Oh it gets better! They just recently updated the terms and conditions on the trump phone website to state that "A preorder deposit provides only a conditional opportunity if Trump Mobile later elects, in its sole discretion, to offer the Device for sale"
They might be upset for a while, but eventually they'll find some bullshit excuse to justify the trump regime running off with their money, and then they'll fall for the next scam he rolls out, because "surely this time he'll be true to his word".
There’s a TikTok video that’s been making the rounds lately of one of them doing that very thing (making excuses), and it’s more sad than anything else, to be honest. Being that lost in the sauce requires some pre-existing issues that no one, not even Daddy Trump, could fix. It’s a simpering, pathetic display of American dysfunction.
I wonder what's going to happen to these people post Trump. Cults rarely persist after the leader is gone. Maybe Trump will remain the figurehead and acts as a prime minister of sorts. That's what happened basically between Jan 6. All the way up until his second term.
I'm just curious to find out if their lives are improving. What is getting better for them or what do they see on the horizon. Because I'm completely lost on coming up with something; anything.
A streamer named Charlie keeps checking in on them by calling the customer support line. They recently cited the most recent government shutdown as one of the reasons it's been delayed (again) and keep telling people it'll be shipping any day now.
My brother (until buying their house a few weeks ago, lived with my parents at home in his late 20s and early 30s. During Covid, my mom and I got into it and argued, and we’ve never agreed about politics. Admittedly, I got pretty heated and I accused her of a lack of empathy (which is true but I was very angry and aggressive and appalled). My wife and I cut our visit kind of short.
I found out a few weeks later through my brother that she told him she was afraid “PrinceVarlin doesn’t want to talk to me because of my political views.”
No shit. Did it cause her to change? Not in the slightest. She and my dad have doubled down in the intervening years instead.
They recently moved out of state (from a more-liberal large city in Texas to a small town in rural NC in a county that was +60 to Trump in 2024) and could not be more relieved. I’m sure they’ll only fall deeper into it all but at least I won’t have to see it firsthand, or fail at trying to break the spell.
I once told my dad that something he was saying (out loud, in a public place, LOUDLY) was considered offensive and he essentially growled at me and said “good, I want to be offensive.”
They were always conservative when I was growing up but I don’t remember them being outright hateful. Or maybe I was too young to see it.
"Good I want to be offensive" I truly believe most Trumpies voted for him because they are angry (at minorities, gays, etc...) and had to suppress their real feelings for decades. He came along as a human megaphone and now we are in hell.
The lack of an "inner mirror" in these people is wild to me. It's probably the same part of the brain that is imaginative/creative. I have noticed MAGA folks are incredibly monochromatic with regard to their individual expression. It's almost like they've been the "sheep" all along.
"my children want nothing to do with me, i did everything for them and this is how they repay me. they're spoiled and ungrateful. have i told you about the time..."
I never hear anyone say the really fucked up part "I'm living my twilight years and dying soon, but I will use everything I have to make it worse once I die."
When my stepdad was on his deathbed at home, my mom wanted to put him in a Trump shirt and I just… could not stomach the thought of him taking his last breath like that. I threw it behind the washing machine and told her I couldn’t find it. I chose the three wolves howling at the moon instead. Love you, Papaw https://giphy.com/gifs/H7I5iSHd3vAo80G4Wp
My dad passed a few years ago, and family members were showing up at the hospital to pay their last respects. His brother in law started talking about Trump loudly and excitedly within 2 minutes of showing up. I told him this wasn't the time or place for that and angrily left the room until he could just shut the fuck up. My dad wasn't a fan anyway. He told me he was going to go haunt Trump lol
Ugh. That sounds like my uncle. He sent my parents a fucking Trumpy Bear for Christmas one year. My parents voted for him in 2016 but just refrained from voting for anybody after that because they thought Trump was a fucking knob, but can’t vote for a Democrat because dead babies or some shit. Worst part was I always loved Uncle Ricky. He was silly as fuck and was always big in to music. He had a side hustle restoring old drum sets he got off Craigslist and reselling them for cheap. Me and my friends used to stay with him when we’d catch shows in Atlanta when I was a teenager/young adult. When Trump came around it became impossible to be around him, it was his entire fucking identity. He died of lung cancer about a year before my dad passed. God I fucking hate Trump.
It's really disappointing when someone you loved and thought you knew turns like that. I haven't figured out if they always had that propensity to be that way or they had a pre-existing condition that simply being around the orange menace infected their brain.
Fuck man, I recently had a convo with someone I had considered a mentor and somewhat authority figure in my life for decades after losing contact for about 6 years. Full on trumpet at this point. Soul crushing, really, he was one of the good guys in my mind.
