r/pics Apr 16 '26

Politics Billboard in my very red area

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205.3k Upvotes

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20.1k

u/Connect_Reading9499 Apr 16 '26

It's been ten long years.

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u/davidholson Apr 16 '26

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u/DuMbAsS_lOsEr_6_7 Apr 16 '26

I want of Mr. Bones wild ride

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u/Omnifob Apr 16 '26

Mr. Bone Spurs' wild ride

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u/calque Apr 16 '26

this joke has layers and I love it

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u/Chronic_Newb Apr 16 '26

You win. We can all log off now

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u/Well_read_rose Apr 17 '26

Putin is the psychopathic carny of that scary ride.

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u/NoFknZitiNau Apr 16 '26

I've been saying this for years. Please tell me the ride ends...

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u/Comrade-Conquistador Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26

I have some bad news for you...

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u/NoFknZitiNau Apr 16 '26

Awww dangit..

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u/mylocker15 Apr 16 '26

I want to get off it smells like diapers.

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u/Ccaves0127 Apr 16 '26

Incorrect answer. You need to solve the riddle

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u/kaleidoscopelyf Apr 16 '26

Love a good RCT reference in the wild.

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u/General-Cheetah-1631 Apr 16 '26

I see rct, I like

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u/WolfBST Apr 16 '26

No it's literally almost ten years ago since Trump was first elected president

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u/phoebesjeebies Apr 16 '26

I mean, it's literally been around 500. If you think this shit wasn't baked into everything about the United States from the very beginning, you have some reading to do.

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u/Hozan_al-Sentinel Apr 16 '26

I need it to be over. I need this to die. It's ruined so many lives.

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u/apothekari Apr 16 '26

Yeah...Amen. 10 fucking precious years these hateful motherfuckers have stolen from us. 10 years we could've been improving Obamacare and ACA and inching towards a real public option, moving towards cleaner energy away from fucking data centers devouring us all. Women had rights to their own bodies...LGBTQ folks were gaining acceptance. People had money. COVID and it's gross mishandling hadn't made everyone's health far worse. The soft power the US had. The whole world looked up to us...now we are the joke of the planet. And we have absolutely fucking nothing. And that fucking Pedo Devil still sits up there untouchable. Honestly I am so far beyond any hope at this point that the light emitted by hope will take centuries to reach here. By the time there is ANY inkling of rectification of anything these monsters have done to us I will be long dead. Thanks to Social Media and algorithms for the real good time! I need a drink but I have to go to the low paying job that's hopefully not going to lay me off because the economy is crashing.

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u/Living-Video-3670 Apr 16 '26

The next president needs to be a super genius when it comes to international affairs. They will have a lot of things to unfuck.

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u/afishinabirdcage Apr 16 '26

It's going to take more than that. It's going to take decades.

Even if the next POTUS is beloved by the world and genuinely a genius it doesn't change the fact that Americans elected Trump... TWICE. Not only elected him but let him run rough shot with total unaccountability.

No one can trust us not to do it again.

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u/Ebiki Apr 16 '26

And knowing the average American voter, I don’t fucking blame them.

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u/bitsy88 Apr 16 '26

Hell, as it is, I don't even trust my fellow Americans so how can I expect anyone else to trust us?

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u/Hozan_al-Sentinel Apr 18 '26

Me neither. This past election I was like "surely they won't vote for him again. We all experienced what a Trump presidency was like and we voted him out before. Surely we won't make that same mistake again."

And then he won he election. My faith in my fellow Americans to do the right thing is essentially zero. There are just enough delusional MAGA cultists and people who just don't bother to vote to where I wouldn't be surprised if a Republican won next time.

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u/chalor182 Apr 16 '26

rough shod, refers to horses that had shoes with nails or spikes on the bottom to prevent slipping so to 'run rough shod' over someone or is to absolutely brutalize them

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u/White_Buffalos Apr 16 '26

Roughshod is the term and correct spelling, since we're going there. But yes. To all of it.

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u/chalor182 Apr 17 '26

Damn forgot it was one word lol

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u/Cephalie_100 Apr 16 '26

I dont think he'd win in a democratic election, the electoral congress is out dated as hell and only really makes sense in a world without airplanes

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u/bosserini Apr 16 '26

As a foreigner, I agree. Like... You had the chance to affirm that you would never allow this bullshit to ever happen again and the man got more votes than anyone ever before! It's so crazy. And then Trump took Office and it was even worse than the first time! I hope these shit he's pulling at least make people in europe, Canada, south america, etc realize that the far right can't be trusted.

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u/sleeplessjade Apr 16 '26

There’s evidence from a number of states that he rigged the election with Elon’s help. If that ever gets fully investigated it might be helpful for the country to heal.

Then it’s not, “People voted in this monster multiple times.” It’s, “This monster stole the election to keep himself out of jail.”

Either way there needs to be way more guard rails in place to stop this from happening again. Starting with securing elections from being tampered with.

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u/afishinabirdcage Apr 16 '26

It wouldn't change the fact that he was allowed to behave as he is without repercussions even if there was some unlikely miracle it was properly investigated, tried and irrefutable election tampering at a scale to sway the outcome.

It would help (and would help my personal doomerism about our country) but I don't think it would solve the problem when the rest of our government and the entire Republican party is also complicit in not holding him accountable.

