A technical note: they need to sort their communication out earlier, by the midterm congressional election. Apparently, their communication didn’t reach the voters, and voters were in a mood for hearing sweet lies from a criminal oligarch. They need to think of how to change that…
US society needs to somehow withstand 2 years of Trump running loose.
One can also hope that some senators or representatives are old enough to retire (or courageous enough to defect), changing the composition of the Congress before that. That might prevent or slow Trump from steamrolling new laws into force, until something has been figured out.
Yeah, Trump is stupid, but he’s also self-centered. He’s gonna care about making himself a dictator eventually, but he’s got a lot of vengeance to start with. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hope that we’ll still have elections by 2026, and that there’ll be a moment to throw a stick in the spoke.
They have their shit together. This is how they operate. Next election will be more of exactly the same.
Dems have tried
nothinggenocide and they’re all out of ideasWell, if it didn’t work this time, maybe it will later. There’s always more brown people to murder for profit!
It won’t win elections but it will keep the money rolling in and that’s all that most dem politicians really care about
Hey, even if you lose an election, that’s still a good chance to turn a profit. Those pussy hats and rainbow flags basically print money! Just tell any white person they’re being “an ally”, and they eat that shit up!
Maybe democrats should start selling NFTs, and tell people that for each one they buy, they’re adopting some migrant kid who’s sitting in one of the concentration camps Biden never shut down.
“Trump can’t actually do any of those horrible things,” -friend who doesn’t understand politics and hasn’t been following anything
Trump’s going to put a bunch of social media grifters and narcissists into his cabinet and really get things done. The GOP is simply too competent to fail.
We definitely won’t have municipal elections in 2025 or state elections in 2026. And nothing will go so wrong that people abandon the Republican Party like they did in 2018.
Elections will be cancelled, just like they were after 2002 and 2016, when Republicans had a three branch monopoly. And no liberal will ever be so popular as to threaten establishment conservative politics.
Man. I want to believe that, I really do.
But the man literally led a coup attempt. A shitty, ineffective one, but he tried nonetheless.
Last time Trump was held back by guardrails, people in the administrative government and in his cabinet kept his worst behavior in check.
This time, we’re already seeing plans to dismantle all that. Only install loyalists, remove anyone else. As in, literally demoting military higher ups who won’t kiss the ring.
I just hope they’re still too incompetent to do any irreversible damage. But fuck me, man. It’s hard to be hopeful.
From what I hear, one of the most important guardrails last time was the 5S system: smile, say sure, subsequently shred. Trump lacks focus and follow through for anything except his core interests, so some of the people close to him apparently got away with simply not carrying out some of his more boneheaded demands.
Yeah, but that was when he wanted the appearance of respectability and brought in some establishment Republicans who hadn’t drank the koolaid. The people he’s nominating now are loyalists through and through who won’t have any reservations to give in to his worse demands.
I’m not sure it was ever about respectability. I think he just didn’t have his shit together to actually be president. Campaigns usually start making transition plans long ahead of the election.
The other thing was that he didn’t have as much of a stranglehold on the Republican Party in 2016. It was still very possible to be a politician in open opposition to Donald Trump. So when it came time to pick someone, he couldn’t pick and choose proven loyalists. He just had to choose from among ranks of people who may or may not be hostile.
narcissists into his cabinet
The great thing about narcissists is they’re narcissists: they only care about themselves, they’re thin skinned, and they’re vindictive.
There is no chance in hell this admin is going to be efficient. One of the things that stands to save the USA is the inevitable infighting of Trump’s cabinet and party.
No, you don’t want to put narcissists in your cabinet if you’re a fascist dictator. Narcissists will covet your position and seek power for themselves. If you’re a fascist movement, you can afford to have one narcissist at the top, but everybody on the bottom has to be yes-men. You want the bulk of your movement to be white men who crave a powerful masculine figure to dominate them. You want submissives. That’s not where you’ll find 99% of narcissists. You’ll find 99% of narcissists on the left, saying that they’re entitled to more pay and fewer hours. You’ll find 99% of narcissists refusing to be dominated by other people and fighting for equality. You’ll find 99% of narcissists trying to make the world a better place.
Expecting the Dems to control the House, I was telling people not to worry, they can spend 2 years stonewalling anything the Senate wants to do, then regain control of the Senate in 2026, making Trump’s second term mostly a bust. But now that MAGA has the whole Congress I think all bets and gloves are off. Might as well lose the pants too.
