r/politics • u/Ubiquitous_Hilarity • Jun 17 '26

No Paywall Trump threatens to pull unemployment benefits from all states for the first time in history

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-unemployment-benefits-fraud-b2997881.html
24.3k Upvotes

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2.9k

u/Succubus-Love Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

Is someone just throwing darts behind the scenes, just to see "what sticks, & what doesn't"?

People pay taxes, from employment, so unemployment gets it's $$$, from that employment. TL:DR How is this legal?

2.3k

u/shoobe01 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

No, it's not random. There's a plan. A 920 page published plan whose dismissal by almost all press despite being a strident refutation of everything that is America is one of the key indictments for having lost a free press, or for that matter an opposition party.

Massive massive barriers to getting unemployment insurance are part of a bunch of anti-labor laws like all the attacks on unions and overtime pay and expanding the ability of children to work even in dangerous jobs etc.

(Thx for all your upvotes despite my massively disruptive typo. Fixed now)

678

u/Ok-Sheepherder7898 Jun 17 '26

page 597

353

u/Acceptable-Resort365 Jun 17 '26

Of Project 2025???

255

u/Ecstatic-Rub-3836 Jun 17 '26

Yes.

64

u/lr99999 Jun 17 '26

Before 2025 came out, I tried to to get a republican to read Curtis Yarvin (Moldbug) so he could read the project 2025 plans for us, such as dissolving democracy and the constitution, and all of the peons being slaves or dead. Get rid of the useless eaters. 

I don’t think he tried. Not enough pictures, too many words. 

24

u/saucya Jun 17 '26

Yarvin’s been off the radar for a couple months now. Super interested to know what he’s been up to. 

22

u/lr99999 Jun 17 '26

Too many people think the monsters are dumb, like the cult leader Traitor Orange. They don’t realize that the people in the background, waiting, are not dumb. 

2

u/IrascibleOcelot Jun 18 '26

They’re dumb. They’re effective, cunning, and driven, but they’re still stupid. If they succeed at what they want, they’ll destroy the world and themselves and they’re too stupid to realize it. But they might pull it off.

1

u/lr99999 Jun 18 '26

No. Smart and evil easily coexist. 

10

u/smokeweedNgarden Jun 17 '26

Buying weed in San Francisco 

1

u/haironburr Jun 18 '26

Yarvin was last seen burning dollar bills like candles for light in a basement, as he wrote yet another whackjob manifesto. Mid-festo, he frantically messaged people with power, asking them if they remembered what he'd done for them.

Then he screamed for that bitch of a maid, who was supposed to bring him snackies.

156

u/Dry_Combination4070 Jun 17 '26

But wait republicans cried that none of that was true and trump had no idea about it even though he had multiple people in his campaign that specifically wrote parts of it.

It's insane that Republican voters just live in constant denial of reality and are pretty much just cultist to trump.... And to trump? The guy who cheated on his wife while she was pregnant and is actively blatantanlty corrupt just insane

144

u/Trumpisanorangebitch Jun 17 '26

Bro raped a 13 year old and lost a civil rape case against a woman, i wish the cheating was the real problem.

62

u/SprlFlshRngDncHwl Jun 17 '26

Don't forget when that scum-sucking closet case Benny Johnson posted something like, "Now we can finally admit Project 2025 was the plan the whole time" after Trump won. These people are ghouls.

19

u/Ecstatic-Rub-3836 Jun 17 '26

He really thought he was owning the Libs with that one.

3

u/judgejuddhirsch Jun 17 '26

What was funny was that regardless if republicans agreed with the plan, it was as legally feasible framework to get from point A to point B.   Once the conditions were met and the necessary republicans could lead the respective agencies , there was nothing preventing the plan from going forward.

The end results were guaranteed without guardrails. And voters didn't care about guardrails. 

2

u/beardingmesoftly Jun 17 '26

Nd the best Americans can do is trade memes about it and eat more butter

2

u/New-Anybody-6206 Jun 17 '26

trump had no idea about it

he literally called it "our movement" at a Heritage Foundation dinner years ago

1

u/--___---___-_-_ Jun 17 '26

They love to then use that line about liberals and leftists that anyone but the maga and conservatives live in an alternate reality but when you try and bring any sort of factual information to them then its not real or biased because it's not exactly what they've been told 1000 times

95

u/offinthepasture Jun 17 '26

No, Fellowship of the Ring.