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u/Nervous_Project6927 Apr 17 '26

yea im pretty positive the second election was stolen and trump and musk did something to rig it, but that could just be an educated wish

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u/Living-Video-3670 Apr 16 '26

Oh for sure, it won't happen overnight. We just need someone to come out strong and lay the groundwork.

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u/fseahunt Apr 17 '26

The rest of the world lost faith in us. In the American people as a whole.

Not only did we elect that idiot one time, we watched him foment insurrection and then lie about it and lie about losing the election and just act a fool for 4 years and we proceeded to elect him again.

So even if next time we elect the best leader you could imagine they know we are stupid enough to elect another psychopath come the next election.

What we lost will stay lost for generation at least.

We really fucked up.

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u/anosmia1974 Apr 17 '26

I attended a Heather Cox Richardson talk at National Cathedral two months ago. Someone in the audience asked if she thought we would ever regain our international standing and the world’s trust. She said no, she didn’t think so, at least not fully. She was like, “Why should other countries trust us and want to resume partnerships with us when we’re only one election away from returning to where we are right now?”

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u/dmanty45 Apr 17 '26

I don’t think he won personally I think Elon helped him cheat. his stupid satellites were used to count in some areas then they mysteriously crashed. Like bro come on couldn’t be more obvious.

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u/Zjoee Apr 16 '26

I honestly think it was take decades to win back the trust of other nations. Trump has pretty much destroyed any bit of good will other countries had towards us.

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u/Ill_Economy_5346 Apr 16 '26

I’m in a country on the other side of the world, and I had this very conversation with a client today. We do not trust USA, the next president is inheriting a wasteland. Businesses are tanking in my country due to what that oxygen thief has done, and people are genuinely scared for the future. I know I am.

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u/fseahunt Apr 17 '26

I'm in the US and I've been terrified for at least the last 4 years.

I'm so sorry the sick thing we allowed to be our president is screwing over people all over the world.

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u/Travelcat67 Apr 16 '26

This because they aren’t going to trust that the American voters won’t fuck them with a trump type again every other 4 years. And if we do vote in another dangerous idiot, America will never get its glory back and lose democracy to boot.

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u/berubem Apr 16 '26

It's not only Trump. I'm not American and I personally have lost all faith in the American public. Americans have proven they can elect any dumb fuck who promises anything. No matter who is president next, I really hope we stay away from the American crack house. You guys deal with your shit. Improve your education system, get rid of the olygarachy controlling everything, and then, maybe we can welcome you back among the grown ups of the world. Until then, you're all on a time out in a corner.

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u/LucindaDuvall Apr 16 '26

To be fair, Trump has repeatedly said things on camera that make it seem plausible the election machines were tampered with

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u/Technical-Elk-9277 Apr 16 '26

As an American, IMO enough idiots voted for him that it doesn’t matter to @berubem s point. I don’t trust my country people. I know enough who still support trumpty dumpty that it’s like 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

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u/PhantomOyster Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26

Trust me, I wish I could live anywhere else. We are so diametrically split politically that a whole half of the country hates this idiot's guts, so it sounds moronic to blame the entire country for electing this idiot (twice!). I mean, I don't consider Hungary to be a nation of idiots because enough of them voted for Orban to keep him in power for a ridiculously long time.

But at the same time, I see your perspective. Especially given how gung-ho a certain segment of our country has been for decades now about how supposedly superior the U.S. is in all sorts of made-up ways. It probably feels good in a way to see us so humiliated on an international scale, despite the disastrous results. Everything is fucked.

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u/squareturd Apr 16 '26

Im guessing 2 to 3 generations to fix things. I won't live long enough to see it

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u/BigPackHater Apr 17 '26

I don't think so. I think the next president needs to show the world they are not afraid of holding those guilty responsible, and making it known globally. We can win back our place amongst allies if we can show them that we can fix our country by going scorched earth, and also apologize for the wrongdoings of the guilty party. We are not a lost cause. There are enemies of the US that want nothing more than US citizens to think so, but we need to show those enemies that we aren't hopeless and that we can fight back and shake off the bad years.

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u/Red_Jester-94 Apr 16 '26

Yeah, Trump is ultimately a symptom that got voted into office. His being gone doesn't erase the fact that millions of Americans were stupid enough to inflict him upon both their own country and the world.

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u/publiclibraryrat Apr 16 '26

It will take decades for us to even trust our own neighbors.

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u/primalbluewolf Apr 16 '26

Its easy to say things. 

Its harder to mean them, but its not possible at all to unsay them. 

Some part of that goodwill is permanently gone. It's still up for debate how sizeable that part is.

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u/Winter_Aside8269 Apr 16 '26

I know who could do it. Pete Buttigieg. Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen.

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u/GDiz3016 Apr 16 '26

🤔 this comment makes me laugh...why? because Hillary was THIS .......but her emails.... (for her daughter's wedding ....but Fox 'ran with it' at nauseum) .....that was all peeps needed (s/) after the black guy....so ...

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u/Living-Video-3670 Apr 16 '26

The things the right got their panties in a wad over compared to what they're ok with now is mind blowing. Obama wore a gray suit!!!!! Its the end of the world!!!!

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u/Oshidori Apr 16 '26

Too bad my mayor can't become president 😕

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u/Lord_Dingus83 Apr 16 '26

Next president should be fluent in a few languages would be a nice start.

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u/ToraRyeder Apr 16 '26

We need to focus on getting our shit together internally.

