USA Politics

[Trevoire]

I'm not going to the U.S for either business or pleasure any time soon.

Me and the wife used to spend a significant portion of our income visiting Florida every year. We last went April '25 and even then made sure to have our passports and ESTAs on us at all times, we seriously considered cancelling altogether. Things have become exponentially worse since then.

I will not support a country that is descending into facism. We will spend our money elsewhere until the US regains some semblance of sanity. Though I fear this change is one that the country will struggle to pull back from.

 

[Spaldy]

Maiden should cancel the US leg of the tour. They won't but they should.

In fact, all bands should cancel their US tours.

 

[Black Abyss Babe]

Maiden should cancel the US leg of the tour. They won't but they should.

In fact, all bands should cancel their US tours.

 

[The Garlon]

Maiden should cancel the US leg of the tour. They won't but they should.

In fact, all bands should cancel their US tours.

That would be a bummer but I would understand. MAGA may be a minority but the rest of us haven't done enough to stop them

 

[Jer]

Oh, FFS — yeah, let’s punish every American because enough nutters in 7 states tipped the balance toward Trump in the election. Outside my control, folks, and more calls to my already Democratic representatives in Congress won’t make a difference.

Cancel the U.S. leg of the Maiden tour? Should we have had Metallica boycott the U.K. after Brexit? Get off your goddamned high horses.

 

[Jer]

A well-considered essay on the state of the left in the U.S.: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/where-does-a-liberal-go-from-here

 

[Yax]

Cancel the U.S. leg of the Maiden tour? Should we have had Metallica boycott the U.K. after Brexit? Get off your goddamned high horses.

I get that is offensive to you, but your comparison is just nuts. The U.K. left the EU. Okay. Were they coercing, threatening and manipulating the rest of the world? Did they officially declare the EU their enemy which they would undermine? Did they attempt to annex, say, Iceland? You know what Trump is doing to you guys, and what he is doing to us. I try to avoid U.S. goods when I can, because everytime I buy something american, I feel bad because I get reminded that this administration and 30% of the population want to see me in the dirt and under Trump's and Putin's boots. They want to influence and undermine my domestic political system and dismantle the union which made us wealthy and better off. They have forever tarnished my opinion of the U.S. and the goodwill I held.

Which reminds me, time to get off Firefox and install a European browser instead.

 

[Vaenyr]

Maiden should cancel the US leg of the tour. They won't but they should.

In fact, all bands should cancel their US tours.

Many smaller bands are. Not necessarily as a political statement, but because they simply can't afford touring the US anymore. Trump's tariffs aren't helping either.

I get that is offensive to you, but your comparison is just nuts. The U.K. left the EU. Okay. Were they coercing, threatening and manipulating the rest of the world? Did they officially declare the EU their enemy which they would undermine? Did they attempt to annex, say, Iceland? You know what Trump is doing to you guys, and what he is doing to us. I try to avoid U.S. goods when I can, because everytime I buy something american, I feel bad because I get reminded that this administration and 30% of the population want to see me in the dirt and under Trump's and Putin's boots. They want to influence and undermine my domestic political system and dismantle the union which made us wealthy and better off. They have forever tarnished my opinion of the U.S. and the goodwill I held.

Which reminds me, time to get off Firefox and install a European browser instead.

Well said. The US, the super power with the mighties military in the world, is burning bridges with all allies and activel turning hostile against us. Whether we like it or not, America is becoming an enemy of the West. We are justified in sitting on the highest of horses when everything we warned Americans is coming true and not only are US citizens being arrested, tortured and outright killed, foreign sovereign nations are being threatened by Mango Mussolini.

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Also, boo-fucking-hoo at those trying to solely blame the voters of the swing states. This mess is on the entire nation. Maybe start holding conservatives accountable instead of "reaching across the aisle"? Maybe stop focusing all hostilities exclusively on leftists instead of being endlessly charitable to fucking neo nazis? People on the left were warning about everything that's happening, but moving the Dems further right was more important I guess.

What needs to be done is for the population to finally show some balls and do something. So many Americans over the years have projected an image of strength and rugged individualism. So many platitudes about how important the 2nd Amendment is. Instead we have millions of Americans cheering as the country falls to fascism. They celebrate when people on the left are murdered by the Gestapo. What needs to happen is a general strike; money is the only thing anyone cares about. Strike them where it hurts. But barely anyone in that nation is interested in doing something like that. Look at Serbia, for example, to see how other nations seize the moment to rise up.

 

[srfc]

Maiden should cancel the US leg of the tour. They won't but they should.

In fact, all bands should cancel their US tours.

They've played in terrible regimes their entire existence, China recently, middle east, Putin's Russia, Israel, they've even released a video from Behind the Iron Curtain.