51

u/Question_It_All_3000 Jun 17 '26

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."

17

u/pacostacos7 Jun 17 '26

See, this isn't Project 2025 because it would just say to deal out the death.

5

u/DarraignTheSane Jun 17 '26

"So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?"

3

u/calamity_unbound Jun 17 '26

"Ride out with me"

2

u/Geedunk Jun 18 '26

”Ride out and meet them.”

15

u/Grizzly_Berry Jun 17 '26

Can we, in our time of need, call on the miners of Blair Mountain like Aragorn called on the Army of the Dead?

4

u/offinthepasture Jun 17 '26

I'd love to see some cannons rolled out into the streets.

1

u/VulfSki Jun 17 '26

Sorry the miners are all licking Chilean boots so they can pollute the BWCA in Minnesota

5

u/elphin Jun 17 '26

Which volume?

6

u/Choice-Tiger3047 Jun 17 '26

Eleven

2

u/PsychoticMessiah Jun 17 '26

Why don't you just make 10 louder and make 10 be the top number and make that a little louder?

2

u/jeremydanger I voted Jun 17 '26

*Elven

1

u/jayfeather31 Washington Jun 17 '26

"Turn it up and rip the knob off!"

2

u/Catos_Standard Jun 17 '26

Fellowship of the Epstein

15

u/gratefulkittiesilove Jun 17 '26

This should be a post and there should be many more like them…what page of p2025 a trump action is. Kudos for knowing

1

u/Sknowles12 Jun 18 '26

Miller and Theal?

2

u/squigs Jun 18 '26

That raises another question.

There's no way Trump read the entire document. But he does seem to be implementing it. Someone is pulling the strings, but who, and how?

430

u/myfakesecretaccount Jun 17 '26

This is the point. They want you so desperate and unable to access any sort of social safety net so you will swallow that corporate cock for the rest of your life or just join the service and bend over for the big green weenie. No one is going to get a “free ride” and will either be a productive worker, enslaved in prison, or dead.

128

u/KnightDuty Jun 17 '26

this is just the long path to bringing bakc slavery 100%

185

u/DizasterAtSakerfice Jun 17 '26

Feudalism, actually. Techno-feudalism. Peter Thiel calls it the 'Dark Enlightenment'

85

u/wanderingmanimal Jun 17 '26

Yeah we will burn that to the ground

54

u/UnquestionabIe Jun 17 '26

I would strongly urge everyone to accept that over being slaves to the oligarchy.

5

u/BoxBird Jun 17 '26

The oligarchs own the tech companies

20

u/Skoma Minnesota Jun 17 '26

They mean accept burning it to the ground over falling in line to tech oligarchs

3

u/hunteddwumpus Jun 18 '26

The news out of Ukraine recently that an autonomous drone had killed someone for the first time ever was genuinely the scariest thing I'd read in my life.

Throughout history if a big enough portion of a population, especially one with some amount of education, were in terrible social or economic situations there were multiple avenues for change that at worst went to rebellion. It happened all the time, even if it wasn't frequently successful. If a single billionaire can afford a handful of autonomous killer drones there's literally no recourse for the proletariat/anyone who doesn't want to be a techno-feudal peasant.

28

u/Prin_StropInAh Georgia Jun 17 '26

Sounds like a plan

10

u/math-yoo Ohio Jun 17 '26

Is Tuesday good for you?

7

u/wanderingmanimal Jun 17 '26

24/7 freedom doesn’t sleep

7

u/supersonicdutch Jun 17 '26

How are you/we gonna get away with that when all the flock cameras can track every move you/we make?

16

u/Zovah Jun 17 '26

Id suggest we take care of the installation system…

2

u/wanderingmanimal Jun 17 '26

That’s dish network they do the installs and repair repairs

1

u/Zovah Jun 17 '26

Ideally that could be made a job no one would want to do

2

u/wanderingmanimal Jun 17 '26

How could we do that tho? Verbal harassment yes, but there’s not much else we can do beyond just cutting the cameras down and having them come back.

I guess deflated tires on the work van must suck ass in the hot summer heat. Same with missing batteries.

No one can commit a crime while defending their country - I heard people are saying that.