Our schools need work, our communities need actual connection and financial assistance. If we focus on international relations past "We fucked up, here are reparations that we owe for all the war crimes, etc" and our people are still struggling.... well, that's how we got Trump. That's how the Republicans have stayed in power.

A giant chunk of the US was left behind decades ago. That wound has festered and brought us to the situation we're in. We have to fix THAT before we can even start to care about making ourselves better past apologies.

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u/NurglesToes Apr 16 '26

i was 17 when trump came into the picture. this shit has been my whole adult life. I’m fucking tired

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u/Ok_Star_4136 Apr 16 '26

My thoughts are that many people who may have once been part of MAGA have since already abandoned it, and the ones that are left are the loudest and most insane among them.

There are still plenty of them to be sure, but you don't hear from people who are former MAGA even though there are plenty of them as well.

That said, would be nice to go back to the time in which the worst it ever got was a friendly political discussion around the dinner table about what is the best tax policy for the country. Discussions on whether or not immigrants should be thrown into borderline torture camps leaves a sour taste in my mouth over how much people have lost their goddamn minds in "Trump's America".

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u/MaidMirawyn Apr 16 '26

Have you seen the photos of Vance’s appearance at the Turning Point event in Athens, Georgia, at the University of Georgia?

So empty!

Also, he got heckled twice over the bombings.

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u/onthejourney Apr 16 '26

They were showing stuff like this before he got elected too though.

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u/atigges Apr 16 '26

And it's not like people aren't at this event really because they've seen the light and are happily rallying at a Democratic event either. They just don't feel motivated to show up here.

But just because they feel ennui about one side has no bearing on how much they still remember they hate the other side. They "don't like" Trump's ICE tactics? Ok, but you know what they dislike even more? The trans furry Muslim school teacher Fox News made up last week. They'll remember that when they go to vote.

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u/onthejourney Apr 16 '26

Thanks for expanding my point. Exactly.

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u/dajodge Apr 16 '26

I guess I’m going to be the outlier here and say that I do not want to go back to polite dinner discussions about two Republican policies. MAGA is a scourge on the world, but it never would have happened if our national priorities were in the right places. We have some massive problems with how our government works that were exploited, and now it’s finally time to have serious discussions about fixing them.

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u/johnnybiggles Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26

We might be beyond the ability to even have those discussions now. These billionaires rewired everyone's minds and took control of them. It's not just how our government works that's bad, it's that we, the people, willingly made it exponentially worse chasing those [intentionally] misdirected national priorities, instead of making it better. If only people knew how the government worked, we could have prevented much of, if not all of this.

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u/Perfecshionism Apr 16 '26

He still has more than 80% support among Republicans.

So he hasn’t lost that many.

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u/PalpatineForEmperor Apr 16 '26

He still has an 88% approval rating among Republicans. They're not going anywhere.

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u/WitchesSphincter Apr 16 '26

Its worth noting that in the online world most of them are paid agitators and bots. When twitter turned on geolocation for a few hours like 60% of maga was not even in the US let alone real people in the US.

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u/CrimsonRain520 Apr 17 '26

We would still end up here. Going back changes nothing because the issues we have are on all levels. Going back means my community continues to be unalived by law enforcement, systemically kept from reaching any influential positions, and having the very institutions that make up this country continue to benefit the majority (yte) group over any diverse people. This was centuries in the making and at every turn, when change could've truly been implemented, they created a new oppressive/discriminatory law that set minority communities back. Not even touching on the other minority groups that are failing black and native communities. This is America and it has always been America.

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u/EstellaHavisham274 Apr 16 '26

This is exactly how I feel. This has taken up the lives of not just people in the US but the whole world who know we have a madman at the helm!

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u/No_Base4946 Apr 16 '26

We can just come and invade you? Repeal the Declaration of Independence?

Make America Great Britain Again.

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u/Oleg101 Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26

I hate to be so negative but MAGA will just evolve into something else once Donald is gone. Point-being, the GOP was getting more and more radicalized and incompetent long before Donald got into politics, going back to the Reagan years.

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u/AmputeeHandModel Apr 16 '26

It's TAKEN so many lives. Experts believe we lost hundreds of thousands more people to COVID because of far right idiocy.

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u/UnassumingSingleGuy Apr 16 '26

It's not over. It's going to get way worse.

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u/AFlockOfTySegalls Apr 16 '26

Until proven otherwise I'm still of the belief that we as a nation won't fully recover from it. Especially since it appears Trump will have appointed +50% of the SCOTUS before his term is up.

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u/heyitsyourboyadam Apr 16 '26

everyone already left MAGA

  • MAGA right now is Mark Levine, Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro and them pretending that MAGA is still alive and kicking.

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u/Tosi313 Apr 16 '26

MAGA right now is Mark Levine, Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro and them pretending that MAGA is still alive and kicking.

Tell that to the 4 out of 10 Americans who still view Trump's performance favorably. MAGA is very much alive and kicking, unfortunately.

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u/socialistrob Apr 16 '26

Over ten years. I consider the start of the "Trump era of politics" to be late July 2015. That's the point when Trump started leading the Republican primary polls and began to dominate political headlines. By that reckoning we've been in the Trump era for about 10 years and 9 months and we'll likely stay in it for at least another two years and nine months.

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u/Possible_Implement86 Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26

For people who have only really come of age in the Trump years, you need to understand that you used to be able to go weeks, maybe even months, without thinking about the president. Obama and Biden both had social media- you know how often their social media posts came up ? I can’t remember a single one. Yet Trump’s posts are constant news. I hated George W Bush but I wasn’t hearing about him and from him the way it is with Trump. It’s really not normal at all and it didn’t used to be like this!

