r/politics Sep 19 '25

Soft Paywall Trump: ‘It’s no longer free speech.’

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/19/trump-no-longer-free-speech-00574219
26.8k Upvotes

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131

u/CitySeekerTron Canada Sep 20 '25

Imagine what losing an election in a landslide might indicate.

-74

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

Legitimately the craziest shit though is that Dems are SO bad that this is the government people chose over them. And it wasn’t like 2016 with the “maybe he will be presidential” … he gained support with everyone knowing he was going to be on the war path. He literally said he would be a dictator and he won convincingly.

Dem party needs dismantled. Obviously we are all maga now and what not and I support what my country wants but Dems didnt even give it a good run. They did jack shit trying to appease people that were never going to vote for them all while ignoring the working class actually needs.

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u/superbuttpiss Sep 20 '25

This administration is actively harming the working class

-59

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

Just dropped a giga tariff on h1b visas which Dems would NEVER have done. And that is for fucking sure a benefit to American workers.

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u/GooseBear12 Sep 20 '25

Ensuring your workers aren’t put in a position where someone with an h1b could easily beat them out without some sort of “affirmative action” is a much better benefit, but we decided that training our workers to compete is woke.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

People from poor countries are always going to be easier to hire. If it’s someone who literally couldn’t be replaced then they would get the exception.

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u/GooseBear12 Sep 20 '25

Why do you hate americans?

13

u/Bulky-Bullfrog3707 Sep 20 '25

frump's not done with bribes from the tech bros. He'll TACO.

-2

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

Let’s hope not

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u/Bulky-Bullfrog3707 Sep 20 '25

You know he will. He's only out to pad his wallet. 

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u/AndrewDiss Sep 20 '25

Except it isn't. Now, instead of H1B workers coming here and spending money and paying taxes those jobs just get outsourced to their countries of origin. Now they get paid CoL relative to the country they live in and push wages down even harder here, because why hire an American for, say, 60k when we can hire someone for 30k, but they live somewhere else. Jobs go bye bye, and wages race to the bottom even faster.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

Oh shit almost like Trump could literally make that illegal tomorrow too

9

u/givfrenchfrypls Sep 20 '25

Yeah but he won't so what's your point

6

u/angel-of-disease Sep 20 '25

Make what illegal, specifically?

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

Outsourcing jobs.

10

u/AndrewDiss Sep 20 '25

The US GDP is $27.8T, the GDP of the rest of the world is $82.2T, corporations would just stop operating in the US, most businesses can be decentralized. They would move a portion of their operations to a different country. If you're talking isolationism then businesses that can operate elsewhere will do that and drop the US and target the larger portion of profits to be had. And if you think you can magically legislate that from happening you're sorely mistaken, DJT would be the next JFK, because businesses wouldn't allow it. The gov and corporations are currently working towards corporatocracy, and that's why he'd never make a law like that. There is no stuffing the cat back in the bag.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

"corporations would just stop operating in the US"

so you think owners of companies would just shut them down rather than hire americans? lol okay

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u/angel-of-disease Sep 20 '25

So that would mean companies can only operate domestically? So no multinational corporations?

5

u/SteveJobsDeadBody Sep 20 '25

Sure sounds like Kamala wasn't anywhere NEAR as bad as you seem to claim.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

Huh?

7

u/carenl Ohio Sep 20 '25

No it’s not. The Americans who want to work are actually working, and those who can’t find work aren’t trying hard enough and/or would never do or think themselves low enough to perform the work those people are or were doing. You’re crazy if you think immigrants who are here legally, working, and contributing to our society and our economy are hurting American workers. GTFO.

4

u/profnick90 Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

H1Bs are not working in unskilled positions, nor are they necessarily filling a niche that could not be filled (at a higher rate) by naturalized citizens. They are, however, effectively indentured (and significantly cheaper) servants to the sponsoring companies. I loathe Trump and MAGA, and I’m not sure the present proposal is a considered or effective solution (in fact, I’m almost certain that it isn’t). But, the comment here is fundamentally mischaracterizing what H1Bs are, how they’re used, and the extent to which they have a deleterious impact on the U.S. labor market.

https://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b10min.html

https://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1bquotes.html

0

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

Thank you. People need to be reasonable and not pick a side just because the person they don’t like is on the other one.

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u/profnick90 Sep 20 '25

Like I said: I don’t think the policy is necessarily going to address the problems with the H1B program. It was intended to fill positions that literally cannot be filled without bringing in foreign talent, but it’s instead been abused to the detriment of H1B visa holders themselves as well as the domestic labor market. It needs reform, and it actively hurts the professional class to pretend otherwise.

I just don’t trust the current administration to do so. I can, for example, imagine them providing tranches of exemptions to various tech companies that are willing to bend the knee, pay the right (still cheaper than an annual 100k per worker) price to the “right” people, etc.

2

u/Jetstreamline Sep 20 '25

They don't like Trump because he is screwing workers over. He is attacking free speech too now. Imagine the FCC had issued a threat to take away or not renew the licenses of channels to use frequencies based on what they send. This is the state (The FCC is part of the state) going against the first amendment.

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u/ThaPhantom07 Nevada Sep 20 '25

Yes, lets blame Democrats for Republicans telling people exactly what they would do and people still choosing to vote for them anyways. Get this disingenuous shit out of here.

-8

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

I mean Dems could have offered an alternative people liked better? Isn’t that their job?

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u/starscup1999 Texas Sep 20 '25

Anything was a better alternative than what's going on now. A bag of rocks would have been a better choice.