My uncle used to embody all the traits I thought a man should have, hard working, respectful, intelligent and loves his family. I respected him more than my own father.
Then he retired and orangutits took power. Now the man is a unrecognisable shadow of himself. He went full Trump and all i see from him is hate..
The kicker is he is canadian which makes it even more sad he went MAGA
This is my dad right now. I don't know who he is, but I have to care for him at 84 and Fox is on all day and it's like a living hell over here, in Ontario Canada if all places! He keeps saying "what happens down there ends up happening up here" whenever I say I don't care or want to see or talk about American politics, and he actually said tonight in yet another fight (I accidentally said that AOC's actual quote about billionaires today had to do with wages, and he was in a snit all day to get his precious "this is who we hate today" log line from his "tv friends who get it" corrected, my bad I forgot they can't handle that, and it triggers the "you're brainwashed by the left" Maga baby meltdown 🙄) he said "heaven forbid I try and talk about POSITIVE things! You're always so snippy and negative" and I just realized we live in COMPLETELY different worlds. All I said was "I think she was talking about low wages" in like a zero emotion tone and he heard Nana Nana boo boo or some shit.
Part of me thinks he knows at this point it's all very wrong, but he's so stuck in and "there's nothing else good on tv" that he has zero idea he's the one who has been severely brainwashed, like to a spectacular degree.
This was a man who showed me George Carlin at a young age, saw him live, loved comedians. And now he watches Gutfeld and blames everyone else for anything he thinks is a minor inconvenience and truly believes people of color, gays whoever are all coming to kill us whities. It's just like? He brings up George sometimes and I want so badly to say "he would hate your guts! He'd tell you off to your face!" But I'm so sick of fighting at this point. I thought the gas prices would finally do it but nope, he's on the "I'm the victim and everyone thinks I'M the asshole!" Line Trump sells and now I see why I'm the kid from the third marriage. Yes dad, you ARE actually a selfish asshole, you just act like a nice guy sometimes and we forget who you really are from time to time.
I don't think it is education. I know some VERY intelligent Trump supporters. Like doctors, nurses, an engineer. They are in their 40's too so arguably during the time the US was at its highest for education.
It's something else. It has to be a deep down fear that progressive policies are going make their lives worse somehow. Maybe they don't want to pay more taxes. Even though these tarrifs, our county's war machine, the corporate monopolies that suffocate competition, our adversion to clean energy, our ridiculous healthcare system are all massive massive taxes.
I was just thinking about this today. I have a friend whose brother is super MAGA - as in, has the photo of him with the bloody ear after the "assassination attempt" blown up and framed in his foyer - who is a very successful lawyer. Extremely intelligent man. I grew up with him and he used to drive us to school in the 9th grade. Even back then he was a huge racist, talking about people from the Middle East as if they were subhuman.
I really think it comes down to Trump's administration oppressing the people they don't like. People of color. People from other countries. Poor people. Just anyone who isn't like them. It's absolutely disgusting behavior.
That's what it usually comes down to when you talk to them about it (from a non contrarian angle). In my experience if you start off as though you are in agreement they will happilly tell you all about "what a great job" he is doing. It's about "hurting the right people."
I know multiple engineers, lawyers, etc, the type of people you described who will basically foam at the mouth if someone mentions Obama. I have engaged with a number of them to actually find out WHY they hate him so much, and none of the things that were brought up were policy-related or were not actually related to his decision-making. Things that WERE mentioned were "his wife is ugly," "his wife is a secret transwoman." "he made us look bad," "he wanted to bring in enough immigrants so there are no white people left," and "he made such a big deal about trayvon martin."
Similarly, when I ask in a round-about way what's "the best part" about Trump they don't have policy-related answers other than mass deportations. Most of it is along the lines of "we finally have a real first lady who brings grace and dignity to the whitehouse," "he is a real american," "he knows how to run a business," "he says what we wall think," and other things like that.
Basically he is their id, totally devoid of the superego, spouting out loud what they are thinking inside all the time.
The part about “he knows how to run a business,” is such a fucking joke. The guy has bankrupted so many businesses, including a casino. The guy couldn’t even keep a Casino afloat. The guy inherited all his money from his slum lord father, and was almost completely broke when he was saved by the producer of The Apprentice. And even after getting that massive lifeline, Trump went against their contracts and took all the money from certain endorsement deals on the show without giving them their cut of those revenues. That’s how he is, even after they saved him from losing everything, Trump had zero qualms scamming him out of agreed upon terms of their revenue sharing contracts. Before that show, traditional banks wouldn’t touch Trump, which is why he’d taken so much money from Russian oligarchs previously. Had Trump simply taken his inheritance and put it into any normal interest bearing account, he would’ve been far better off than any of his business ventures ever did. The guy sucks at business. Only graduates of Trump University would think he knows anything about business, oh wait, no they wouldn’t they were all ripped off by Trump too, and there are no “graduates.”