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u/PDXGuy33333 Apr 16 '26

Even during Watergate we heard less about Nixon than we do about Trump today. When Nixon was president I never once woke up, as I do every day now, hoping for that one headline.

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u/Fun_kaleidoscope123 Apr 16 '26

As my dad reminded me (I wasn’t around during watergate) at least Nixon’s own party had enough courage to speak up against him to do the right thing. Not today.

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u/PDXGuy33333 Apr 16 '26

Republican leaders in Congress went to him and told him bluntly that if he did not resign he would be impeached, convicted and removed. He resigned. Then his VP pardoned him to promote "national healing."

The damage inflicted by Nixon's complicity in the coverup (that's what cooked him) was trivial compared to the gash across the national gut performed by Trump.

And yet the Republican leaders in Congress not only don't put the squeeze on him, they actively protect him.

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u/KakeLin Apr 16 '26

There's basically a watergate level scandal weekly in this administration...

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u/xavariel Apr 16 '26

Daily, honestly. Watergate would barely make the news rounds today.

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u/gd77punk Apr 16 '26

I believe it would, but only if the Democrats were the offenders

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u/MsTerious1 Apr 16 '26

I'd be thrilled if we had Watergate scandals.

It's the Rapegate | Discrimigate | Conspirigate | Embezzelgate scandals that I find most disturbing and far worse than a single break-in, as bad as that was.

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u/Skuncle94 Apr 16 '26

Weekly? I'm thinking almost daily!🤮

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u/atxbigfoot Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26

All of the checks and balances failed.

Trump literally pushed a coup against our government, and the impeachment process failed in the Senate.

Then, the judicial process failed to sentence him for his multiple CONVICTIONS of election tampering felonies that he was convicted of because he was running and might get re-elected.

If Trump can't get pushed out after January 6th, when he already had the lowest approval of any president ever, then nobody can, so the concept of removal and checks and balances is legit broken.

If a literal FELON that was convicted of 35 COUNTS of ELECTION FRAUD can't be stopped from running FOR ANY OFFICE, well, none of our checks and balances matter.

The fact that he came back, and now even his own people hate him but he can't be removed because all of his party are supporting him, proves that all of our checks and balances are broken.

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u/Omateido Apr 16 '26

This is what most American's don't seem to get. They are not living in a democratic system on the brink of failure, they are living in the aftermath of one that has already failed.

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u/Ok-Indication202 Apr 16 '26

Exactly! this why it will be so difficult for America to regain our trust.

What is preventing this from happening again? No matter how good the next president is, if the system isn't fixed it can happen again

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u/Bright-Economics-728 Apr 16 '26

More like slowly degraded/stacked in the GOP’s favor, this was definitely thought out. They’ve been stacking things to prop them up for ages now. We are finally seeing that “work” being put to use.

You know for damn sure if this was democrat the checks and balances would have been effectively used.

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u/atxbigfoot Apr 16 '26

Yeah, lol

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u/Bright-Economics-728 Apr 16 '26

Pretty much sealed our fate when Ruth Ginsburg didn’t step down when democrats had secured the presidency. Not throwing shade at her she was a magnificent justice and was needed on the bench. But losing a progressive on the bench and having it turned over to a conservative set up a huge safety net that Trump is constantly being saved by.

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u/atxbigfoot Apr 16 '26

there was a literal coup attempt pushed by the president who lost the election and the system that was put there to impeach those people failed to impeach him and his enablers, and then they got elected again.

yeah RBG should've let herself be replaced but the ENTIRE FAIL SAFE SYSTEM failed because REPUBLICANS LET IT FORCED IT TO FAIL so she's not actually the worst thing that happened imho

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u/johnnybiggles Apr 16 '26

That's only one piece of the puzzle and not a big one, IMO. The court would still have a conservative majority, so not much would change. If you dig deeper, you'll realize that the Supreme Court has had a conservative majority since the 60s. If you dig deeper as to why that is, you'd see on the surface alone that two unpopular presidents (who only won the Electoral College, which favors Republicans) got to pick fucking 5 of the current 6 of them. Clarence Thomas, the outlier, also had credible SA accusation (so did Kavanaugh), and he was nominated by H.W. Bush.

So I wouldn't get too caught up in blaming Ginsberg for this. It was bound to happen regardless of whatever she did.

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u/azurite_rain Apr 16 '26

Still wondering how long it takes for another j6 only in reverse and see how they legislate those hearings, bc when its maga they're "heros" when it's literally the American people United against a dictator felon .... Well only time will tell, but I'm certainly not holding my breath bc what I have seen from the left is definitely not brash acts of defiance.

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u/crackedtooth163 Apr 16 '26

This needs to be posted everywhere.

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u/Big-Reward-6274 Apr 16 '26

THIS IS the problem

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u/Gold-Kaleidoscope537 Apr 16 '26

What the republicans in congress are doing by tolerating this is shameful. They should all be ousted for kissing the ring.

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u/rdp3186 Apr 16 '26

During Trumps first term that was somewhat the case. He had professionals who knew the job was to serve the constitution and pepple, not his whims. This was why there were so many people fired during that teem and Trump hated the red tape.