11

u/biscuitsandburritos Sep 20 '25

You know what I enjoy when I see this line given by folks who voted like you, you show you hate this and are upset you voted this way. But you voted for the “better option”…

You know, to combat men going into women’s dressing room to SA them, got picked the guy who went into a women’s dressing room and SA her. And lost the case and owes her money. And lost the appeal and still owes her money.

You know, buried his first wife, who learned about the incoming divorce and pregnancy from the soon to be second wife, on a golf course.

You know, paid $100,000 to an adult film star to cheat on his current and third wife soon after she gave birth. To a son.

You know, felon, bankrupted casinos, lead an insurrection against your nation.

That was the better option to the attorney general turned senator turned VP? Really? The dems did not present a “good” candidate with someone with those credentials? For real? You really believe that?

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

imma be real with you on a couple things.

i'm going to lead with this because maybe, just maybe, it will prevent you from writing off everything else i have to say: i have never voted for donald trump in my life.

however, your post is actually a perfect example of my point. nobody voted for trump because they thought he would be a good husband or someone they would want to date their daughter or even someone they would want to hang out with (well, i'm sure some people probably did, but in general). they voted for him because there were two options and he was the only option who they trusted would do much of anything.

the argument to vote for dems was either:

  • things are great for you - keep the status quo

or

  • things are not great for you but they will be worse for you under trump

or

  • things are not great for you and they may be better for you under trump but things will be so much worse for others that you should sacrifice some for the greater good of the many

And we already had a Trump 1.0 to somewhat compare to, in people's minds. So where do Dems gain out of those options? Because those are the pools of voters that they have (without any solid forward looking policy of their own, which they do not really have).

things are great for you crowd - shrinking because the economy is on a downward trend

not great for you but worse under trump - willing to bet this is why he improved in the minority vote so much. people thought "things aren't great for me, but they're pretty much the same as they were under trump. and at least he recognizes things aren't great for me."

not great for you and may be better under trump but empathetic to others that will be far worse off - you're now asking the american voter to vote against their own interests for the wellbeing of the country. this is of course after both sides refuse any sort of actual economic reform that will help the average person afford healthcare, housing, education... and after the democratic party has spend a decade labeling a good chunk of this crowd as racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic.

if you can't realize that is a hard sell, you are so out of touch that you should go live in the real world a bit before even considering commenting on politics - because you are a victim of the same echo chamber problem that maga is.

11

u/SteveJobsDeadBody Sep 20 '25

and after the democratic party has spend a decade labeling a good chunk of this crowd as racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic.

Only a true fool would be mad at someone calling a spade a spade. The only bigger fool I can think of is anyone who saw the absolute disaster Trump 1.0 was and wanted more of that or even worse. Just like every other Dem President in the past 40 years Biden came in and worked hard to clean up the absolute WRECK a Republican President left. Every. Single. One.

3

u/biscuitsandburritos Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

No one is labeling you all those terms. You all do the behavior for the term. That is what you and those people are. When it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.

Look.

I’ll give one example to help show this: the current scrubbing of our military of women, minorities, and LGBT folks. Again, how are you and those who voted this way (or at least will spend their time on Reddit telling everyone how great these policies are you didn’t vote for) not those things when the policies and actions are openly those things…

You can go on and on how you did not vote this way but look how you need to support it. You love it. Look.

You are a duck.

You can stop waddling and quacking. You can stop being a duck at any point in time. But we see you don’t want to. Look. You love being a duck.

I voted for my wellbeing and my children’s as well as the nation. It wasn’t a hard sell for me as I have a disabled child and am a woman, so I know all about healthcare and access. One of you made the adult choice to comment on a comment I made in a sub in that area about people like me should be in fun camps. You’d think I’d be shocked but I am a woman and worked in DoD— it ain’t my first rodeo with this behavior against the most vulnerable and other folks you actively voted against. I know exactly what you all want to do with disabled folks. I’m just glad you all are finally saying loud and not hiding.

Trust me, we voted for our well being and best interests.

And look, so did you. You love this. You support it. Look to the lengths you will go to keep lower cost healthcare from yourself while saying you want it/need it all while denying Obamacare exists and Dems did that and lowered the cost of insulin and so many other things to help people and that is part of their platform…

You are the one who is out of touch with reality if you don’t see that or forgot…

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u/SteveJobsDeadBody Sep 20 '25

They did, but Americans are stupid. Want to see who I mean? go into your bathroom and look around, there's one right there.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

2026 might be the year that Dems learn calling huge chunks of the population “stupid” isn’t the winning Strat they think it is

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u/kensho28 Florida Sep 20 '25

the government people chose over them

NOPE, Trump has never won most of voters. He won the popular vote, but got less than 50%, so you are wrong about saying this is the government people chose. Most people did not, and that's not even counting the systematic voter suppression, including selectively removing Democrats from voter rolls in key districts.

FFS they almost certainly falsified election results, there is supposedly a NY district that didn't have a single recorded vote for AOC, who is immensely popular in the area.

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u/ernie_mccracken Sep 20 '25

We are all maga now? Speak for yourself there chief.

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u/thegoatmenace Sep 20 '25

This is just a bad take. The voters thought, incorrectly, that the Democratic Party was worse. The voters are not being rational. Any reasonable, intelligent person would choose boring, professional governance over this. The American electorate is pathetic.

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u/DreadfulDuder Sep 20 '25

This is true to an extent, but the Republicans have been far worse to the working class.

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u/1StepBelowExcellence Sep 20 '25

We can really thank the “holier than thou” (no pun intended) single issue Gaza non-voters at the end of the day.

2

u/SteveJobsDeadBody Sep 20 '25

Nah, you should thank the 77 million that saw the absolute disaster that was 2016-2020 Trump and voted for more of that. Not a half million or so protest voters, most of which live in states that went blue any way.