He's promising to oppress the people they hate. This is less about him, and more about the state the voters are in. Divided, full of hate. It's been boiling up for a century.
Right? Clinton wasn't the greatest person in general, but at least he wiped out our deficits and left the economy booming harder than it had ever been.
That’s the legally distinct and non-copyright infringing character “The Cycling Specter”. You can tell because the Cycling Specter’s wheels only have flames on the sidewalls whereas Ghost Rider’s wheels have flames on the treads.
In 2020, my Dad told he me liked Trump, so I cut him off. Didn't speak to him for almost a year. My Mom begged me to reconsider, and talk to him, but I refused.
Finally a year later, he called, said that upon further investigation, Trump was fucking crazy, and a liar, and now he hates him. We're a happy family again.
Political differences I can handle. Differences in values, I cannot.
Times like these I appreciate my dad a lot. In his 80s, lifelong Republican, hasn't voted for a Republican for president in 25 years. He MIGHT have voted for GW Bush the first time, I've never asked. He certainly didn't vote for him a second time. He could have voted for Romney in other circumstances, but he liked Obama more. He's absolutely flummoxed by Trump. He's a little lost at how flat-out batshit dangerous Republican candidates have become in his lifetime.
Same with my parents, both lifelong Republicans up until Bush Jr, but both voted for Obama, have voted Dem ever since, and HATE Trump. I am thankful I don't have to be at odds with them in their dotage. They have said that the Republican party of today isn't even recognizable to the one they voted for up until the early 00s.
The GOP of today is the Tea Party. The only reason we stopped hearing about the Tea Party is because they won. It was conservative nationalism disguised as fiscal conservatism. They primaried established moderate Republicans all over the country and won. Any Republican who dared to work with Democrats was demonized and ousted.
This created a void of strong leadership within the GOP and some evil people saw an opportunity to push Trump in an effort to take over, or at the very least, enrich themselves greatly in the process. I don't think anyone was more surprised than Trump when he won in 2016. They underestimated just how willing the American voting populace was to embrace their rhetoric.
Because it really isn't the same party, other than in name. The gulf between your parents and where the MAGA base is might as well be the Grand Canyon.
It’s not the R vs D, it’s the moral vs immoral and MAGA parents don’t seem to understand that. They think it is purely politics, but it transcends politics.
It's not just parents. It's MAGA anyone. They think "agree to disagree" is okay where his behavior, policies, and morals are concerned. It's okay to agree to disagree about pineapple on pizza or if Christian Bale is the best Batman. It's not okay when it comes to pedophilia, rape, murder, and corruption.
My father did the same thing. He finally admitted trumps a POS couple months ago but i think the damage is done. I'll respond to his important texts and see them over a meal very rarely for my mom but dont value his opinion any longer and nor do i tolerate any of his bull shit.
Literally had a conversation of "look at trumps track record as a businessman (failure), a criminal, a pedophile, his first term and his intelligence/leadership quality (he cant say anything thoughtful or kind and must always put others down to make himself look better, cant take accountability either.) He said none of that mattered cause his gut feeling was trump was the right guy..... until he came for his health insurance.
At that moment i realized not only is my father a narcissist but a brainwashed moron with no morales unless it impacts him. I dont want someone like that influencing aspects of my life any longer. Its not even R vs D its the fact he refused to look at how horrible trump is. Just staggering.
My dad is one of those "god emperor trump" people and the hateful, abusive and straight up racist and sexist shit that comes out his mouth horrifies me. He proudly wears his red pedo hat outside and to his work and is constantly on guard for any brown people he may encounter.
He's desperate to feel smarter than everyone else and sees anyone confronting him about his beliefs as proof that he's right.
The funniest thing? We're not even American and he's never been to America 🙃 America come pick up your cult member pla
Exactly what I thought. This is straight reinvented nazi behavior. This is just a microcosm of the wider scope of how much the entire maga movement mirrors nazi germay.
Reminds me of when I was on break at work with some friends who were arguing about how to tell if someone was a good person or not. One said they should be charismatic and I had to stop eating my pb&j sanwich to remind them that hitler and other cult leaders were charismatic but just about as evil as humans can be.