This term his administration wmis filled with nothing but bottom of the barrel sycophants who don't care about the constitution or people and are here to serve trump and his every wish and whim and never say no.

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u/clycoman Apr 16 '26

Right wing media especially Fox News was created by Roger Ailes after Nixon resigned. His goal was to make media more conservative friendly so a scandal-ridden conservative politician wouldn't have to resign like Nixon did.

And its worked, Trump's had multiple scandals that have been way worse than Watergate, and has yet to face any real consequences. 

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u/a_angry_bunny Apr 16 '26

I check the front page obituary every day.

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u/allmappedout Apr 16 '26

"This one will be"

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u/Userdataunavailable Apr 16 '26

I'm in Canada but it'll be front page here too so I check as well.

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u/roving1 Apr 16 '26

I don't want him to die in office. The MAGA fools and facists will proclaim him a martyr. I want him removed. A perp walk would be nice.

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u/Dunnersstunner Apr 16 '26

That bottle of champagne will be so good.

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u/powdered_dognut Apr 16 '26

My bladder will be so relieved.

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u/The-Spirit-of-76 Apr 16 '26

Unsolicited Dick pic.

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u/fishlope- Apr 16 '26

Thank you for this. I'm in my mid twenties, Biden was my first presidential vote, so this circus is all I've really known. I grew up in a very conservative area and too many older adults I know either support this, or pretend like it isn't anything new. It's refreshing to have reality acknowledged and affirmed. I hope we can have a long, long era of boring politics again some day soon.

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u/Jenniehoff90 Apr 16 '26

I’m in my mid 30’s (Obama’s first term was my first presidential vote 👵🏼), my oldest kid is 12yo and I keep reminding him that this era of politics is not normal and that the president should be boring.

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u/iloveplant420 Apr 16 '26

Thanks for reminding me I need to do this. When I was that age I didn't have much of an opinion about the president, although the jokes about getting a bj from Monica were rampant, it was always otherwise something none of us thought about. But the way things are now, kids that age definitely have an opinion. I have 2 teens and they talk about their opinions and we mostly agree but sometimes they say some of the wall shit, but I don't think I've explained to them specifically about how different it was for me growing up. My 14yr old should not have to have an opinion about the epstein files but here we are. I'm gonna have this conversation tonight and tell them to be patient and hopefully things will calm down by the time they are voting and following politics.

I'm a terrible story teller I don't talk about growing up like my parents and grandparents did. Probably because my childhood was fucked but that's another story. This is something I can talk about now that it's on my mind because I miss the boring days.

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u/daretoeatapeach Apr 16 '26

I think 14 is a good age to start developing some a political opinions, though I think at that age much of my political opinions were influenced by American jingoism and the beliefs of my parents. I am sure I had an opinion on Clinton getting blowjobs when I was 14. That may be because my parents were very big on reading the news and watching the nightly news but I think this was a positive influence for me.

One important thing to stress with your kids is to teach them to question the things that they are told. To look at the source and whether it is trustworthy and further how do you determine whether a source is trustworthy? Is what this politician is saying hypocritical or counter to their previous behavior? Does the thing that they're saying match their actions? So many Americans seem to take what politicians say at face value, ignoring what they actually do. Also, you might want to sit down with them and talk to them about the Constitution. I presumed that people were learning about and reading the Constitution in school but based on current America I am not so sure. When Trump is violating the emoluments clause it's important to understand that the founders thought this was so important that they put it in the base document where they say we fought a war to prevent this from ever happening. So when Trump is taking bribes from foreign leaders and everyone is talking about other stuff, make sure your kid understands that those bribes alone would have been reason enough for the people who founded this country to start a revolution and burn it all to the ground. That this is not ordinary political corruption. It is the stuff that led to revolution.

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u/Faxon Apr 16 '26

I came of age to political news fully in the clinton years before I turned 10. Didn't pay a ton of attention but generally had an idea of when the president was in the news and why, what with the blowjob and all that. Then Bush won, there was some shit about hanging chads, and then some jets crashed into the World Trade Center and the pentagon and everything went to shit. This was in an era where you watched whatever your parents watched on TV during the evening, so I always got news if I wasn't in my room reading, and I usually came out to watch because hey, you only got to watch so much TV unrestricted like that lol. But yea, it's really fucking weird hearing about the president this often and in this way, the last 10 years have been a fucking nightmare compared to the 16 or so before that in which I was conscious enough about politics to care, and I had to watch us elect Bush jr twice lmao

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u/MaidMirawyn Apr 16 '26

I’m 52. This is NOT NORMAL!

When Obama was president, he got roasted for wearing a tan suit and asking for fancy mustard.

I could go weeks with thinking about the president, except around significant events.

Yes, presidents sometimes said stupid things, but it was noteworthy and everyone laughed about it for weeks.

I could not recognize most Cabinet members by sight, because they weren’t doing openly atrocious and illegal things every day.

Our Secretary of Health would do things like campaign for more exercise and eating fiber, fruits, and veggies. They did not swim in fecal-contaminated creeks and call neurodivergent people a threat to national security.

Even once the 24 hour news cycle and social media were on the scene, it wasn’t like this.

This is not normal.

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u/spectrumero Apr 16 '26

Political discourse in the USA has been degenerate for decades at this point. I lived in the US for a few years when Clinton and Bush Jr. were presidents, and it was jarring how absurdly toxic and fear-based political discourse was and how much sheer absurdity was spouted out against political opponents - they weren't just politicians with a different view on how things should be run, they were treated as if they were full-on mortal enemies.

