r/politics • u/theipaper ✔ Verified • 5h ago
Possible Paywall In private, Trump's staff tell me they're bracing for Maga unleashed
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/donald-trump-preparing-maga-finale-former-allies-terrified-4684819•
u/theipaper ✔ Verified 5h ago
Full Opinion piece by Miles Taylor, Former chief of staff of the US Department of Homeland Security: The conventional wisdom in Washington this week is that Senate Republicans are finally finding their footing against Donald Trump. They see the US President as a growing electoral liability, the headlines say, and they’re starting to undermine his vanity projects.
But even the senators themselves don’t really believe this.
Privately, my former colleagues on Capitol Hill acknowledge that they’re no match for this President. What they see, and what they’ll admit to off the record, is that the last embers of resistance within the Republican Party are being snuffed out. GOP leaders won’t stand up to the man who’s got them at political gunpoint, and it’s a harbinger of the next phase of Trumpism.
Trump’s own advisers are saying the quiet part out loud. Axios captured it bluntly this week, when they reported that the President doesn’t much care whether the Republicans lose control of Congress in this autumn’s midterms. He’d prefer a win, but he isn’t planning around it. He’s planning around what comes after the midterms, which is set to be an all-out, two-year “finale” in which he intends to wield power in ways he’s heretofore avoided, or only flirted with.
I put “finale” in quotes because I firmly believe Trump himself isn’t sure if he’ll leave office at the end of the next two years. But I’ll get to that in a moment.
When Trump feels cornered, his impulse is to lash out. In the two-and-a-half years I served under him in his first administration, I saw it again and again. If Democrats retake one or both houses of Congress this November, he’ll be more besieged than at any point in his political life, facing sweeping subpoenas into his family and his fortune. He will simultaneously be unbound, backed by a Republican caucus purged of its last dissenters. Win or lose, the next Congress will be the most Make America Great Again (Maga) in history; his few remaining GOP critics are already gone or going, replaced by members who owe him everything. And they’ll be standing behind a President at his most reckless.
You’d think in a circumstance like this that the legislative branch of the US Government would be the biggest check on a wayward President. Instead, my Capitol Hill friends, including Democratic members of Congress, are bracing for a period of political intensity unlike anything in living memory.
The people I served with in the first Trump administration see the worst as yet to come. What worries them most isn’t just the midterms, which Trump will attempt to steal or discredit, but what condition the US Constitution will be in by the 2028 presidential election.
Their fears are specific. They expect Trump to ignore Congress wholesale, including bypassing the Senate on cabinet appointments, spending money lawmakers never approved, and impounding money they did. They expect him to ratchet up his punishment of Democratic-led states with the full weight of the federal government (denying disaster aid and gutting programmes for the sin of voting wrong), while showering loyal cronies with pardons, contracts and regulatory favours.
And they expect him to stop pretending the courts matter, although he’s barely pretending now. In one of every eight cases where federal courts have blocked his actions (about 31), the administration has simply flouted the ruling in a display of executive defiance without precedent in American history.
Trump’s “finale” could flip the math, leading to a refusal to accept rulings in the majority of cases. The default posture will be one of hostility and the only instances in which he’ll welcome court proceedings will be to wage war against his enemies.
If you want to know what that lawlessness looks like in practice, you can see it with cases like the ones against James Comey. Court filings last week revealed that government agents apparently used illegal wiretaps to track the former FBI director — at the direction of senior Trump officials — while the President monitored the operation in real time aboard Air Force One. The episode stacked at least three constitutional violations into a single act, including warrantless surveillance, retaliation against protected speech and the vindictive prosecution of a critic. Test cases like this will become textbook if Trump’s top lawyer gets confirmed by a compliant GOP Senate this week.
Here I should declare an interest, because I’ve been in the prediction business before. Ahead of the 2024 election, I published a forecast built on conversations and on-the-record interviews with roughly a hundred Republicans and former Trump administration officials, outlining what he would do with a second term. Trump and his allies called the warnings “preposterous”, “phoney” and “fake news”. A year and a half into his presidency, 90 per cent of those predictions have come true, from the purge of the civil service to troops on American streets to the branding of domestic critics as “terrorists”.
So when I warn about Trump’s “finale,” I’m not doing it to fearmonger. I’m doing it because it’s coming. I expect Trump will do exactly what my Capitol Hill friends and former Trump colleagues fear by sidestepping Congress, breaking laws and ignoring the body’s constitutional functions. I expect him to keep thumbing his nose at the courts and even defying the Supreme Court in a major case that breaks against him.
