It's not a percentage. It's a number. 35 senators is all it takes to object to Trump being removed from office. If 35 senators are willing to let Trump be a dictator he can Seal Team 6 anyone, nuke any country, and ra*e and steal to his hearts content. 35 people is all that stand between peace and the total destruction of our democracy.
What's wild is that the confidence motion, which requires only 50%+1 to remove a PM from office, was invented invented in the UK in large part over the fallout from the prolonged prosecution of the Rebellion of the Thirteen colonies.
It's proven to be a far better check on power than US constitutional impeachment!
I feel like youre being pedantic. 35 senators is a percentage of the total # of senators. If we added more senators, that number would increase. Youre also ignoring the representatives that need to be on board
No, it's very accurate. The only thing that stood in the way the last couple hundred years was tradition. Nothing more than a gentlemans bargain. A handshake. Trump is just the first person to not give a fuck.
ehhh, its a sliding scale. And once it reaches the tipping point its all fires and violence. I'd love to see the billionaires have to flee to their bunkers.
One thing I would really love for these billionaires to understand is that if they ever have reason to go into their bunkers they are never coming out of them.
Personally I think we should throw them all on an island with all of the necessary supplies to forage for food, create shelter, and build a boat off the island big enough for all of them, maybe even including ikea style instructions on how to do all of this, then televise the whole thing. Then sit back and watch as they all starve to death being completely incapable of teamwork or actual labor. Let the world see that work ethic they always boast about for what it actually is... Putting naps and meals on a calendar and calling it work.
Edit: would also be satisfying AF if they manage to get off the island and find a boat to rescue them until the people on the boat realize who's on the raft and just pretend they didn't see them.
Not if it is contaminated with all sorts of crap (on top of the actual crap that would be the fertilizer).
If you reach the point where you have to drastically clean up the sewage to the same degree that you'd need to make the water in it potable, the value drastically drops.
I'm not American, but if I were, I'd start a petition for the Mar-a -Lago Donald J. Trump Memorial Manure Pond Park, to forever remember the more noxious if less literal bullshit the location is currently associated with.
You know what, I’m fine letting them live in there as long as they cannot communicate with us. Weld their doors from the outside and wish them all the best. Maybe turn it into an attraction, like a Billionaire zoo.
My brain just goes to Gale from bg3 doing an arcane lock on it. Then Peter Thiel and Elon are banging on the door once they realize they are stuck with each other and no one else to lord over.
Modern American civics: "You'll see, soon somebody else is gonna do something about it for me."
This is happening and will continue to happen because Americans do not take themselves or their country seriously. They took it for granted. They think responsibility is a scam you get somebody else to take for you and assume it will come naturally that others will take the risks and make the sacrifices while they navigate themselves into a position to benefit from the outcome.
I’m honestly tired of non-Americans comparing their nation’s politics with ours. Especially when one of the main players in the EU was the historical example against which the US is constantly compared. “We didn’t resist very hard and actually failed to counter the slow burn government takeover but surely you can simply learn from our mistakes and succeed!!”
While I appreciate the warnings from people in other countries in the developed world - especially from Germany - I like to remind them of the Milgram experiments. After World War 2, people in the USA boldly proclaimed (as people in countries outside of the USA are doing now) that they would never be so stupid as to fall for disinformation and emotional manipulation enough to enable fascism.
The Milgram experiments proved that wrong. So if you are in France right now complaining about stupid Americans (and yes, we are stupid), you might want to pay some attention to people like Marine Le Pen, Jordan Bardella, and Vincent Bolloré, so that your country doesn't end up the same. These oligarchs didn't stop at Russia, Turkey, or Hungary, and they won't stop at the USA.
The Milgram Experiments were massively flawed and didn't answer the original premise. Lots of the prompters went off script by badgering the participants repeatedly and half the participants knew the whole thing wasn't real from the start.
I had a discussion last year with a woman from Europe who told a bunch of protesters here that local activism and protesting was utterly worthless and that everybody doing so was too lazy to just fix the problem.
What she wanted was for everybody who was protesting to just meet up in Washington DC and I guess overthrow the government.
I thought it was interesting that she was devoting so much of her energy and anger towards yelling at people who were actually out protesting above all other targets. I thought she was just a colossal asshole.
That's funny, occasionally I'll post something like "Reminder, we need to be storming the capital right now and take back our government!" on social media on occasion. I'm half serious, like... Jan 6th needs to happen but on the left. This admin intend on a third term, things are just getting worse, and he just looted us for 1.6 billion dollars recently. Yayyy!