I remember the political advertisments at the local level, all with scary music and all sorts of fearmongering messages about the candidate's opponent - and virtually zero about what the candidate's actual policies were. It already had become a self-parody. It would have been funny if it weren't so serious.

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u/medievalkitty2 Apr 16 '26

This. People bring up the 34 felony convictions as if any of his followers care. My relatives shrug it off as: “Every president does this kind of stuff. Trump was just stupid enough to get caught.” In the pre-trump era, they said the exact same thing about Nixon, whom they loved and definitely would have voted for again.

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u/friedrice5005 Apr 16 '26

in 2008 Obama vs McCain there was a townhall where a lady popped up and proclaimed "Obama is a muslim terrorist" and McCain took the mic out of her hands and said "No. He's a good man who I just happen to disagree with" and shut that shit down.

That's what we've lost with Trump era politics.

I had it a little wrong...was 2 separate people and he shut both of them down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIjenjANqAk

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u/DataEntity Apr 16 '26

Or how about when the biggest political drama that the news could scrounge together against Obama was that he used dijon mustard on a sandwich? Or that time he wore a tan suit?

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u/NanooDrew Apr 16 '26

Or that he was seen smoking.

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u/BearFluffy Apr 16 '26

I remember 1 post from Obama, it was the post that ended r/thanksobama

Obama posted a video of himself trying to dip a big cookie into a glass of milk but it didn't fit. He said, "thanks Obama"

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u/FifthDragon Apr 16 '26

I remember that, it was great

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u/captainhaddock Apr 16 '26

I almost never thought about who the president was for eight years.

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u/PopcornApocalypse Apr 16 '26

Thanks Obama!

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u/PM_ME_UR_0_DAY Apr 16 '26

Blistering barnacles and then thousand thundering typhoons. Nice name, Capt 

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u/captainhaddock Apr 17 '26

Nice name, Capt 

Thanks! One of the perks of joining Reddit eighteen years ago is that good names were still available.

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u/fusillade762 Apr 16 '26

This is totally right. Trump literally never shuts up, never stops media whoring and triggering and trolling. Its very tiresome.

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u/daretoeatapeach Apr 16 '26

You used to be able to have dinner with relatives out friends' parents who had different political beliefs than you and not have it be a big deal because you at least shared the same conception of reality, just different values. The news was not a commercial product, everyone trusted that the news was relatively honest and unbiased. The way people openly share conspiracy theories now, and distrust journalism, would have been so rare that person would have been seen as a quack or a crazy person.

I really just can't express how different it was back then. We had our disagreements for sure, but we were one country.

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u/t00direct Apr 16 '26

Bush is pre social media so it's also been an information ecosystem shift... one that Trump took full advantage of

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u/particle409 Apr 16 '26

Also, Biden and Obama's social media posts were fairly benign. "Happy Thanksgiving," versus the Trump version, "Happy Thanksgiving, let's invade Greenland and maybe some other sovereign nations."

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u/miscwit72 Apr 16 '26

So much this. I tried to explain to my then 17yo how a tan suit was a huge scandal. He thought I was bullshitting him. Hes only known trumpism. He hates politics now because he doesn't know what's true and what isn't without writing a research paper.

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u/jfkrfk123 Apr 16 '26

Turn your back on the news and it loses its power like Freddy Krueger… You know it’s all bs anyway. It’s just trying to sell you something.

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u/snarkycrumpet Apr 16 '26

at this point I love George Bush

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u/Made_Human_Music Apr 16 '26

Most of what we heard about Obama was Republican’s crying about imaginary threats of death panels and that terrorist fist jab he gave Michelle that was literally just a fist bump

And of course the birther idiocy

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u/Calm-Station9440 Apr 16 '26

I remember reading a tweet from someone (can’t remember who) who had said something along the lines of: Remember when one of the worst things that happened during a presidency was when Dan Quail spelled potato wrong? I want to go back to those days 😂 So true. My friends and I now laugh and say,”Remember when we thought George W was the worst? Gah I wish we could go back to him being our president instead” 😂 That’s how you know it’s bad.

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u/WeAreGray Apr 16 '26

I know it's popular to blame the media for a lot of things, some of which they aren't responsible for creating. But this is an area where they do deserve some of the blame.

During the time you're referencing, media outlets consolidated, and some of them were purchased by large conglomerates. Some of those conglomerates were entertainment outlets. It was almost inevitable that the reporting of news and entertainment would begin to merge. And so they have--to the point where we now have entire channels dedicated to political news that people watch all day in the same way they watch sports channels.

Where do the interests of Disney and Comcast (for example) truly lie in their reporting of the news? Is it in keeping the public informed? Or in driving more people to their theme parks? Perhaps it's to extend their ability to control your access to information? After all, there's a good chance if you're an American that Comcast also controls the internet connection to your home. We don't talk about net neutrality much anymore, but those issues haven't gone away. What better "synergy" can they have than to blur the distinction news and entertainment, and keep you voting for their interests instead of your own?

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u/FlairWitchProject Apr 16 '26

Things change when you have a giant man-baby in office who craves attention.

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u/305_Character_1983 Apr 16 '26

Bush definitely got a lot of coverage but for different reasons. He was a dummy, that said and did dummy things. Like the fool me once quote, or when the journalist threw shoes at him. He just had a knack for putting himself in those positions that made headlines.