Same thing happened in 2016. He got a few things done the first 2 years (the big tax cut was the main thing), then the Democrats got the House back in 2018 and he accomplished very little. Both impeachments happened after 2018.
That adorable friend should start voting in off years. There’s going to be local elections next year at the very least.
Act as if we will. No seriously like half of politics is the manifest will of the people. If you decide right now that Trump isn’t going to do it then it’s going to be normalized by 2026 and outrage will not occur. You need to expect the next election with all the force of reality you can muster.
I say we start a revolution. We get a bunch of pie crusts. And fill them with whipped cream. And then we collectively go around the country just pieing people in the face, and sticking a clown nose on them. Then we lift them above our heads, and run away.
Their whole culture is based on fear, and conformity. You do the normal thing. People who don’t do the normal thing aren’t with them.
Now imagine walking along the street wearing your trump hat, thinking you’re all cool. Suddenly, BAM!!! PIE!!! CLOWN NOSE!!! And now you’re 8 feet in the air after having taken a surprise cream pie.
It would go against everything that makes their culture what it is.
OHHH!!! OHHH!!! SOMEBODY CREAM PIE TRUMP!!! You KNOW you want to see trump rubbing out a cream pie from his eye.
It would be considered assault. Yet forcing poverty upon the working class is peace? Fuck this planet.
In a witness statement read out to the court on his behalf, Mr Farage said: “The cup hit me directly in my face … liquid went all over me.”
Giving details from her police interview, prosecutor Nishma Shah told the court: “She acknowledges that this was an assault and that the liquid would have gone over the jackets of him and others and caused them to get cleaning, but she states that Nigel would be able to afford this.
Previously, during a campaign walkabout in Newcastle in 2019, Mr Farage had a banana and salted caramel milkshake thrown at him. “Milkshaking” – the act of dousing public figures in a milkshake – was officially recognised by Collins Dictionary the same year.
Wow he’s caused a trend.
Dismissive of Kyle Rittenhouse taking his firearm across borders to go and murder someone for their skin colour, but splash him with a bit of milkshake and suddenly he’s super serious and it’s not funny and it’s assault and the full force of the law must be applied and politicians shouldn’t be subjected to violence etc etc. But violence in the street against immigrants because some right wing nutjob pretended that literally one criminal was an immigrant? No, that’s all fine and very understandable and people are just concerned. Jo Cox MP murdered for saying wouldn’t it be good to be nice to people for a change? “Regrettable.” Uber rich Nigel “fake man of the people” Farage with milkshake thrown at him? “OutRAGEous!”
I’m in. My recipe for pie crusts and whipped cream calls for a lot of cheap liquor and something called “flammable rags”? It’s an odd recipe but comes highly rated.
Flammable rags…hmmmm, is that an Albany expression? Sort of like Steamed Hams?
Oh, not Albany, no. It’s a Utica expression.
this pie crust is oddly hard and crystalline, weird tall shape too
surprise cream pie.
I’ve seen this website…
Only Putin is allowed to cream pie him
All completely to plan for big whipped cream, big pie crust and big pie tin. In the end we’re just pawns in their little game
You’re gonna end up shot before the term is supposed to be over, aren’t you?
You’re gonna end up shot before the term is supposed to be over, aren’t you?
haha, We all are, hahaha.
Oh my God that would be awesome
Have you seen Boiler Room?
I have actually.
Act as if. I still teach this to sales proteges.
There will certainly be an election. Potentially, the main opposition candidates will be in jail (or in a deportation camp in Alaska), but an election will happen.
A few years ago, Elizabeth Warren’s claim to indigenous-American heritage was the butt of many, many jokes by the right.
Wouldn’t it be funny if she’s declared an illegal immigrant?
I started to prepare for 2026, but the thought that “Blue Wave!” fails is so preemptively humiliating that the only logical conclusion was to roll over and let the fascists ride on through 2028. I truly wish I could help or do anything at all but I’m safer here on the couch! Besides, The Capitalists rigged it all anyway. I think if I feel bad enough for anybody who isn’t as safe and I starve, deprive, and isolate myself then I can make up for my own sense of helplessness.
Take heart, as long as there are people who are willing to stand against tyranny and fascism, there will always be hope. Every one of us, even the strongest of us, sometimes need to take some time off to recover - take all the time you need. Be with your loved ones, hold on to them tightly, and share your love as widely as you can. Spread love among your friends and co-workers as best you can. I know it sounds extremely corny, but love, and fighting for who we love, is how we will win.
We can’t vote our way out of this, but we can build a better future outside of the system and do everything we can to resist the state. That means that we might be left with no choice but to take risks and make sacrifices in the hope that the world we leave behind might start moving in the right direction.