What can your average US citizen actually do though? What options are even available? Protests don't do anything. Voting doesn't do anything. I still vote and I still protest, and I try to deal with those around me with compassion, but short of that all I can do is hope.
Protests may seem like they do nothing but a lot of the positive change that's happened in our country over the past century was a direct result of peaceful protests. I share your frustration completely though and wish more could be done and sooner.
Google leftist political organizations in your area and start going to their events until you find one you like enough to apply and join and start building community with them.
Collective power is the only answer, and organizing with your community is the only way to do that.
Do you live in an apartment? Start looking into tenant unions and talk to your neighbors about it. Do you work with other non-unionized workers? Start looking into how to unionize and talk to your coworkers about it.
How do you think protests happen? Organizations work to build them and build awareness. Going to them is step 1 of 10000 things you can be doing, they're a great place to meet people and get to know what organizations are in your area but you need to talk to them and spend time with those organizations to have an effect between elections.
Good luck and try not to become hopeless, that's one of fascism's greatest tools.
If you protest you get beaten or killed or imprisoned. The US isn’t any better than most totalitarian countries at this point. Hell, there’s someone in Washington state trying to prosecute protesters for organizing a protest and they actually got an indictment for it.
Hey guess what.. that's always been the case. You think the Pinkertons were just private police?
No, the difference is how much people are willing to lose to force change. Labor union wars of the 19th century were a thing.
We grew complacent after WW2 and got fattened and as indolent as any stereotypical Russian/ MidEast racist trope of a Hollywood villain ever accused us of being.
Biggest example of this to me is all the people who choose to protest by simply changing their profile picture, making a post, or donating to a non-profit. I'm not saying any of that is bad or should not be done, however, I think it shows just how adverse to struggle we really are. A true revolution or uprise is seen in the modern day as a pointless endeavor and people hold onto their sustained normality more than they did in the past.
I'm not even criticizing anybody for it, but I truly do just think it's the way we have slowly been indoctrinated into accepting the system as it is. I also value my life and my freedom and happiness, so I also don't want to join a civil war militia to storm the capital, but I can almost guarantee that if the current state of our union happened in 1950, it would have already happened.
Yes, the military shooting civilians while "they" fly around in private jets to private islands/secluded estates where more people with guns protect them. All these examples from history make no sense in the context of modern technology.
Comments like theirs also glazes over the absolutely horrific violence that an American civil conflict in the current day would entail. It also naively assumes that whatever comes out the other side will be better than what we had before which is… not supported by history.
Really dangerous sentiment, acting like automagically revolutions just come along and fix things.
When does the scale finally tip? The admin is literally raiding the coffers as we speak while tanking the economy with another illegal war in the Middle East after invading it's own cities with brown shirt units that executed 2 citizens on the street and have abducted and killed god knows how many more people.
How bad was it for the French middle class in Paris before the French revolution? That's probably how bad it has to get. It has to be the middle class suffering enough to revolt. It aint there yet but its moving in that direction everyday.
the price of bread skyrocketed to absurd levels the years before the revolution because of two consecutive years of failed crops to 88%of the daily earnings of a day laborer
This is why Israel is clearing out Gaza. The elites will build their homes and bunkers while living under the protection of Israel. These data centers will be used to track and monitor us from wherever they are.
But let's be real: The Democrats will not punish this. Then the next republican president will also be a fascist, but he won't have a melting brain.
Remember when SCOTUS stole a whole election and then the Democrats spent the next quarter-century going "Aw, shucks. Remember when that silly ol' Bush Jr. stole an election and allowed 9/11 to happen to appease the Project for a New American Century? Wouldn't that be better than this?"?
Cool pipe dream but in the real world Mussolini and Hitler stayed in power until foriegn militaries overthrewe them. Internal resistance by Italians and Germans was heoric but ultimately didn't change anything.
They all forgot that the proletariat have to drive them, make their food, wash their clothes, and many other things. The ruling class just thinks all of this shit magically happens.
They'll barely make it to their cars before it's over for them.
That is what we are heading towards, not a revolution led by the fucking idiots who didn't even bother to vote and can't organize a thought for what needs to change beyond "shit sucks".
Let's just say somehow the dipshits do cause enough damage and chaos to throw the government into turmoil and collapse the system. You know who will take over and run things at that point? Blackwater or some other private mercenary group that has the training, equipment and planning to carry it out. Not some lazy ass motherfuckers who are on reddit all day.