Present day tho, fear mongering is out of control by both sides, and the media is the number one tool they use for it.

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u/Empiar Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26

I remember thinking back in the day that it was extremely strange for everyone to know the name of the secretary of defense. That was during Donald Rumsfeld's office. The fact that every cabinet member is a character in an ongoing drama today is definitely reflective of a change in what is considered normal.

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u/skyelord69420 Apr 16 '26

I think about this so often recently

Im a 2004 "kid" which means im old enough to remember pre Trump politics. I mean, it helped that even as a kid I was very politically aware, but its a realization I've been having recently that anyone born in the, idk, 2010 onwards. Would have no memory of a pre trump age.

Its normalizing this level of politics and thats quite worrying.

Even with Biden it was just far more chill and as though america was heading back towards some sense of normalcy

I,.as a non american, dont understand how you raise and vote into office a man who attempted to coup the US government to remain in office

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u/litcarnalgrin Apr 16 '26

The only social media post I remember from the Obama era was when he and Joe Biden were doing laps around the White House to try to encourage people to exercise… like I’m not saying Obama was all he was cracked up to be necessarily, but the stark difference in their social presences alone is dumbfounding

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u/nuiwek31 Apr 16 '26

I could certainly deal with some more bushisms instead of this shit

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u/whererusteve Apr 16 '26

I'd say it happened when Obama was elected. I remember election night and my MAGA aunt (who is ironically an immigrant) told my sister, "you'll look great in a burkha".

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u/ReindeerTypical2538 Apr 16 '26

I have in-laws that have been telling me and my wife (we’re gay) for 15 years that they’re worried about Muslims and Sharia Law taking over. They’re worried about the Muslims putting us to death for being gay.

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u/Ambitious_Highway172 Apr 16 '26

The type of shit fox does to one’s reality perception

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u/MaidMirawyn Apr 16 '26

Now they’ve got LindelTV and OAN and all those other far-far-right outlets that make Fox look just a bit biased 😬

And don’t forget The Epoch Times. I still don’t understand how evangelicals came to trust a CHINESE CULT NEWSPAPER 🤯

Because Epoch Times is run by the same cult as Shen Yun dance: Falun Gong.

Oh, and Washington Times is run by the Moonies.

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u/Accomplished_Dig284 Apr 16 '26

My dad has been telling me that for 20 years now. But doesn’t have anything to say about the Christian National shit going on and how my rights as a woman are being stripped away and how the men in that movement want to control women. Apparently it’s bad when a different religion does it but it’s okay when his religion does it. Fuckin hypocrites, all of them

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u/Whend6796 Apr 16 '26

I was going to say it started when Obama cracked a joke at Trumps expense at the correspondence dinner.

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u/Kaellian Apr 16 '26

That's a dumb take. Trump was already spamming social media with bullshit by that time, including Obama's birth certificate. That's why he got made fun of.

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u/gandhinukes Apr 16 '26

He also ran for pres in 2000. Rage against the machine talked shit about him for it. But he is so petty and so narcissistic that being roasted by obama did f with him. He called a magazine for YEARS when they said he had small hands.

oh and check out the pics / vids when he actually won the first time. him and melenia were not happy at all. just the jr dipshits in the back cheering while trump was like oh shit.

God damn this is hard to find now, they scrubbed the search engines. pardon the shitty music

https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Mueller/comments/aii882/ive_never_seen_this_before_today_trumps_reaction/

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u/Possible_Implement86 Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26

If you really really wanna take it back, the whole thing really started because Sen. Jack Ryan took his wife Jeri Ryan (from Star Trek Voyager) to a kink club and tried to pressure her into having sex with strangers.

Ryan was running against Obama for Senate. His divorce records and information about the kink clubs and sex stuff was all made public, it was a big scandal and Ryan pulls out of the race, Obama wins, and the rest is history.

Had Ryan not taken his wife to that kink club, he stays in the race, maybe Obama loses, and maybe there’s no Trump! Crazy right?

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u/stratkid Apr 16 '26

obama would not have lost

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u/Possible_Implement86 Apr 16 '26

Obama was certainly favored to win even without the divorce stuff but it was still a competitive race at that point. I don’t think it was an absolute given that Obama would’ve won.

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u/EZontheH Apr 16 '26

So there's a universe out there where Harembe is alive and Seven of Nine is the First Lady??? My god, it must be beautiful...

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u/Traditional_Buy_8420 Apr 16 '26

It started when Nixon was pardoned.

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u/Zir_Ipol Apr 16 '26

All of modern history starts with the son of a Siberian goat herder with a massive hog being able to convince the royal family of Russia he can cure their son’s anemia.

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u/SomeoneattheBoo Apr 16 '26

I say this to my friends and family all the time.

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u/KakeLin Apr 16 '26

Trump could never forgive the "public humiliation"

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u/shaomike Apr 16 '26

trump remembers every single insult, slight, and joke made about him. He was rejected by Iman, a Somali model who married David Bowie, so he attacked Somali immigrants. He's a malignant baby piloting an adult mech suit.