 

[Jer]

Also, boo-fucking-hoo at those trying to solely blame the voters of the swing states. This mess is on the entire nation.

The entire nation (and the world) are indeed covered in the same mess, but that doesn’t change the fact that the swing state voters fully determined the outcome of that election. And if my own state’s representatives and governor are all Democrats already, there is literally nothing else that I can do to positively affect electoral outcomes here, which is the only thing that can make a concrete difference in the end.

And my state is currently directly paying the price for those swing state voters’ folly, so your armchair preaching is even more distasteful than usual.

Maybe start holding conservatives accountable instead of "reaching across the aisle"?

How? With no electoral power there are only words left. Without cooperation from at least a tiny handful of Republicans, nothing with any teeth can be done, except theoretically through the courts, where attempts are already being made.

Good luck finding a veto-proof congressional coalition willing to pass legislation to try to rein in Trump on Greenland. It shouldn’t be hard, but with today’s Republican Party it would be impossible.

Maybe stop focusing all hostilities exclusively on leftists instead of being endlessly charitable to fucking neo nazis?

This is an invention of your own mind. No one is trashing the left to the exclusion of calling out the right — both things need to happen simultaneously so the left can look like a viable alternative to people considering dumping their local Republicans. No one will switch their vote as long as they still think the alternative is even crazier.

People on the left were warning about everything that's happening, but moving the Dems further right was more important I guess.

People on the left cried wolf (or racist) too many times on too many things for a significant segment of disengaged centrists to take their warnings more seriously than the pocketbook issues that were most immediately important to them. That needs to be fixed.

The Democrats need to look like a sane alternative to right-leaning centrists in swing states. Nothing you’ve proposed would accomplish that.

 

[Vaenyr]

How? With no electoral power there are only words left. Without cooperation from at least a tiny handful of Republicans, nothing with any teeth can be done, except theoretically through the courts, where attempts are already being made.

Good luck finding a veto-proof congressional coalition willing to pass legislation to try to rein in Trump on Greenland. It shouldn’t be hard, but with today’s Republican Party it would be impossible.

I'm talking about how you deal with Trump supporters and voters, not about Congress.

This is an invention of your own mind. No one is trashing the left to the exclusion of calling out the right — both things need to happen simultaneously so the left can look like a viable alternative to people considering dumping their local Republicans. No one will switch their vote as long as they still think the alternative is even crazier.

I'm not talking generally. I'm specifically talking about how you behave in this thread. Without fail you treat Trump supporters with kiddie gloves or even outright validate their delusions, as long as you get to dunk on leftists (and me, because of your grudge) at the same time. The left isn't anywhere close as "crazy" as the right. The last decade has shown that a huge chunk of the country is comprised of massive hypocrites. Trump get's to violate the Constitution, while Obama was attacked for wearing a tan suit.
The fact that you still try to claim the left is anywhere even close to the fascists shows quite clearly where you stand. Scratch a liberal and all that.

People on the left cried wolf (or racist) too many times on too many things for a significant segment of disengaged centrists to take their warnings more seriously than the pocketbook issues that were most immediately important to them. That needs to be fixed.

Cute attempt to avoid saying the truth: The left was 100% right and predicted exactly what happened. US citizens are being abducted by the Gestapo for not being white enough, or are shot and killed, and yet here you are, still unwilling to admit the ones you find so annoying were right all along, and you'd rather deflect.

No one was falsely accused. A convicted felon (who's also a pedophile, let's not forget that tiny detail) is running the country with the help of literal fascists (Stephen Miller says hello). You have people from the administration use literal Nazi slogans (as in OG, 1940s Germany Nazis). You can go back in this thread and see when people warned of all these things. This delusion that people became fascists because they were called racist one too many times is just that: a delusion.

The left also kept repeating (including in this very thread) that Trump would be disastrous for the economy and explained in detail how Harris would be the better choice for people who cared about the economy. Yet facts didn't matter for a single second. It was all just vibes.

 

[Jer]

I'm not talking generally. I'm specifically talking about how you behave in this thread. Without fail you treat Trump supporters with kiddie gloves or even outright validate their delusions, as long as you get to dunk on leftists (and me, because of your grudge) at the same time.

Complete horseshit. I don’t often go off on the right on my own because you and a half dozen others already have that covered, and I thumbs up those types of posts that I agree with, and occasionally post something of my own if I have something new to add. I’ve repeatedly stated how awful Trump is in general, and how the vast majority of his policies are shit. At this point it’s just restating the obvious.

I do feel motivated to respond when there’s room for nuance that’s being completely ignored, or when there’s blatant hypocrisy on display from the left, because those things are less likely to be noted here. But your selective memory only files those posts away and not the others. Or maybe you still have me on ignore and just haven’t un-ignored the counter-examples. Either way, the problem’s on your end, not mine.