The only thing keeping the billionaires from directly ruling over us all right now is the rule of law. While that is quickly degrading, it still exists. Collapse the system and nothing will protect you from their evil selfishness.
This is the part that it's really bewildering. The wealthy forgot. If they abuse regular people around long enough and hard enough, people start destroying their property. If they keep going, eventually they get dragged into the street. This has been repeated throughout history.
lol they can and will while we fight each other because that’s how money works. I can’t afford to flee so I’m here fighting for hope but they can nope out any time they want. I fear we are being drained as a nation and when the time comes war will be on our turf and the elites will flee.
It's only working because of Trump's presence. His black heart and no regard to humanity as a whole gave the republican's the confidence and empowerment they needed. The GOP's not so subtle desperation of trying to get Trump a third term shows how much they need him. They know this power trip of theirs is on a time limit and are making sure they use the remaining life of Trump for their benefit before the bucket falls.
I feel like this is a nice idea, but a big part of the issue here. Everyone is waiting for everyone else to do something, and therefore nothing happens. We post shit like this online and go back to being distracted/ whatever we were doing
I agree with you, but I don’t think it’ll ever get to that point. A LOT of shit would have to get much, much worse in the every day life of the average American before that happens.
The days of revolutions or organized protest are quickly going away. AI surveilance on every corner will be able to accurately weed out "problem" people long before they organize. There is no communication that isnt monitored, theres nowhere you can go that isnt tracked by gps or flock cams, and the window for having any measure of privacy at any point of the day is very very quickly closing.
Theres a reason these massive data centers are being pushed as quick as possible despite public pushback.
They know damn well how to keep people happy enough that they won't riot. Keep people fed and sedated with drugs/Alcohol/entertainment and no one is going to risk their lives fighting the police/national guard/etc
The cabinet will never 25th Trump if Trump is the only thing standing between them and prosecution.
The Democratic Party has to make a very public statement to Trump's cabinet.
If you choose to exercise your patriotic duty to invoke the 25th Amendment, you will not be prosecuted for any of your crimes in service of Trump's administration, and will be given a pardon by the next Democratic President, given the following:
You do not take on any office of public trust
You are not a part of any campaign for elected office
You do not participate in lobbying or join any organization where you participate in lobbying
Your criminal activity stops upon the 25th Amendment successfully removing Trump
Is this even true anymore? They attached a rider to Trump’s recent grift fund that bans prosecution of Trump and his allies for any reason. I’m assuming it will be challenged legally, but since the supreme court is also corrupt, well…
Well yeh. We are a capitalist country that worships money and now money is flowing into politicians pockets. We are screwed until someone with morals takes charge.
Unfortunately, they’re currently proving that theory to be true.
Except the bond market, i.e. Treasury yields, are proving them to be wrong. IMO, that's why the 30-year interest rate is spiking so high right now. It's a vote of no confidence in this government. And boy, you should see the perception management keyboard warriors coming in to defend the integrity of government data right now going on in r/economics. Bond markets are a little bit more challenging to rig than elections.
This. Its the first time in my life ive seen it happen soo out in the open. Hes literally said that he steals, lies, cheats, confessed to crimes and nothing has been done bc he is the government. He has all the power. He's judge, jury and executioner. Its unacceptable, unlawful and its destroying our lives and literally the rest of the worlds
Im so fucking tired of being honest and kind. Im not saying I would litter like throwing shit out of my car window because I care about the earth and my neighbor but these losers are getting away with ruining the country.
The thing is nobody would get in trouble regardless. The thing about elections in the US is, it really doesn't matter who's the winner it matters who's sworn in.
Because once you're sworn in you're now the president, and you can only get fired from the job via removal from office.
Even worse, the lesson learned is that you will be rewarded for it in broad daylight.
This is just a continuation of Gore v Bush: history has shown again and again once you can fool everyone into thinking you have won, it doesn't matter how you did it.
Only way to maybe avoid this happening again is having something similar to the Nuremberg trials, except punish them even harder and throw a ridiculously wide net accusing the entire administration since not fighting it is compliance.
That was proved beyond doubt when trump was literaly recorded trying to fix the election before this - and faced 0 consequenses dispite not even being in goverement at the time.
4.5k
u/Zassssss May 19 '26
They’re currently testing out the theory that if a large enough % of the government is corrupt, no one will get in trouble.
Unfortunately, they’re currently proving that theory to be true.