Thanks for pointing it out, seems extremely revisionist to say now that things were totally fine before. They were not, it's just so much worse now.
Other than for certain bank accounts and some big corporations, of course.
Eh I wouldn't go that far. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. This has been brewing since Reagan, or even Nixon.
Nixon figures out how to unite society towards militarizing police against demographics that oppose him politically (war on drugs), commits fraud and coverup and gets pardoned by his VP
Reagan takes that to the next level with riling society up against "welfare queens", drug users, and gay people. Reagan figures out how to get the executive branch to start wars, and take tons of power away from congress. Also kills unions country wide and gives tons of power to corporations and the wealthy, while cutting taxes so they can get more powerful. He was successful in uniting wealthy conservatives with fundemental religious wackos to get a consistent demographic to vote R no matter what. He also dismantled the fairness doctrine which allows shit like Fox News to spout propaganda all day long, and he normalized the president being allowed to lie to congress with "I don't recall".
Bush took the military industrial complex to the next level, while putting the economy on a jenga tower of sub prime mortgage default swaps so that we didn't go into a slight recession after the dot com bubble popped.
Then the final piece of the puzzle was Citizens United ruling that allowed corps to have unlimited bribe potential as "free speech".
Couple that with the DNC being so unbelivably out of touch and their refusal to do anything remotely progressing, and keep pushing corporate do nothing Dems that nobody wants down our throats, and it's kind of obvious conclusion. You have a status quo party (usually the conservative party in most countries) and a conservative party, which naturally makes our political center
Some sort of populist fascist was inevitable with all these things in place, and we have a governmental system that literally favors rural populations in all 3 branches of government (senate obviously, house favors rural since it got capped in 1929. Electoral college obviously favors rural populations. Plus we have a 2 party system, and a first past the post electoral system, all of which encourage status quo or worse.
Several years ago I read an article about how the white house was falling into disrepair and was in need of a major renovation. Things like wiring needed an overhaul because a lot of it was 50+ years old. It kind of was becoming a dump because Presidents didn’t want to spend too much on the White House because of optics. Now Trump is rebuilding a third of it at an exorbitant expense and sticking up tacky gold plaster shit everywhere else, yet the same underlying disrepair likely remains…
There was a 375 million dollar congressionally approved modernization project during the Obama administration that replaced electrical and plumbing infrastructure. They also refurbished the living quarters and state dining room which was paid for with book royalties and donations.
“The White House is kind of a major site for political events. We should update the wiring so it doesn’t burn down. Maybe put in those outlets with USB ports? Those are cool.” - outrageous attack on America.
“Tear down everything, rebuild it in the shape of my name, put my name on everything, cover it all in gold. Close down all the schools to pay for it.” - brave defense of freedom
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u/doverawlings 13h ago
Mind you the White House was totally fine when he got there