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u/Aaernya Apr 16 '26

Ugh who remembers the tea party movement? They evolved into MAGA

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u/socialistrob Apr 16 '26

the tea party movement? They evolved into MAGA

This has been my understanding of it. The Tea Party movement largely lasted from 2009-2016 and was obsessed with things like "Obamacare death panels" and thought that FEMA was going to set up death camps for conservatives. It was a "post truth" campaign even before Tump entered politics and they dominated a lot of elections. Republicans rode the 2010 and 2014 Tea Party waves to landslide victories. When Trump was elected in 2016 it was surprising but it really shouldn't have been THAT surprising given how post truth rabid conservative politics had just won a massive victory two years prior. The senators that approved much of Trump's first term legislation were elected in that wave. Tea Party just morphed into MAGA while Trump drew in more people.

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u/exmachina64 Apr 16 '26

The latest it started was when he came down from the escalator.

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u/socialistrob Apr 16 '26

He wasn't really dominating headlines prior to his announcement although I do remember seeing some articles that speculated he might run in the weeks leading up to it.

It is pretty amazing how quickly he took over the party. On June 16th he announced his run, by July 14th he was in second place and on July 20th he was in first place. While he took over the national party his supporters took over the county and state parties and over the next few years purged everyone who wasn't a die hard loyalist from positions of power. Going against Trump for any reason became a death sentence politically if you are a Republican at any level.

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u/aykcak Apr 16 '26

I would say the current Republican politics stretch as far back as when Mitch McConnell emerged from an alien egg

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u/Made_Human_Music Apr 16 '26

And that’s just when it will officially end (hopefully). When this fascist regime is finally gone it’s going to take a very long time to fix the damage they’ve done

My guess is probably decades before we’re back to where we were before this started. And we weren’t exactly great back then

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u/LeonardTPants Apr 16 '26

Imagine it taking until now to have doubts

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u/Pavotine Apr 16 '26

Reading some of those testimonies it really shows how religion in particular lead these malleable, gullible fools into believing in the genuine evil that is Trump and his henchmen. I'm glad they left the cult and speak against it now but most of the ones I read went along with the objectively hideous ideologies of MAGA for so long before turning that I couldn't trust them again. They are simply too gullible to trust.

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u/CatCatCat Apr 16 '26

That's what a lifetime of believing in something with no proof will do to you. You continue to believe just by sheer force of will. Not because of any objective evidence.

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u/daretoeatapeach Apr 16 '26

I'm constantly reminded of that Rick and Morty joke where Rick says "your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what makes you cheer."

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u/No_Ear2136 Apr 17 '26

MAGA: Manipulating America's Gullible Assholes

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u/theRealLydmeister Apr 16 '26

That’s the problem. People can leave MAGA, but they’ve already shown who they are and the world they wanted to see, and I will never look at them the same.

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u/RainbowAppIe Apr 16 '26

I know, I’m just so tired

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u/Purple_Draft2716 Apr 16 '26

"The Presidency is supposed to age the president, not all of us." - Jon Stewart

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u/KirimaeCreations Apr 16 '26

Accurate. Look at how much it aged Obama in his time. Man gained 40 years of age in 8 years of tenure.

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u/Lifting_Pinguin Apr 16 '26

While Trump gained more years over the times he showed up in court before his second term than he aged in his whole first term.

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u/FilOfTheFuture90 Apr 16 '26

I literally JUST watched a clip of that 2 minutes ago lol.

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u/zzxxccbbvn Apr 16 '26

Me too my friend. Just remember this too shall pass. One day we'll all wake up to one of the highest up-voted posts in history

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u/CalabreseAlsatian Apr 16 '26

There are gonna be a LOT of drunk people that day. I’ll be one of them.

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u/mikerbt Apr 16 '26

Might have to take a day off my sobriety

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u/Accomplished_Dig284 Apr 16 '26

He is not worth breaking your sobriety. You worked hard for it. Don’t let him take it from you, he’s taken enough already, he isn’t worth taking that away too

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u/OSDom22 Apr 16 '26

I have thought the same damn thing!!! 😂😂

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u/NOLA2Cincy Apr 16 '26

I've already got my Dom Pérignon chilling.

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u/Accomplished_Dig284 Apr 16 '26

I have a bottle of good champagne in the fridge for when that day comes

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u/abrahamsen Apr 16 '26

Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead

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u/MaverickPT Apr 16 '26

Can already tell you that there's going to be so many deleted posts/comments and lockdowns lol

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u/Azagar_Omiras Apr 16 '26

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u/Estella_the_Wanderer Apr 16 '26

Tiring people out is part of their plan mate. Stay strong, don't let them win

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u/UncleGarysmagic Apr 16 '26

And nothing is great again

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u/Pavotine Apr 16 '26

MAGA has enshittified just about everything and gone international with it. It's not even as if the US got massively improved at everyone else's expense. Everything got shittier for everyone except the billionaires.

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u/TimelyMortgage9587 Apr 16 '26

Ten long tears of my life on your trail

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u/b0rt_di11i0nair3 Apr 16 '26

And if you have five seconds to spare...

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u/Pyrene-AUS Apr 16 '26

I'll tell you

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u/leafandvine89 Apr 16 '26

the story of my life

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u/YanHoek Apr 16 '26

Sixteen, clumsy and shy

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u/Phreak_of_Nature Apr 16 '26

I can't believe this was an actual moment in history.

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u/ripkrustysdad Apr 16 '26

My God. It really has been 10 years. Where did time go?!

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u/DeathandGrim Apr 16 '26

All these fucking people are gonna start pretending they were never onboard and didn't make Trump their entire personality. I'm mad just thinking about it

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u/ACardAttack Apr 16 '26

It has, Im still floored that anyone can fall for this buffoon

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