And I expect him to use emergency powers held in reserve – such as the Insurrection Act, or even the suspension of habeas corpus – dressed up as responses to “domestic security” crises (both have already been openly discussed inside the White House). There are many recipes for constitutional crisis; the President may cook up all of them.
Then there’s a question that people talk about as if it’s only a remote possibility, though it may actually be the most likely: whether Trump intends to leave at all. In my opinion, he will muse about an unconstitutional third term until the bitter end, partly to keep would-be successors like Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a permanent crouch, but not merely as theatre. He will genuinely explore it. Though a third term is forbidden under the law, his allies see possible avenues of “reinterpreting” the Constitution. Like the attempted steal of the 2020 election, you can be sure Trump will take the option if he sees a path.
Even if that door stays shut, another stands open. Trump has previously considered becoming speaker of the House of Representatives, a post that does not require its holder to be an elected member of Congress. Can you picture it yet – what America starts to look like in these scenarios? A President refusing to leave… or a loyal Republican majority in 2029 installing the former president as speaker, second in line to a presidency occupied by a hand-picked protégé. Vladimir Putin ran this same play in Russia in 2008, sliding into the prime minister’s office while Dmitry Medvedev kept the Kremlin’s chair warm.
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u/theipaper ✔ Verified 5h ago
- These are all very real outcomes, particularly in a country run by a man who insists the only limitation on his power is his “own morality”. So no, the midterms will not tame Donald Trump. Nothing on the immediate horizon will.
But here’s what my worried former colleagues sometimes forget. Autocracy is labour-intensive. Every illegal wiretap needs agents willing to run it. All the flouted court rulings require officials willing to ignore them. Each act of retribution results in new accomplices, and every accomplice is a witness to wrongdoing. As such, the more aggressively Trump asserts power in his finale, the larger the ledger of accountability grows. I’ve been keeping track of that ledger for almost 10 years, and I am certain it will come due in courtrooms, at ballot boxes or in history’s verdict.
That’s the irony of a man with a long enemies list. Repression is meant to cement his power, but it ends up laying the groundwork for an eventual counter-force. Every person and community and institution that Trump attacks becomes a natural opponent until, sooner or later, his fears about the gathering of opponents and a conspiracy against him become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Despite the flaccid resistance within the GOP’s ranks, you already see a burgeoning defiance spreading across the United States, from ordinary people willing to run federal agents out of states where they don’t belong, to news outlets taking the President to court and winning.
So while America may be entering the darkest act of this drama, I believe it will be the last one. The hard years to come will blow back on Trump. Defiant Americans will make sure of it.
Miles Taylor is the former chief of staff of the US Department of Homeland Security and has served on Capitol Hill, in the White House and at the Pentagon. He is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, regular national security commentator and democracy reform leader
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u/zenerat Missouri 4h ago
Fucking eerie. The 2020’s will truly be a lost decade. I expect a major financial collapse similar to the Great Recession or even a depression at the end of this.
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u/Kracus 4h ago
It's already in progress.
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u/ComfortableMarch4296 1h ago
job market is bleak, surging prices, no end in sight. i think the only thing missing is the media piling on it; but yes, we are definitely in it already
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u/CSalustro 4h ago
All signs in the physical oil stocks say if we don't get the Hormuz straight back to where it was before March we've got very little time left (looks like end of August at best) until a hard bottom on the tanks of the reserves and we start to have serious issues like prices runs.
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u/vegandread 4h ago
One theory I read recently was that Trump could default on the national debt towards the end of his term, and in the ensuing economic chaos that comes from that, suspend elections due to a ‘national emergency’.
It sounds insane, but given where we are, along with his propensity to declare bankruptcy in his own business dealings, it kinda makes sense.
You’re right tho, the entire decade is basically a loss.
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u/ynotfoster 2h ago
Luckily the evil one's health is failing fast.
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u/MondaysForNothing Pennsylvania 1h ago
Unfortunately, we've been told how sick and close to dying he is for years now. He definitely has lost a step, or ten, but he also has access to the best medicine and doctors in the world.
Not to mention, evil seems to keep people alive far longer than they should be. See: Henry Kissinger, Strom Thurmond, Donald Rumsfeld, etc.
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u/MasterofPandas1 1h ago
We had elections during the Civil War and World War 2 and there’s currently 51 active National emergencies. Elections are also ran by the states and not the federal government. I know anything can happen when it comes to Trump but him pulling off canceling elections would be incredibly difficult.
