USA Politics

Today I entered the U.S for the first time in 8 years. My mom was stressing out, because my ex asked me to bring her some things, among them a bottle of tequila, and my mom was EXTREMELY concerned about declaring it and paying the taxes on it. The funny thing was that I got stopped and checked at the MEXICAN airport LOL. We flew nationally to the border and then my Godmother did us the favor of dropping us at the border, we crossed by foot and she picked us up on the other side. The reason we did that was, because she has an Express Pass with which you can't cross any luggage.

Anyway, at the Mexican airport I put my bags through the x-ray machine and I get taken aside, they give me the magic wand treatment and manually check my ankles, thighs and hips. Then they make me open my backpack to ask me what's in the bag. I say, "horchata." "Horchata?" "Horchata," "Ok, carry on." I told my Godmother that I'd have to be the dumbest drug trafficker on the planet if I simply put cocaine in my backpack. But oh well.

At the U.S border there were not one but two entrances. In the first they merely saw that we had U.S passports and waved us through. Then at the real crossing where they take your picture and play 20 questions with you, they asked, where did you go, where are you going and did you bring anything from Mexico. I said, "Yes, tequila." Dude goes, "Ok," and THAT'S. IT. Whem my mom went through She said the border agent said that normally we'd have to pay tax, but, get this, there wasn't anyone at the moment to take the payment so it was fine to just go on in. LOL. Then we put all our baggage through a giant X-Ray maching and the guy working it said NOTHING about my meds, horchata or tequila bottle. Fucking hilarious. Needless to say we were VERY lucky. My mom's college friend we're staying with told us a couple of friends of hers, U.S citizens both, were stopped and asked to surrender their cellphones so the agents could go through them to make sure they weren't saying anything negative about Trump.

Here is a picture I took of the border wall, because I had never seen it up close. Notice the space between the wall and the barbed wire fence, reminded me of the no man's land/deadzone of the Berlin Wall:
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Onhell said:
Needless to say we were VERY lucky. My mom's college friend we're staying with told us a couple of friends of hers, U.S citizens both, were stopped and asked to surrender their cellphones so the agents could go through them to make sure they weren't saying anything negative about Trump.
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Happy to live in the land of the free!
 
Right now, here in Lithuania—and I’d even say across Eastern Europe—we’re just a little bit disappointed in US foreign politics. Just by a mere inch.
 
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Sheriff_of_Huddersfield said:
I think there’s a general unease (both internationally and domestically) with how US politics is playing out currently.

I’m not sure yet if we’re truly hitting a fundamental political shift or if reality television has simply become reality politics for the current term.

In many ways, I don’t think either established political party has gone in a “smarter” or more appealing direction. Absent viable 3rd party choices, we’ve been stuck with the two major parties and whatever direction they take.

I’m hoping a stronger moderate/centrist movement can take hold. There are already some politicians emerging with more temperate mentalities but it’s a tough intra-party pivot on message for the Dems and hesitancy to rock the boat for dissenting Republicans after so much polarization with each party letting its fringes lead.
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I'm obviously not in the U.S., so maybe I'm wrong — but I get the impression that Democrats are doubling down on the more controversial parts of their politics. Which, in my opinion, is the wrong move if they actually want to win the election.

On the other hand, Trump keeps digging a hole for himself and for the Republican Party — and that, honestly, is good news for the Democrats.
 
Azas said:
Right now, here in Lithuania—and I’d even say across Eastern Europe—we’re just a little bit disappointed in US foreign politics. Just by a mere inch.
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Eastern European inch, the largest inch in the world.
Soviet microchip, the largest microchip in the world, as I'm sure you remember
 
Magnus said:
Eastern European inch, the largest inch in the world.
Soviet microchip, the largest microchip in the world, as I'm sure you remember
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The inch to measure them all… because we live next to that rabid Bear, and we know—it can’t be tamed. It gets put down.
 
Azas said:
Trump’s in his we need Greenland manic episode again—green as in money, then land. Obviously.
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He has to deflect from him getting stared down by China and subsequently blinking. The optics isn't of him being the strongman, to put it mildly.
 
Sheriff_of_Huddersfield said:
I gather, from recent comments, this forum likely includes people who don’t care that much about US politics beyond its foreign policy, but glad to share opinions or answer questions about what things look like here domestically.
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No, I'm very interested and follow American media and independent media closely. It has partly to do with fascination stemming both from Trumpism itself, but equally so from the U.S. long having been the dominant cultural force in the west, but also due to the fact that the U.S. tends to export their domestic political divisions to Europe. What happens in the U.S. often have a ripple-effect that shape domestic policies, movements and the health of democracy in other countries.
 
