USA Politics

Aggelos said:
How in the seven bloody hells can you vote for both? Are Americans so confused? Their policies couldn't be further apart!
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Just as confusing as all the immigrants who voted for Trump despite him promising to deport them all. There are a lot of smooth brains out there with the right to vote.

Much like DJ James up there (who appears to have lost it).
 
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Lol, the official U.S. Embassy Prague FB profile has just released a statement that "every visa application decision is a decision about the security of the country", so everyone applying for visa type F, M or J (student exchange and academic visa, IIRC) must have their social media accounts set to "public/visible", so that the check and research on them can be more easily done.

This is the funniest shit I've seen recently, really.
 
This is the second time we've seen:
Grok posts stuff that suggests a liberal leaning.
X users complain to Elon.
Elon promises to fix Grok.
About a week later Grok starts spouting racist nonsense all over. The first time it was the "white genocide of Afrikaaners".
 
I'm pretty sure Elon's tweaked with Grok on several occasions and it always ends up reverting back to calling him out and saying he's wrong. Funny enough, the day after Grok started goose-stepping into infamy, the CEO for Twitter announced she was leaving.
 
Assuming the USA has free and fair elections, it is almost a sure thing that the House swings to the Dems. There's a huge possibility of the inverse of 2010 happening. Young, progressive primaries removing aged incumbents and pushing the Dems more into what the actual left wants. Will that leave the centre with nowhere to go and actually open up a lane for a third party? Doubtful.
 
There's Musk with his "America Party" shenanigans, but I don't see that actually accomplishing anything.

Long term I believe that having a multi-party system would be better for the US. Having to work on coalitions and compromises has the potential to rein in the extremes a bit. With the way the voting population is divided currently it seems like an impossible goal right now. It would take decades and as we've seen with Trump, decades of progress can be wiped out in an instant by those who don't care about laws or the constitution.
 
Lost in a lost world said:
The fissures in the MAGA contingent are forming more visibly and, as with the falling out with Musk, I figured it was only a matter of time before the conspiracy theorist faction turned against Trump.

www.usatoday.com

Trump rips 'so-called' friends' attacks on Bondi, tells MAGA to move on from Epstein

MAGA allies have been assailing the attorney general since the DOJ said a review "revealed no incriminating 'client list'" tied to Jeffrey Epstein.
www.usatoday.com

On another note: More Americans are becoming pro-immigration again.

Maybe militarized ICE raids changed a few minds on the subject.

Edit: the PBS article says more Americans agree immigration is a good thing but they also simply don’t want to decrease immigration levels more than they have already decreased.

www.pbs.org

Poll shows how U.S. views of immigration have changed since Trump took office

Since taking office, Trump has called on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to do all in its power to deliver “the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”
www.pbs.org www.pbs.org

Maybe things will get better and we’ll get a Dem congressional majority (either chamber) in the mid terms to finally have some semblance of checks and balances back.
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The problem is that nothing is new here. Americans generally seem to be pretty conservative on immigration and also consistently disapprove of Trump's extreme approach to immigration (we saw similar stories when it came out that Trump 1.0 was putting kids in cages). Despite this, if there was an election today and the central issue was immigration, Trump would still win every time imo. Immigration is one of the key issues that has kept him viable over the years.

I've said it before but Trump has never had to preside over a bad economy. If the economy keeps getting worse and these tariffs trigger a recession, that seems to be the thing that is most likely to actually turn people against Trump. But as of now, I don't buy any stories that Trump has lost any support since November.

LooseCannon said:
Assuming the USA has free and fair elections, it is almost a sure thing that the House swings to the Dems. There's a huge possibility of the inverse of 2010 happening. Young, progressive primaries removing aged incumbents and pushing the Dems more into what the actual left wants. Will that leave the centre with nowhere to go and actually open up a lane for a third party? Doubtful.
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I think this is the calculation behind passing the bill last week. I don't think it's so much that Republicans think they can steal the next election, but if losing control of congress is a sure bet in 2026, why not pass the most ambitious policy agenda possible now? It's going to be really hard for a Democratic trifecta to undo a lot of this legislation.