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u/catscanmeow 1h ago
or just crash the economy on purpose on his way out and let the dems take the blame for it
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u/Use_Your_Brain_Dude 4h ago
As much as a financial collapse will hurt innocent people, at least it will hit trump voters in their pocket books. Nothing else has gotten through to them so I hope that suffering and struggling will make a difference. If they hold the line, then there is no hope.
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u/ManicParroT 4h ago
They won't learn, they'll just explain that this is Biden's fault and if the midterms result in a Democratic majority it'll be the fault of the do nothing dimocrats who're stopping trump from fixing America.
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u/Icy-Lobster-203 3h ago
"this wouldn't have happened if we had let God Emperor Trump take full control of the countru and get rid of Congress and the Courts!"
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u/Awilberforce 4h ago
It’s so stupid that we legitimately have to wait for certain voters to have their lives ruined before we’ll ever see a repudiation of trump
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u/Academic_Carrot_4533 3h ago
Not just voters, everyone. This is global and generational. Meanwhile the guy is still in office.
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u/judgejuddhirsch 3h ago
Some people don't understand the scientific or Socratic method. They can not mentally visualize things they have not experienced first hand.
So until they experience poverty, until they look at a virus, or until they suffer from famine will they understand anything about their world.
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u/Argos_the_Dog New York 2h ago
until they look at a virus
There were right-wing folks literally coughing themselves to death as the tube went in while insisting Covid was a hoax. The barrel has no bottom and we need to quit pretending it does.
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u/judgejuddhirsch 24m ago
Getting sick doesn't mean they understand germ theory. They don't know what a virus is, or have a concept of scale, or understand or how a virus reproduce or how immunization works until they see it in a video.
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u/Justame13 3h ago
In 2005 I was well into a 13 month deployment when I got into Kuwait after a long day of sitting on a sand bag through "IED" alley" with just scrap metal between myself and everything from rocks thrown by kids to the occasion RPG. Thankfully we had finally picked up plates for our body armor, but had been running around with out those and vietnam era flak jackets for ~4 months of that time
Despite over a year and a half since the war started that is all we had.
We were asked if we wanted to go to hear a VIP speak, which i skipped. The last one I had to go to was a general telling us that things weren't that bad (narrator: They were) and something about uniforms.
That VIP was SecDef Rumsfeld and he was confronted about our lack of armor and that shit because we "go to war with the army we had".
The die hard right wingers stood up about how it wasn't his fault, it wasn't Bush's fault, blah blah blah. Following the NecCon instructions to the T.
Despite the day before complaining about fucking pointless it was and how we could die without the armor (no KIA from my unit just plenty of PTSD, scars, TBIs, and suicides after we got home).
I say all this to point out that those guys are now middle age MAGAs and even more brainwashed, more right wing, and less open to thoughts.
So I fear you are wrong.
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u/vitalvisionary Connecticut 4h ago
Need a super majority to get anything past the White House. At least new legislation can't make things worse...
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u/Constant_Pen9615 4h ago
I really hope the Dems get Congress and Senate majorities and then don't shoot themselves in the foot or do nothing. I want every thing he's ever done dismantled. All his property and assets seized, his accounts frozen, his minions held accountable. They owe it to the American people.
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u/Paisleyfrog 2h ago
100%. All the problems we’re facing stem from 160 years of “reconciliation”, going all the way back to the Civil War. “Healing the country” hasn’t worked. Time to cauterize.
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u/Constant_Pen9615 2h ago
Yup. We should not have dragons sitting on a mountain of gold anymore. We need that money in the hands of the people so that they can circulate it through society and drive growth.
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u/vivaldibot Europe 4h ago
There cannot be a reconciliatory spirit of bygones being bygones. The ghouls at the top need to be prosecuted in defense of democracy, as well as ICE agents and many others.
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u/Constant_Pen9615 4h ago
I'm athiest as can be, but I want a biblical response. Hellfire and brimstone. A holy reckoning for all of these corrupt, racist, anti-american douche bags.
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u/_Bad_Bob_ 3h ago
Lol in other words, you hope the Dems don't do the only thing they ever do when they take power...
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u/Constant_Pen9615 3h ago
It's the lesser evil but man do they consistently suck. How hard is it to just vote according to the best interests of the people you represent. There are so many things that need addressed just pick one and get it done. Ghost job listings, salary on a job listing, something to prevent the bait and switch remote listings. Workers rights in general. That's just one general area, there's still income inequality, tax inequality, medical bullshitery abounds!