Stay strong and hang in there. I love you, no matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you’ve done.
I don’t. I don’t know that guy, he might suck real hard.
Obviously they’ll run the election Russian-style, as Americans still like to think of themselves as free.
What’s wrong with a one party system? It’s only one less then two! You wouldn’t want to confuse the voters would you? /$
That’s our secret, Cap… they’re always confused.
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they’ll run the election Russian-style
Why didn’t they just do this in 2018?
Do you think the GOP - and trump’s camp specifically - have gotten more or less extreme/vengeful in the last four years? After the 2020 loss, have they gotten more or less friendly toward the norms of a democratic system of government?
Do you think the GOP - and trump’s camp specifically - have gotten more or less extreme/vengeful in the last four years?
I think I heard this line back in 2004 when Bush beat Kerry. Today is always The Worst and history is always not so bad in hindsight really. But so much of the modern shit show can be traced back to the right-wing gerrymanders from 2005, pushed through under DeLay’s “Permanent Republican Majority” plan alongside his K-Street project.
After the 2020 loss, have they gotten more or less friendly toward the norms of a democratic system of government?
Given how brutally they bludgeoned the Dems this year, I’d say they’ve gotten significantly better at winning democratic competitions. I don’t think they’re going to be shy about running the exact same Musk-powered scheme in 2026, fully convinced they have the numbers to win the old fashioned way.
Thank you for the reply: because we can go back even further to Hunter S Thompson with Fear and Loathing on the campaign trail 72, where he makes the same observation about every election cycle being “the big one”.
It’s just that I do think the GOP has gotten more extreme in many ways, and the right wing media sphere is a major part of that. At least in my experience over the last few decades. Looking back at what the John Birch folks said back then, it’s a lot more mainstream. Just some of the demographic groups targeted are different
As for the elections: it’s going to be interesting, since you’re absolutely correct…the right showed up to vote, and enough of the Democrats stayed at home that the GOP might take that as a sign they don’t need to ratfuck so much. I’m just not as confident that the anti democratic sentiment isn’t just rhetoric meant for political theatre. Hopefully I’m wrong, but the mainstream right seems to be trending toward authoritarian more than libertarian these days.
the GOP has gotten more extreme in many ways
They ate the Dixiecrats, who were already openly white nationalist. But it’s the same extremism, just migrated from one party to the other by way of the oil and automotive industry barons.
Looking back at what the John Birch folks said back then, it’s a lot more mainstream.
The Birchers were mainstream. They got Goldwater in '68 and Reagan in '80. The Tea Party and the MAGA movement can trace straight lines back to Bircher organizers and funders.
I’m just not as confident that the anti democratic sentiment isn’t just rhetoric meant for political theatre.
The problem is that most of the damage is already done. The VRA has been shredded. House seats are heavily gerrymandered. Systematic disenfranchisement is institutionalized. Media is captured by corporate interests loyal (or at least amenable) to the party. There’s not a whole lot left to dismantle. Republicans have heavily entrenched, functionally unassailable state level majorities across the country.
The real threats the GOP face are from within - business and paleocon wings feuding over orthodoxy like 12th century Popes.
And democracy at least keeps this kind of fighting civil. Which is its purpose. Give people a non-violent outlet for civic participation, but limit the terms of debate to what the elites desire.
Nobody currently winning wants that system to change.
Not even onion anymore…
Well, no, it’s the Beaverton.
We can only hope the dictator passes of old age before anything crazy happens.
Going to put all my chips on President JD Vance to restore democracy
“Says here President Vance just let Elon peg him in the State of the Union… And he won re-election by 108% on the new voting machines he bought for all states?”
Dems asking everyone to respect the process and continue with an orderly transition to a full fascist government. Please remember to respect our institutions, honor our brave Stasi interrogators, and Back the Blue so that our collective liquidation can occur in an efficient and budget-conscious fashion.
You think vd dunce is going to be any better for the USA than discount orange hitler?
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Maybe he’ll be too busy fucking the couches in the Oval Office to do any presidenting?
I mean, they are studded…
And PURPLE!
I would hate to be the person in charge of squeegeeing the presidential couch after vance gets his hands on it.
Thats why you have to hope for both to die
of old age
Crossing my fingers he dies before inauguration
Then we end up with couch fucker JD Vance as president.
We might simply get saddled with one of his failsons or his sex do-uhh, daughter.