Of course this assumes that the lefty version of the tea party movement isn't ready to go scorched earth when they have control over the government. We'll see, America underestimated the tea party movement back then as well.
 
ICE can't be deterred by being shot at. As was made clear in LA, there are always bigger guns to bring in. They can only be deterred by (mostly) non-violent action blocking them from enforcing their actions.
 
I find this whole Epstein thing super fascinating on so many levels that I'm not even sure where to start.

Spaldy said:
Just imagine how staggeringly dumb you'd have to be to not realise that Trump has been a liar all this time. Anyone with a braincell could get the jist of the guy in 30 seconds.
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imo this is just something that the anti-Trump people just misunderstand about his support. There are definitely some ultradumb maga people who like to say Trump fooled them as if he had previously presented as an honest person (we had one person on here who was trying to act surprised about his actions not that long ago). But I strongly feel that these people are a minority within his support. People know that he is a liar and they vote for him anyway. The fact that this (along with other unsavory qualities) is baked in is one of the things that keeps his floor for support so high. Nothing could come out that would take away a significant amount of support from him because everybody has already decided to accept these things when voting for him in the first place.

How this relates to Epstein is where things get interesting to me. I'll say right off the bat that I am not convinced that this is going to blow up any more than it has, especially now that it seems like some information is going to come out, I think it will be enough to placate the right wing media and I also just think it follows a familiar pattern of Trump eventually wriggling out of a scandal when something else distracts everyone.

With that being said, this has already blown up beyond what I would have initially guessed. I think it has less to do with Trump lying and more to do with Trump breaking a promise, which is something he has gotten backlash for in the past. By covering this up and also being as brazen about it as he has, he is showing himself to be a part of the deep state that he has sworn to destroy. Trump generally seems to try and do what he campaigned on, and when he fails he has a scapegoat to blame. On this Epstein issue, the only person who is stopping the files from coming out is Trump, there is nobody to scapegoat this time.

The other interesting component is it feels like we are very slowly starting to see the tentacles of lame duckness approach Trump. The Republicans have been in a weird stasis with Trump continuing to hint at a third term (and the media shamefully treating this like a completely normal thing to say), but at some point reality is going to set in that there will be a another Republican nominee in 2028 AND Trump's endorsement continues to be shaky at best (i.e. it's not going to be enough to save congress in the next midterm). I think a lot of the right wing backlash against Trump right now is going to be fuel for the next MAGA/QAnon based candidate to campaign. It's also just going to be necessary for candidates in 2026 and 2028 to distance themselves from Trump if they want to keep their seats. Trump's grip on the party right now is still very very strong, but I will be curious to see what happens when he's no longer going to be on the ballot but other people connected to him are.
 
“Any system that could guarantee each person housing, whether you call it the abolition of private property or a statewide housing guarantee, is preferable...”
If this quote is accurate—even if it's framed within a housing context—I wouldn't vote for Zohran Mamdani.
 
Azas said:
“Any system that could guarantee each person housing, whether you call it the abolition of private property or a statewide housing guarantee, is preferable...”
If this quote is accurate—even if it's framed within a housing context—I wouldn't vote for Zohran Mamdani.
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How would you propose to solve the housing crisis?
 
I'm not a politician, and Zohran Mamdani’s politics walk a bit too close to the edge for my taste. That said, obviously, it’s up to New Yorkers to decide what’s best for themselves.
 
Mamdani was directly responding to someone calling him a Communist about his policy of 100% housing. The clip is out of context and does not accurately represent his views, which is a government mandate to house every unhoused person. You can call that socialist, but it is not Marxism.

Global trials of housing the homeless shows it is the best way to get them into jobs so they can rent and re-enter the system on their own, or get them the medical help they need to become stable. And that is what reduces costs on the social safety net.
 
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