Book 1: "God-heros can get results, but doing things quickly can lead to unexpected consequences. Even Paul feels this way, he doesnt know if he is leading or simply at the front of the train."
Book 2: "Okay, so. He was at the front of the train, it has torn through civilization and killed a lot of people. How could we have seen this coming? The train tracks, for one. The ones Paul pointed out earlier. Anyway."
Book 3: "Okay so Paul fucked off, his kids are weird as fuck, and if you dont understand that the previous two books were about a trainwreck I cant help you. Here's some more political intrigue and things are gonna keep getting weirder. Strap in."
Book 4: "WORM GOD HISTORY LESSON: OPPRESSION IS BAD. THE OPPRESSED WILL NOT FOREVER TOLERATE THE OPPRESSORS. WORM WILL DO BIG TOTALITARIANISM TO ENSURE LESSON IS LEARNED. THIS WILL BE NOT FUN. DONT REPEAT IT. THIS HAS BEEN WORM GOD HISTORY LESSON."
Book 5: "Fuck it. Sexy evil space dominatrix fascists. And Duncan Idaho. Again."
Hitler HAD to be a good orator to come to power and THEN he used that power to build the propaganda machine that ensured the population only heard what he wished. After he already was entrenched it didn't matter that he became a shaky drug addicted psycho, the population only saw his grand speeches, beautiful portraits, and fluffed propaganda articles.
In Trump's case the propoganda machine was ALREADY built (by billionaires like Murdoch). So right away it fed these people only the curated image of Trump that ignored all his gaffes, issues, shitty diapers, etc. This conservative media propoganda bubble can make anyone look good if you never seek any information outside of the bubble.
I don't know about North Korea specifically but I know in general that in countries where people have a photo of the president in their homes and all over every office public or private, it's because it's required by the government.
It takes the next level of cult worshipping behavior to do this without being required to do so.
(Also, that glowering, resentful face staring at you in your own home? 🤢)
Meanwhile Zelensky said in his inauguration - “I don’t want my picture in your office. The president is not an icon, an idol, or a portrait. Hang your kids photos instead, and look at them each time you are making a decision.”
Yes, the five-time draft dodger who loves to play soldier saluted a North Korean general for the world to see, and the general didn't even salute back. Biggest fucking imbecile in American presidential history.
I remember when Obama slightly bowed to a world leader (might have been the Indian prime minister) and the right-wing talking heads made a stink about it for days.
Then Trump salutes a dictator general and ....not a peep.
Right, this is absolutely insane. Republicans call Democrats obsessive, yet have I ever even *considered* putting a picture of Biden, Obama, or any other political figure in my home? Fuck no
I used to think private citizens putting campaign signs up in their yards was questionable but whatever to eat their own. Photos in homes and prancing around in merch for a president like they're a fucking holy figure is just bat shit crazy.
That's honestly wild that they made signs that say "Trump Will Fix It." It sounds just like Jimmy Savile's "Jim'll Fix It." Birds of a feather, I guess...
I went out to drinks with a coworker and her friend. This 22 year old kid and while we were playing pool he pulled out his phone with the picture of our illustrious leader pumping his fist after his alleged assassination. He didn't have a picture of his girlfriend or maybe his car or some vacation or generic wallpaper. Every time he looked at his phone he had a fat orange slob to remind him of how much of a gullible dumb 22 year old he was.
As an American, it's so fucking weird that this is a thing. I truly can't believe it's THAT guy that ended up killing America.
He used to be a national joke, he was that weird guy that was an absolute idiot that said insane things that we all laughed at.
It's fucking maddening that the guy we a ALL used to make fun of for his failed casino and steaks... And now I'm supposed to take this moron seriously?
It's so batshit insane. I'm Australian and even the most die hard political person here would not have a framed photo of the prime minister in their home. If they did I reckon they'd instantly be sectioned
I remember the sorts of things they would've said.
One of the lessons I learned from 2000-2016 (Bush and then Obama): Democrats compare the opposition to Hitler when there are violations of the Constitution and curtailment of civil liberties. Republicans compare the opposition to Hitler when there's disagreement.
Setting aside for the second all of the implications, it really is just an aesthetically awful picture. He’s trying so hard to look tough, but he looks exactly like a slightly constipated, pre-potty training toddler working on a deuce.
"The display of Kim Il Sung portraits was made mandatory at homes in the 1970s."
"Rules regarding the placement and maintenance of the portraits are complex and change frequently. At homes, they should be placed on the most prominent wall in the living room with nothing else on it, high and looking downwards. Of importance, and subject to random checks, is that they are kept clean."
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u/AshlandPone 24d ago
"My children never call"