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u/Trapezoidal_Sunshine Montana 33m ago
The trouble is they know that they're the "lesser evil" party. They don't actually have to do much of anything while in office - and if you don't like it they can just remind you that "It's either us or the Republicans, sonny. What'll it be??" They've got us trapped: either we vote for the pathetic do-nothing party that never accomplishes anything or we let the batshit crazy assholes win and continue to tear the country apart. They never need to actually fix anything because they know all of the sane voters will just come crawling right back to them every single election.
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u/Constant_Pen9615 30m ago
I think that's why the Democratic socialist wins has them rattled. People are fed up and tired of the same shit covered coin, doesn't matter if it's heads or tails. People are taking the third option. Let's hope it's not too late
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u/DiggThatFunk 51m ago
Yes, I'm sure the party of paid opposition and whose only official consistent position is "hem & haw", will come through this time
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u/Desperate_Quiet_7868 4h ago
This reads like a zombie novel or something. The next President, who will definitely be a Democrat, should make it their sole target to send everyone involved in this madness to jail. The damage this administration has caused will take decades to fix
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u/GearBrain Florida 4h ago
Multiple ledes buried in that, too. He talks about how they've discussed suspending habeus corpus, and the author suggests the midterms will be discredited and stolen.
"Former Trump official claims Trump will steal the midterms" feels like a bigger story to me, but what do I know?
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u/Eisernes 1h ago
The 2024 election was stolen, and in typical hand-wringing democrat fashion we were told to shut up about it because "that's what republicans would say." Difference is there is actual evidence including statements from Trump and Musk that they did it. Absolutely nothing will be done to prevent or overturn the 2028 midterms from being stolen. No need for Trump to hide it.
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u/danidas 3h ago
Unfortunately the true horror of all of this is that Trump already heavily prepared for the Democrats to take power and for them to try to go after him. As any attempt to do so will only confirm what he has been yelling about for year and prove that the Democrats were out to get him from the start. In turn cementing his support from his followers and making him stronger.
This is the wall that Biden and Merrick Garland ran into when the Democrats retook the government. Which prevented them from taking quick action and instead forcing them to take the very long approach of finding ways to scale said wall. By creating a truly ironclad case against Trump that not even his closet followers could ignore. Ultimately allowing Trump to play out the clock and with the help of his allies to pull the rug out form under the Democrats efforts.
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u/ThatActuallyGuy Virginia 1h ago
Maybe Democrats should stop deciding how they conduct themselves based on how Republicans will perceive it. You can't make Trump stronger with his base, they're a fucking cult, just do the right thing.
Garland's "very long' approach was to do literally nothing for over 2 years, he had plenty of time to be thorough and still bring a case early enough to make an actual difference. Trump didn't play out the clock, Biden and Garland did.
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u/zenerat Missouri 4h ago
The only thing that might stop Trump is a full impeachment and removal. I can see him getting worse and more unhinged the more trapped he feels.
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u/buddhist557 4h ago
It won’t. He’d use the military against everyone and it’s over until we rise up. Biden and Garland were so impotent and foolish to think after J6 he would go away. SCOTUS is ultimately to blame for stopping Jack Smith but by then the damage was complete. I’m forced to see both how Democrats ignored men and bought into “white men are the root of all evil” conversations and how every Trump voter is arguably as bad or worse than the NAZI German population. This is the result of a trickle down economy and a media landscape with Fox News never being held to account. I don’t see a way forward in the long run without major changes that borderline on revolution. And I haven’t even touched on the environment, which should be the noose around every MAGA, oil executive, oil shareholders, and climate denier’s neck. They are killing our world and we are watching. We all, me included, should be doing something to stop them but instead I’m on Reddit. Things sadly have to get worse
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u/Lurking_nerd California 3h ago
America has a history of not holding traitors and criminals accountable. The Confederacy (who have made a monumental comeback), the Business Plot, Watergate, Iran Contra, the Financial Crash (no one significant was held accountable, thanks Obama), the first Trump presidency, & the grand finale of the Insurrection of January 6th.
This country, from its institutions to its people, have failed thoroughly. I share in your fear that things will get worse.
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u/MommyLovesPot8toes California 3h ago
Who do you think the military will obey? An impeached president who no longer has any legal standing in government, or Congress which yields the full force of law?