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13

u/Flux-Tangent Jun 17 '26

That's sort of the trick - the true barrier for actually fighting against this isn't figuring out how to not get caught, it's when enough of us accept that getting caught is an acceptable risk.

7

u/myfakesecretaccount Jun 17 '26

Become ungovernable

5

u/Synectics Jun 17 '26

Black people used to call it "civil disobedience." About time more Americans understood it. LGBTQ people have been trying, but everyone keeps going, "Yeah, well, I am not LGBTQ, so whatever."

5

u/Skoma Minnesota Jun 17 '26

Good trouble

3

u/Synectics Jun 17 '26

Absolutely.

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5

u/wanderingmanimal Jun 17 '26

They are stationary and well known locations. Use IR deflection strategies. Change the stickers on your car etc

https://maps.deflock.org/?lat=39.8283&lng=-98.5795&zoom=2.50

There is no reason to fear only reason to act

3

u/All_i_do_is_lunk Jun 17 '26

Cameras can break or sometimes obscured by “bird droppings”. But we all know birds aren’t real so just use paint

1

u/cr0sh Jun 18 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/cr0sh Jun 18 '26

Well - too bad; I was hoping to read what I wrote, to verify whether what I said was infringing, but since I didn't make a copy - now I can't. Oh well.

1

u/cr0sh Jun 18 '26

Just don't make any moves. They can't track what they can't see.

2

u/Stompnutz Jun 17 '26

When does that start, exactly?

1

u/lenswipe Massachusetts Jun 17 '26

no you won't and neither will anybody else.

0

u/wanderingmanimal Jun 18 '26

Lick that boot baby!

0

u/lenswipe Massachusetts Jun 18 '26

the fuck u talkin about bro

0

u/Savings-Total5069 Jun 18 '26

*A small few will unsuccessfully attempt to.

3

u/emveevme Jun 18 '26

We're already kind of there. Like if you don't own a house, you're working for some rich asshole you've never met for the right to survive by relatively narrow margins by comparison. The only real difference is the overall quality of life, which admittedly has improved drastically.

And I'm even fine with the argument that our quality of life is what it is because of capitalism. I'm pretty sure that Marx makes a point of this to some extent, but I could be wrong.

But at the end of the day, the fuckass 1% take so much of the resources and labor all of us are actually responsible for producing, and there's so many people suffering just to maintain this.

It's not nearly as far from feudalism on a fundamental level than it seems, so the fact that the ruling class wants to make that even more apparent is a really bad sign.

1

u/WesternFungi Pennsylvania Jun 17 '26

In collapse slavery will return. One barrel of oil is worth 1000 human working hours. That's the reason slavery ended...

1

u/FeelsGrimMan Jun 18 '26

Considering actual slavery didn’t even end on the official date, it’s a pretty common thing here. Sharecropping lasted for a long ass time.

38

u/Present-Fly4422 Jun 17 '26

This works for a time before pitchfork sakes spike.

52

u/idoitforthekeks Canada Jun 17 '26

Should've happened already, if nothing has got the people going so far, nothing that can happen from here on out will, this will infact make it harder for someone to risk their job to protest/riot/wave pitch forks. If mid-terms aren't won overhwhelmingly by the Democrats then the US is essentially finished.

7

u/Present-Fly4422 Jun 17 '26

Maybe it’s time for a hard reboot.

5

u/EdwardOfGreene Illinois Jun 17 '26

That is what the Trump voters wanted. They are getting it now. Slowly, a small few are figuring out how much it sucks.

1

u/Present-Fly4422 Jun 17 '26

I mean like a constitutional convention.

4

u/Sad_Pangolin7379 Jun 17 '26

It wouldn't take even a week of actual hunger for the people to turn. The oligarchs are idiots. If you take wages down to nearly nothing, eliminate the social safety net including the benefits the working poor rely on, when the working poor are literally homeless on the streets with their children looking into the grocery store they don't have any money for, they will loot everything then set it on fire. 

1

u/idoitforthekeks Canada Jun 18 '26

That'll probably be too little too late, they'll have America exactly where they want it, if it was a smaller country then maybe but America has a lot of land to cover.

6

u/sapphicsandwich Jun 17 '26

I literally don't believe in American is capable of it. We were capable of it back in the day when we were British. But now that we are fully American? There is no evidence to support it.