And he fell asleep, lol

The bigger headline is he had a one on one with Zelenskyy. From the looks of it it was WAY less contentions than the one in front of the cameras AND from the little I've read it looks like Trump is finally putting two and two together that Putin isn't interested in peace.
 
Onhell said:
Trump is finally putting two and two together that Putin isn't interested in peace.
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This is a swallow way to put it. Nobody is interested in unconditional peace. Not Zelensky administration, not eastern NATO (Brussels /UK), not US, not Russia. Or, everybody is interested in peace but in their own terms.
First of all US, as clearly shown in this NYT article, is a major party in the war, not a mediator. Second, an "unconditional ceasefire" was never a thing in a conflict and in this case it has nothing to do with peace and everything to do with regrouping and live to fight another day.
Check carefully what Pete Hegseth said back in February. "Division of labor" has nothing to do with peace either. US has understood that their resources are not endless, so they wish to focus on China and Europe allies on Russia. Thus the declarations of Europe's rearmament following Hegseth's visit.

Third, not related to what I quoted, but still, I fail to see why a 15 minutes talk where we cannot hear what was said was such a breakthrough. It's comical to spin it like this, especially when Macron was initially planned to attend (3 chairs) and that was bluntly rejected by Trump (2 chairs).
 
I couldn't find the full text but it normally should also include ports, natural gas and other resources, under a 50-50 joint fund in perpetuity. An impossible deal to sign for Ukraine, thus a significant Trump victory, subject to see the full text of April 30.
 
Sheriff_of_Huddersfield said:
Democratic party, unsurprisingly, is split on how to deal with Trump. The progressive arm wants to double down but its moderate wing is becoming more active.

KTSM News

My .02 is: a moderate party (whether rebranding of a current party or forming a new political party) in the U.S. would do so well.

I can’t speak for my whole country, obviously, but I think most Americans are tired of the extremes in both major parties taking over the agenda and asking everyone to choose sides on whose brand of crazy they want.

Day to day, we’re not the nation of ideological whackos the rest of the world sees in the news. General concerns are the economy, public safety, standards of living, and the environment (to an extent), with growing concern over our maintaining democratic institutions.

Kamala Harris speaks out.

Funny, she mostly hid away during the 4 years she was VP, was never that popular even among Democrats, was a weak presidential candidate, and now has something to say.
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I don't see how the progressives are all that ideologically extreme. Always wanting to lower our taxes and give us affordable healthcare. Those bastards.
 
The Garlon said:
I don't see how the progressives are all that ideologically extreme. Always wanting to lower our taxes and give us affordable healthcare. Those bastards.
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There was only one party that was even hyper-focusing about identity politics during the campaign - and it wasn't the Democrats. The most identity-related stance that was part of the Democrats' platform was that women as individuals should be the authority of their bodies and if that's ideologically extreme, that should tell you where the overton window's at in the US.

EDIT: Changed a word.
 
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The only gender-related thing I'd heard at all the entire campaign was the nonsensical and patently false claim from the right of "Children are going to school one day as one gender and coming back home with a complete sex change."
 
Sheriff_of_Huddersfield said:
I’m talking about hyper-focus on identity politics and special interests.

Extreme fringes in both major parties have made their party platform’s leading messages about identity rather than policy.
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I'm sorry, but this isn't supported by any data and is actively the opposite of what's happening in reality.

Look at Harris's campaign. It actively avoided identity politics. She ran an objectively more right wing campaign than Biden did in 2020 to court moderate conservatives and lost the election. The only ones going full-in on identity politics and constantly fear-mongering about trans people (for example) are Trump and the GOP.

This talking point about "both extremes" going too far is a right wing talking point, nothing more.
 
Sheriff_of_Huddersfield said:
Democratic party, unsurprisingly, is split on how to deal with Trump. The progressive arm wants to double down on identity politics but its moderate wing is becoming more active.
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Please. This. They already lost to Trump twice, so while I think Trump will hand Dems the victory in the next election, unless the moderates start to take over, the subsequent election they're going to lose to someone possibly even worse.

(Also, they could start to be visible again, so far it seems to me Dems have conspicuously disappeared and that they didn't take the loss very well)
 
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