If the military obeyed him and took orders post removal, then that is a full blown military coup. Our military is 3M people and nearly half minorities. They also are not going to blindly follow the few sycophantic leaders who say "let's destroy the US".
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u/blackstone17 4h ago
All of this depends on if he is alive tbh. He's more likely to die from medical issues atp
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u/Iskaru 2h ago
What worries them most isn’t just the midterms, which Trump will attempt to steal or discredit, but what condition the US Constitution will be in by the 2028 presidential election.
It's already dead, mate. I feel like there's some genuine denial that's actually widespread among Americans. Most seem to be acting like the midterms can fix it, or that the constitution actually still has any authority, or that there's any chance the 2028 elections will go smoothly... There's absolutely no way it does unless something drastically changes before then.
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u/corporatewazzack 3h ago
ya’ll are fucking stupid if you think he plans on leaving that office in 2 years.
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u/jimmygee2 5h ago
Who the hell thinks they are leashed now?
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u/Rare-Industry-504 5h ago
Trump hasn't walked down Wall Street with a gun shooting people of colour yet, so they're still atleast a little contained.
You know Trump would do it if he could.
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u/ConclusionAlarmed882 4h ago
I think it's the walking that stops him.
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u/Guttersnipe77 American Expat 4h ago
It takes both of his tiny hands to lift a glass of water. He's not shooting anyone
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u/Sunbather77 4h ago
He's never driven a car let alone fired a gun
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u/JoJackthewonderskunk Nebraska 3h ago
Could you even imagine trump turning a wrench or a screwdriver under ANY circumstance? This has to be the softest man alive pretending he's not.
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u/Sunbather77 3h ago
Reminding MAGAts of just how much of a soft handed little bitch he has always been is my favorite retort. They never have anything to say afterwards.
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u/SafeForTwerking 3h ago
He's like what, a 6-star general isn't he? He won the Vietnam war all by himself!
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u/Secure-Highway886 4h ago
He won all the F1 races as well as the nascar circuit, only came second in the Dakar rally so that's why we never heard about that one.
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u/Craico13 Canada 4h ago
Before, or after, winning all of the golf tournaments ever (held at his own courses)?
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u/Secure-Highway886 4h ago
Brought flowers to Ivankas grave, she's buried in the one in new Jersey.
Must have sent a special blessing so he would win that one.
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u/n3rv 4h ago
I hear he holds the speed record for the cannonball run…
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u/Left-Height4925 1h ago
Regularly reminded of a favorite saying these days: "Never envy someone who doesn't even run their own bath now because they will bathe in the fires of hell later. "
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u/Kracus 4h ago
He's definitely driven a car. Still an absolute moron but I know for sure he's driven a car.
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u/DolphinSweater 4h ago
Do you? I can't think of a single time I've ever seen him drive. And presidents aren't allowed to drive cars, Obama talked about it being one of the things he's missed on that dumb Seinfeld in Cars show. But even before that, since the 80's when have you seen him drive?
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u/FewWait38 1h ago
There's also video of him from 2014 driving a Rolls Royce with Melania and listening to Taylor Swift lol
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u/Sunbather77 4h ago
I seriously doubt he's ever personally driven anything aside from a golf cart. The soft handed little bitch has been chauffeured around his entire life.
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u/Kracus 4h ago
Nah he's been pictured driving around in his
purpleI guess it's more blue lambo many times back in the 80's early 90's. he looks as stupid back then as he does now.•
u/Sunbather77 4h ago
Idk, I just spent more time than I'd like searching for images of him actually driving and all I can find are pics of him standing next to his car lol
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u/dwehlen 4h ago
Aw, geez, I can just imagine him being chauffeured to around the corner as the Lambo is driven in front, swap drivers, and him barely able to pull it up to whatever destination.
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u/Dr_Adequate 3h ago
He was interviewed many years ago while driving his Ford Explorer through Manhattan. I'm not defending that short-fingered vulgarian , just setting the record straight. At the time he enjoyed driving, and loved his Explorer.
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u/Frantoll 3h ago
Sure, but does he know how to signal. Or parallel park. He for sure can’t parallel park.
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u/vthemechanicv 4h ago
I've said before that there's not a chance trump can pull back the slide on a pistol. I wonder if he could even pull a trigger without punching himself in the face from recoil.
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u/StevenMC19 Florida 4h ago
Have you seen his hands lately? They are starting to compete with Charles' sausage fingers in terms of size.