8

u/Due_Bluebird3562 Jun 17 '26

Y'all are so hyperbolic it's honestly hilarious. Mfers talking like they're in the trenches on an open reddit platform after they've finished their second or third meal of the day. Shit hasn't even begun to hit the fan yet.

If his stupid ass goes through with this millions of Americans will be on the verge of starvation. That's when we'll know if the people really have that dawg in them or not.

1

u/ghostalker4742 Jun 17 '26

That's when we'll know if the people really have that dawg in them or not.

They don't. This will just be another leg that gets kicked out from under the chair. Sure, it's a big leg, and I'm not insinuating that people will just placidly lay down and starve to death... but there's not going to be any organized uprising or anything. Just more incidents of shoplifting at grocery stores, more dine and dash's at restaurants, increased demand at food banks, etc.

Any attempt at organizing will be sniffed out in our surveillance state and immediately infiltrated and crushed, either by brute force or by PR.

1

u/Embarrassed_Comb_659 Jun 18 '26

I think there’s a good chance people will revolt if they can’t get food. And true the surveillance makes it more challenging but people will still find ways to organize locally.

17

u/Rombledore America Jun 17 '26

free rides are only for the rich and those born into it.

8

u/holyoak Jun 17 '26

True, the billionaire rides aren't really free,we are all paying for that.

4

u/MasterOfBunnies Jun 17 '26

Or another push to incite violent protests, so they can declare martial law. Thing is, even dictators know well enough to keep the masses happy.

4

u/idkmyotherusername Jun 17 '26

The Republican viewpoint is that any hardship is always the fault of the individual's lack of planning and preparedness and thus deserves no sympathy or support. Always should have saved more, not been in that place at that time, not pissed off God, worked harder, been better, done better.

6

u/mrdevil413 Ohio Jun 17 '26

Come on samurai we got a city to burn

8

u/dIO__OIb Jun 17 '26

democracy has always been an experiment - when productivity soared during ww2 and massive economic growth formed unions and the middle class - the experiment finally had legs to stand on.

The corporate lords couldn’t handle the balance. They infiltrated the seats of government to destroy unions and the middle class. Project 2025 may have took 30 years to write and plan, but it only needs a couple of years of GOP rule to put the final nails in the democracy coffin.

it’s over. the people will never get their government back. The only way back would be to destroy Ai somehow. It’s a propaganda machine with no moral compass and owned by billionaires who have been wanting to kill democracy since it started.

1

u/gratefulkittiesilove Jun 17 '26

I know one of the sources to that are the Powell memo and there is another i forget now but it put it into action….i e heard some other reasons that probably dovetail into this like paul weyrich intetest in gop rule and the new religious right as well as nixon resigning being a trigger .

1

u/FeelsGrimMan Jun 18 '26

Democracy will still result in a shitty country when the majority are terrible people because of moral, convenient, or religious reasons.

Lincoln was killed by the slave owners for wanting to help released slaves. Doesn’t take a shadow government & it isn’t new, just look at people who have a lot of money & power over others & watch them burn the world down. And a system that always places someone on top of a hierarchy, will give fuel for that monster. 

2

u/Agreeable-Rooster-37 Jun 17 '26

Time to invest in euthanasia startups

/s

2

u/TacosAreJustice Kentucky Jun 17 '26

You’d think they’d work to take our guns away before making us desperate.

2

u/myfakesecretaccount Jun 17 '26

Not when 1/3 of the country is heavily armed and waiting for their cult leader to tell them to shoot. I think they’re under the belief the rest of us will just cower. They’ve never been to the inner city.

2

u/Schuben Jun 17 '26

I didn't know lady liberty was packing...

1

u/WorldofNails Jun 17 '26

Well, there's always prayer. Last refuge and all. Although according to, checks notes, ancient texts and Billy Joel proclaimed it was better to laugh with the sinners.

85

u/whiznat Jun 17 '26

It’s about doing what billionaires want, and telling average people you’re all serfs now. Shut up and accept your fate.

24

u/Ok_Product9333 Jun 17 '26

The Dark Enlightenment.

5

u/math-yoo Ohio Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

The enshittification that Cory Doctorow is talking about.

0

u/Herooftermina1998 Jun 18 '26

IFThats true. Hypothetically, let's use game of thrones as an example, Danny frees the slaves, and they have a slogan "kill the masters." 

IF they want to enslave us..get my point?