The left isn't anywhere close as "crazy" as the right.

Of course not, but they must appear that way to right-leaning centrists if those people were willing to hold their noses and still vote for Trump in 2024. That’s just the cold, hard reality, and the left desperately needs to fix their branding problem in the U.S.

The fact that you still try to claim the left is anywhere even close to the fascists shows quite clearly where you stand. Scratch a liberal and all that.

Except for the actual fact that I haven’t done this at all. This is an invention of your own mind. I have regularly challenged you to point to clear examples of this, but you can’t, because it never happened.

Cute attempt to avoid saying the truth: The left was 100% right and predicted exactly what happened. US citizens are being abducted by the Gestapo for not being white enough, or are shot and killed, and yet here you are, still unwilling to admit the ones you find so annoying were right all along, and you'd rather deflect.

What the fuck are you talking about? Where did I ever claim any of this shit or fail to “admit” anything? You’re just completely inventing stuff out of whole cloth here.

 

[Vaenyr]

Complete horseshit. I don’t often go off on the right on my own because you and a half dozen others already have that covered, and I thumbs up those types of posts that I agree with, and occasionally post something of my own if I have something new to add. I’ve repeatedly stated how awful Trump is in general, and how the vast majority of his policies are shit. At this point it’s just restating the obvious.

It's not horseshit. Your comment history is public and the patterns are very clear. There are plenty of things you could say over the last months, yet the majority of your posts in this thread are responses directly to posts of mine. Curiously you don't do that to, say, Detective.

I do feel motivated to respond when there’s room for nuance that’s being completely ignored, or when there’s blatant hypocrisy on display from the left, because those things are less likely to be noted here. But your selective memory only files those posts away and not the others. Or maybe you still have me on ignore and just haven’t un-ignored the counter-examples. Either way, the problem’s on your end, not mine.

I do have you on ignore, but the forum software doesn't erase your posts. Whenever someone from the ignore list posts there will be a button to show said posts. That doesn't change what I said though, you mostly engage in this thread to call me out. At least be honest about it, don't make me go back through the thread and quote all the examples. I have better ways to spend my Saturday.

Of course not, but they must appear that way to right-leaning centrists if those people were willing to hold their noses and still vote for Trump in 2024. That’s just the cold, hard reality, and the left desperately needs to fix their branding problem in the U.S.

Sure, they have a branding problem. But the US also has a Nazi problem. There's a million things wrong with your country right now and if "wokeness" and the "mean left" are even close to your top 10, you're disconnected entirely from reality.

Except for the actual fact that I haven’t done this at all. This is an invention of your own mind. I have regularly challenged you to point to clear examples of this, but you can’t, because it never happened.

Look at the quoted pieces from my previous response to you. That's where it happened. You couldn't just say that the right has gone completely off the rails, that the country is descending into fascism just as the leftists warned, and that the left is objectively better than the fascists in essentially all metrics. You had to muddy the waters and push the narrative that the left is seen as crazy (crazier?) than the fascists. The only ones who hold that opinion are the fascists themselves because it benefits them. There is simply no comparison, and "centrists" who'd rather attack the left than literal fascists cannot claim innocence. You are just as much, if not more smug and arrogant, than those you accuse of said behavior. It's the inherent hypocrisy of projecting your own behavior and feelings onto the left, while the right is destroying your country.

The fact that you are taking the time to write multiple paragraphs to argue with me, but never do the same with Trumpers in this thread speaks volumes, buddy.

What the fuck are you talking about? Where did I ever claim any of this shit or fail to “admit” anything? You’re just completely inventing stuff out of whole cloth here.

I'm calling you out for not being able to admit that you were wrong. You just had to bring up the "boy who cried racist", despite not being completely irrelevant to the discussion, it was another thing that the left got 100% right. Otherwise you would've responded to the parts about Stephen Miller and the Nazi slogans.

Can you for once admit it and say that the left was absolutely justified and correct in its warnings about Trump, his admin and Project 2025, without backhanded comments? Without at the same time painting the left as being (perceived as being) crazy? Without ignoring that the fascists are much worse and literally killing US citizens? If you have a shred of integrity this should be easy for you.

 

[Black Abyss Babe]

It's by no means certain that Maiden will be allowed into the US at this rate (UK Subs, anyone?) Or they'd let them in but not the Krew, or let them in but then deport Bruce over an onstage rant at the first show or something (and then Trump would be onto Untruth Antisocial like a proverbial rat up a proverbial drainpipe, going "Iron Maiden, a MOST OVERRATED band with NO TALENT ...")

A vast array of previously unthinkable possibilities have ceased to be unthinkable ...