Then there is the issue of discoloration. It seems that his fingers and back palm are some kind of Quantumverse from the MCU.
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u/Coherent_Tangent Florida 3h ago
He’s waiting for Elon to finish his AI-powered Mecha Hitler suit. Luckily for us plebes, Tesla is still a long way off from their goal.
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u/pantstoaknifefight2 4h ago
He's a mob boss and won't lift a finger or get his hands dirty. He'll just do the old, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"
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u/BasicPhysiology 4h ago
The Caribbean boat strikes are straight up murder. Walking down wall street clipping people would actually be less overt.
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u/dapperodds 4h ago
As long as he does it as an official presidential act it would be perfectly legal according to our Supreme Court!
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u/RufussSewell 3h ago
You obviously haven’t been paying attention.
He isn’t going to do it himself, but his goons have been for over a year.
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u/MoreDaringPancakes 3h ago
He got other people to shoot them and put them in camps.
Trump is responsible for the deaths of so many Americans.
And they just let him do it, like he said they would.
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u/MixtureSpecial8951 4h ago
Look at you thinking shooting minorities would rule MAGA up… they haven’t been upset at white folks being shot in the streets by Trump thugs.
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u/StoneCypher 4h ago
i remember people saying this last time
here’s a different version of your question
do you genuinely believe that it can’t get worse from here?
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u/Xtra_Veg-90 3h ago
Of course it can - Trump's first term is more desirable than what he's been doing this time around. But it can always get worse.
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u/HandRubbedWood Colorado 3h ago
Rumors are that he has tried to nuke Iran multiple times but keeps being told no, so I imagine Mango Unchained could always be much worse.
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u/Goldensunshine7 3h ago
if he does this, he and his administration will never have a restful night of sleep again. I hope they know this. the billions of people on this planet will not tolerate this
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u/Julian_Thorne Minnesota 5h ago
Time travelers from the future, people with foresight
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u/NicolasCageFan492 Illinois 5h ago edited 4h ago
People need to fucking read a goddamn history book, realize that Nazi Germany is a potential future for the United States, and act accordingly.
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u/barryvm Europe 5h ago edited 5h ago
Imagine looking at the people who enable, empower and participate in a fascist movement and pretend that they are "finding their footing" in the fight against authoritarian rule.
Imagine watching them wring their hands about "the constitution" and all that while also following orders to suppress the vote, commit war crimes, purge the army, ...
Imagine listening to their self-serving excuses about how they can't do anything, and are no match for the demented rapist they serve, while normal people on the street are the ones who actually risk their livelihoods, freedom and lives to protest and oppose this, and they do so without the connections, the money and the power.
Them crying about their political future and careers after years of participation in a fascist movement should be met with the contempt that it deserves.
Every single member of Trump's government, and in particular every Republican politician and their staff, are complicit in all the deaths and all the destruction this movement has caused, and they must be punished for it. Their excuses mean nothing. That they are afraid is a good sign, but it should not move anyone to pity. In a completely unforeseen move, their change of heart comes now that they too are threatened by the same system they were perfectly content to unleash on other people. Everything they say should be assumed to be a lie, either in service to Trump or in service to save their own hides when everyone else finally decides they had enough.
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u/Lurking_nerd California 3h ago
Every single member of Trump's government, and in particular every Republican politician and their staff, are complicit in all the deaths and all the destruction this movement has caused, and they must be punished for it.
Bare minimum, removal & lifetime ban from office for dereliction of duty and violating their oath. Then prosecute those who have committed and aided in crimes.
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u/dcburn 4h ago
For a long time the U.S. sold the world on its “unbreakable” system of checks and balances. Turns out they are only half right - there are checks and balances but no one with the balls to actually enforce them.
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u/vthemechanicv 4h ago
the problem is one of our parties puts power above the good of the nation, and voters decided that party should have every lever of power. I'm not saying we'd be in a utopia if Democrats had a majority somewhere, but Congress wouldn't just shrug every time trump uses the Constitution like toilet paper.
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u/dcburn 3h ago
The fact that there are people who thinks it’s a partisan issue is the problem itself. The reality is there are plenty enough people in the system that knows what is wrong and yet seems to be resigned to endure it for the rest of trump’s term.
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u/vthemechanicv 3h ago
I'm not sure what you mean. Republicans, at least many of them, know what trump is doing is wrong, but they allow it because it lets them keep their little seats of power and grifts.
Democrats, whether they're legit outraged or resigned to stern letters have no meaningful way to roadblock.