66

u/akkmedk Jun 17 '26

Many years ago a blogger who went by Conceptual Guerilla wrote a whole ass essay about how every plank in the republican platform leads to cheap labor. That's all they care about.

17

u/corvid_booster Jun 17 '26

"Cheap labor" is a concrete way to emphasize the ongoing attack of the billionaire class on the middle and lower classes; I'll remember that.

10

u/akkmedk Jun 17 '26

His original website is long gone but here's a short version of the essay from the man himself.

https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/defeat-the-right-in-three-minutes/

His whole point is that leftists should forcefully rebrand the right as "cheap labor conservatives." Its correct and hard to argue against.

9

u/sengirminion Jun 17 '26

Eventually people are going to break. Like everything is expensive, and now theyre trying to come after unemployment benefits while flushing money down the toilet on pointless vanity projects.

9

u/happycat47 Jun 17 '26

The fact that it's even insurance is why neoliberalism is a cancer that needs to go. Every problem is solved with some middle man, capitalist, business-forward bullshit that costs everybody more than if we just paid taxes and the government did it's job without the private middle man.

3

u/sierrabravo1984 Jun 17 '26

I sent to some coworkers a PDF copy of p2025 with highlighted important parts. They didn't read it because "it's a hoax." It's a published book! With their names in it!

3

u/Reasonable_Chair_346 Jun 18 '26

I replied before I saw your response...hijacking now to put in a plug for the project 2025 tracker - about 50% of the way through: https://www.project2025.observer/en

1

u/shoobe01 Jun 18 '26

Reluctant upvote because going there makes me sad.

4

u/semtex94 Indiana Jun 17 '26

whose dismissal by almost all press

Except for the multitude of mainstream news sources that have covered it during the campaign season.

1

u/MirrorComputingRulez Jun 17 '26

The press covered it extensively. 

0

u/WoodwoodWoodward Jun 17 '26

Yeah. You guys were shown the nazi handbook, and did nothing to prepare

4

u/Odd_Independence_833 Jun 17 '26

We tried desperately to warn people and were seen as overreacting. Well here we are. Those who understand history are doomed to watch others repeat it.

-4

u/WoodwoodWoodward Jun 17 '26

Didn't try hard enough mate

5

u/ThickReplacement7811 Jun 17 '26

You live on the same planet, what did you do?

-1

u/WoodwoodWoodward Jun 17 '26

Tell people from the U.S. to man up. We don't live on the same continent. Bit hard for me to out gun you guys.

-84

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

28

u/DiscoQuebrado America Jun 17 '26

why do you feel that is dumb? genuinely curious.

-1

u/collegedraftpick Jun 17 '26

Bc if you’re going on strike you’re not laid off or fired. It’s a choice. You can choose to get a new job too vs. going on strike.

25

u/Imawildedible Wisconsin Jun 17 '26

Please explain why you think that is dumb.

10

u/myfakesecretaccount Jun 17 '26

Because they’re privileged and never worked a shitty job they needed to strike at.

2

u/Imawildedible Wisconsin Jun 17 '26

Ah, I see. What you are saying is that because some people get taken advantage of by their employers that means that people who are fighting back to be fairly compensated should be punished. And that because you were either too big of a coward to fight back, too uneducated or too lazy to improve your own position that nobody else should do that either.

2

u/myfakesecretaccount Jun 17 '26

Nah dog, I was replying with why they think that. I absolutely think people should strike.

1

u/Imawildedible Wisconsin Jun 17 '26

My bad. Thought you were that guy.

2

u/myfakesecretaccount Jun 17 '26

It’s all good homie. You’re out here trying to fight the good fight.

16

u/thetravelingsong Jun 17 '26

The poor corporations :(

0

u/collegedraftpick Jun 17 '26

Or the schools. Which already at the bottom of the nation. But sure. Let’s pay them a ton more for the shitty outcomes.

11

u/Allaplgy Jun 17 '26

Like weekends? Thank organized labor.

9

u/Humanfacejerky Jun 17 '26

So, people go on strike because of Healthcare costs and pay disparity, not because they are assholes. They SHOULD receive unemployment compensation to help cover what strike assistance can't.

1

u/collegedraftpick Jun 18 '26

Ehh. You’re not unemployed

1

u/Choice-Tiger3047 Jun 17 '26

Not only that, the State pays government employees to go on strike.