There will be. A Turkey style election. Or maybe russia style depending on if democratic-led states find the spine to stand against a tyrannical federal government. We’re about to see if this “federalism” really mean anything.
Hell, there’s not going to be a 2026 election.
There will be, in the same way that they have elections in Russia and Turkey.
This has “Obama is going to send all conservatives to FEMA camps” vibes. Like you guys are just as crazy as the QNuts at this point.
And since I have to say this, yes I voted for Harris.
He’s put a fucking fox news anchor as defense secretary i think it’s safe to say we are not in sane and reasonable land.
Did Obama stand in front of supporters and TV cameras and say all the conservatives will end up in camps?
Because I’ve definitely seen Trump stand in front of supporters and TV cameras and say this is the last time we’ll need to vote.
I’m sure members of the Weimar Republic thought this too.
When a fascist tells you something, BELIEVE THEM.
I’m sure that the guy who convinced a fuck ton of people - including elected and appointed officials - that an election was “stolen” from him, and fomented an actual violent coup attempt, and who has openly mused about using the Insurrection Act to put US military boots on US soil to enact his policies, and who is now president elect, with full control of all three branches of government, would never think of mashing those two together and “postponing” the midterm elections because “even the US military is unable to keep these elections from being stolen.”
Wow, I sure was being crazy, I feel so much better now.
I get why you are saying this, and it is definitely possible that all will be fine. However, what distinguishes the all will be fine crowd from the alarmists, is that the alarmists take what Trump said in his rallies literally, whereas the calmer crowd doesn’t. That’s COMPLETELY different from QAnon, which has never relied on direct quotes from elected Democratic to make their point.
Yes I want to emphasize the right’s concerns were based on vibes with no evidence. Our concerns are based on literal evidence that happened in the past.
I think this should be a good way to win back money from failed Harris bets. I’d dare to put some money on a bet that there is going to be elections in 2028 and Trump is not going to be a candidate.
One of those win/everythingsfucked kind of bets.
Well. He’s super old and eats like shit. There is a good chance he won’t be the nominee because he dies in office.
Don’t bet JD Vance won’r be on the ticket though
I was watching a video the other day of Rachel Maddow talking about how now that Trump is elected, we will never have a vote again. We will be a Russian puppet state and that all immigrants regardless of status will be deported. I was thinking that’s a possibility and a scary potential future. Then I realized the video was from 2016… and Trump went on to be so ineffective that more immigrants came in than Obama. The only lasting legacy he will have is the Supreme Court, which sucks, but he is too ineffective to do anything other than rant on truth social. He is good at saying things, not doing things.
Things are very different this time around. They have a lot more power and are a lot more prepared. Trump isn’t capable, the gang around him definitely is.
The first time he was trying, poorly, to have talking points.
This time he would just straight up stand there and sway for 30 minutes and say the most stupid shit he could think of and still got elected.
The more Ive thought about it, it was just warming the liberals up to accepting that it’s over.
So now the next steps are to consolidate power, declare himself president for life, and then invade Mexico or some shit.
Are you familiar with project 2025?
In his first term, he had a center-right Court that was willing to rule against him. Congress was also not solely controlled by Republicans, and there was a notable never-Trump coalition within their ranks.
Now, the Court is balanced more heavily to the right, and they’ve already been willing to accept ridiculous proposals that help Trump. And he’ll be going into this next term with a Republican-controlled Senate and House. And most of the never-Trumpers have either left or been voted out.
So I do understand that it’s possible that our fears are overblown, but there are good reasons to believe that he’ll do more lasting damage in his second term.
To be clear, the Republicans being organized means the Republicans will be able to do more lasting damage. Trump is just the face, and while he is a terrible person who causes damage through chaos, the malicious Republicans as a whole are responsible for whatever damage happens during his turn.
That is important to keep in mind, because even if they cart him off to jail on day 2 of his term they will continue to do all the damage they can.
It’s also worth remembering the republicans having a different face next time doesn’t mean they’ll be different next time.
People act like things are only bad because of Trump and that if it was someone else it would be less bad. There’s no actual reason to assume that.
The world was caught by surprise in 2016. A lot of evildoers didn’t even realize what was possible.
They have since realized, planned, and prepared.
And you think you’re the only one so wise as to have noticed all that? Trump’s people have been working their ass off for this day. They’ve seen the weaknesses in Trump and the system and they’re already deploying their plans. If you think this administration will be Trump 2.0, you got another thing coming.
I imagine Germans were laughing at Hitler after the Beer Hall Putsch.
They weren’t laughing, they were naively relieved and thought they dodged a bullet and threw him in jail.