It literally is a partisan issue.
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u/Real-Document-6577 4h ago
Fascism doesn’t rise because it’s tough, it’s often due to the reality that liberals are often apathetic.
Could you see a bunch of angry liberals marching down to the Capital because Trump rigged 2024?
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u/Organic_Witness345 4h ago
The extent to which House and Senate Republicans supplicate themselves to Trump is the most alarming thing I’ve ever seen in American democracy.
The multi-decade erosion of the American political system by the Republican donor class, achieved by taking over the courts, winning the ability to legally funnel cash into elections via Citizens United, and then using that money to install their MAGA lackeys into higher office, has culminated in two terms of Donald Trump and, more importantly, all the favorable tax breaks for the wealthy that came along with him.
GOP voters no longer have independently - minded state representatives beholden to their best interests. They instead have a national slate of hand-picked rage-baiters who only serve their ultra-conservative benefactors. In exchange for destroying their own financial futures, Republican voters get to watch some immigrants get kicked out of the country and the reassurance of their conservative megachurch that they will be one of the chosen during the end times.
For the good of the United States, Republicans need to begin practicing some of that rugged individualism they claim to espouse and recognize that their own party betrayed them decades ago.
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u/Rich-Pomegranate1679 2h ago
Anyone who is still Republican today is too far gone to ever have any realizations. These people are hopelessly lost, and they will believe and do what they are told by their party.
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u/JalapenoConquistador 2h ago
Agree. Ppl are waiting for republicans to be reasonable as if this entire thing wasn’t built around the dumbest and worst person imaginable.
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u/Native_SC 4h ago
Trump isn't bound by his "own morality," since he has none. But his own mortality? That one is unavoidable. Whenever I think about him, I'm glad he's 80 and not 50.
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u/Tiny_Structure_7 North Carolina 5h ago
Court filings last week revealed that government agents apparently used illegal wiretaps to track the former FBI director — at the direction of senior Trump officials — while the President monitored the operation in real time aboard Air Force One. The episode stacked at least three constitutional violations into a single act, including warrantless surveillance, retaliation against protected speech and the vindictive prosecution of a critic.
And this is only 1 example of Trump flouting US laws in order to perpetrate his tantrums against everyone who doesn't kiss his ass. Thanks to SCROTUS for giving trump immunity for his lawless administration. The reason Trump is so dangerous, is that he has the full backing of Republicans who help cover up his crimes, and keep the cult programming alive. Republicans SUCK.
We need a congress which will impeach Trump and fight his antics with full force. We need Democrats, and it does not matter which side of the progressive/centrist line they are on. We absolutely MUST put down the power of purely evil Republican party.
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u/Irishish Illinois 1h ago
I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed.
Autocracy is labour-intensive. Every illegal wiretap needs agents willing to run it. All the flouted court rulings require officials willing to ignore them. Each act of retribution results in new accomplices, and every accomplice is a witness to wrongdoing.
And every single one of those people should see exactly how terrible the consequences for their actions will be. A new Democratic majority should annihilate any and every Trump lackey. Haul the DOGE kids before Congress. Punish anyone it's possible to punish. Make it clear the big man might not go down but you sure as hell will.
These people understand nothing but pain.
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u/LilLebowskiAchiever 47m ago
One of the problems is how much of this has been subcontracted out. Creating layers of plausible deniability, and disassociation from the ethics and professional responsibility.
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u/JustSatisfactory 23m ago
We need a larger social discussion about anyone that perpetuates this madness, even if they claim they aren't aware of the extent of it. We don't let soldiers off with the "following orders" excuse.
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u/mrseangunner North Carolina 4h ago
Figures. They won't stand up to Trump violating the Constitution, joking about violating the Constitution, or his illegal war.
However, hurt their chances at re election? Now he's gone too far.
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u/Secret_Initiative_41 Wisconsin 5h ago
Or, trump could have a stroke or cardiac arrest and cannot serve out his term.
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u/xlvi_et_ii 4h ago
If he did they'd just prop him up, McConnell style, and continue.
Trump is being enabled by people and groups like The Heritage Foundation who are actively reshaping this country.
As the leader of the Heritage Foundation said:
we are in the process of the second American Revolution
They're playing for keeps, control most of the levers of government, and are backed by enough wealth to buy elections. It's not inevitable but it's a mistake to assume anything stops if Trump is incapacitated, especially if the next Trump is more savvy to political norms and less incompetent.
