new luxury second-home tax under Mayor Zohran Mamdani. But rather than simply bash the policy, Wolf turned the conversation around and delivered a devastating point about who's actually practicing socialism in America right now.

"If Mayor Mamdani did the following," Wolf said, "if he put price controls on product like pharmaceuticals, if he bailed out farms, if he took private stakes in public companies, if he said to energy companies, you're making too much money, if he proposed credit card caps, you would all go apoplectic, as would your viewers. That's what President Trump's doing."

Then came the line that should be replayed on every network: "You could argue he is the most powerful socialist in the country today."

Think about that for a second. This isn't a progressive activist making this argument. It's a former top Wall Street bank executive, pointing out that Trump's administration has taken equity stakes in private companies, propped up farms with federal money, and inserted the government directly into private markets — the exact kind of government intervention Fox News and conservatives scream "socialism" about the moment a Democrat proposes it.

Wolf even acknowledged he wasn't fully sold on the pied-à-terre tax itself, showing this wasn't some knee-jerk defense of Mamdani. It was simply intellectual honesty: pointing out that Trump ran as a populist, and populism inherently requires government intervention in markets — the same intervention conservatives claim to despise, except when Trump is the one doing it.

Sandra Smith's response? A stammering "I'll have to think about that."

When even Wall Street veterans on Fox News are calling out Trump's socialism hypocrisy in real time, maybe it's time conservative media actually grappled with that contradiction instead of just changing the subject.

Please like and share!

 

[Chelsea dad g09]

Corporations should be once again a separate entity and not entwined in policy decisions. That and the government should NOT be taking stakes in companies like Trump is doing. You are being lied to by your sources. Branch out and look around. It’s an easy cop out to just say we can’t do that here. Don’t be lazy. Think! It’s the patriotic thing to do!

Not being lazy, its directly from
his website that he wants to replace corporate america with unions. I ask, what's the difference? He wants to replace corporate lobbyists with union lobbyists, are you ok with unions being more politically entanged in our government? They already influenced policy under Biden so again, ehats the difference? Are you ok with a ever expanding government with much larger overreach into everday life with much higher taxes? You can say its patriotic thing to do all you want, but doesn't make it so.