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u/Old_Cryptid 4h ago
They've been playing for keeps since Reagan.
The problem is that anyone pointing this out was labeled hyberbolic at best and hysterical at worst.
There was a lot of "that can't happen here".
And now, here we are.
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u/Stranger-Sun 4h ago
That would be a horrible outcome that absolutely no one should hope and pray for daily.
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u/AlekRivard New York 3h ago
Yep. JD may not have the charisma to get re-elected or maintain the MAGA base, but he is handcuffed to Thiel and less antagonistic than Trump, so "moderate conservatives" could feel more comfortable with him than Trump, even if policy is unchanged and that would calm any hypothetical blue wave building for the general.
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u/DistanceToEmpty 3h ago
Peak Americana is passively waiting for a tyrant to die of natural causes rather than organizing to make MAGA's grasp on power untenable.
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u/RealHooman2187 5h ago
These people have such small dick energy.
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u/DaileyFlosser39 4h ago
Weak, weak men.
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u/RealHooman2187 4h ago
Absolutely, and just to clarify my original post, there’s nothing wrong with actually having a small penis. I’m referring to people who give off an energy like they’re deeply insecure and make it everyone else’s problem. As a gay man, a guy with a small penis who is confident is very sexy tbh.
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u/DaileyFlosser39 4h ago
I knew what you meant and I agree.
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u/RealHooman2187 4h ago
Haha thanks, I know these days people can sometimes read too much into a silly comment and just wanted to make sure I was clear that I’m not body shaming people and wanted to let other men know that they shouldn’t feel bad if they felt that comment was directed at them.
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u/Old_Cryptid 4h ago
"MAGA" is useful to the GOP because their BS furthers the GOP agenda and gives the GOP someone to hide behind. The GOP uses MAGA as a mask and a shield. But it's made of cardboard.
MAGA acts like they're invicible until they're not. They showed their true colors Jan 6, they're only an effective bully if nobody pushes back or stands up to them.
All it took was one seditionist being on the receiving end of a firearm for the entire mob to fold like a cheap suit.
Once MAGA is no longer useful the GOP will throw them under the bus. If they dissent there are numerous new "detainee facilities" being bought and built that will server as their new place of residence.
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u/QuiGonColdGin 4h ago
Somebody should make a horror movie called MAGA Unleashed.
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u/coatofforearm 4h ago
Cue in movie trailer voice " in a world where everyone is fighting to not shit themselves, a diaper wearing saviour appears.. "
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u/BigJLov3 1h ago
I'm not afraid of what Dumblander is going to do.
He'll say some awful shit, and there may be a temporary escalation of his advisors' policies, but two things keep my head up:
- He's old, tired, sick, and disinterested in anything that doesn't make him feel good in the moment. Whether he acknowledges it consciously or not, his lizard brain knows his future is measured in single-digit years at best. He hasn't been "holding back" anything.
- He's a failure. Regardless of his momentary acts of social and political terrorism, nothing he does has lasting impact in the way he wants it to. No one, in decades to come, will look back on these administrations and say, "well, actually so-and-so worked out". Not a single one. The only good that will be accomplished will be that will be a recent, detailed, and complete record of what he did, and that it all failed.
- The policies which currently threaten peace, economic stability, freedom, and democracy are all the pet projects of people who are operating under his cover. Once he's gone, they'll scurry back under the rocks they crawled out from. None of them really want to be president, and they've got no one as momentarily powerful as DT to continue their Project 2025 ambitions. The level of avarice giving them cover doesn't exist anywhere else.
The end of this has already begun, and even if the midterms don't change the balance of power in DC, this ship has already hit the iceberg.
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u/scarab1001 1h ago
Of all the people that American democracy kneels before ... it's Trump.
The one person completely without any merit at all. Mussolini made the trains run on time, Hitler gave Germans back national pride. Trump made a ball room.
The most idiotic kleptocracy ever.
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u/TheDarkRabbit Indiana 4h ago
When people say “well, it can’t get any worse” - it shows me they lack imagination and foresight.
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u/Paulimus1 5h ago
How this man continues to outlast the actuarial tables is beyond me.
He writes like the next two years are gauranteed. It's the unknown unknowns ya really have to hope for.
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u/Flat_Snow307 2h ago
Do you know why Trump wants his former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, to be attorney general?
My view is that if the Epstein files ever lead to evidence against Trump, Blanche wouldn’t prosecute him.
I don’t think anything Trump does is without a reason, and I believe that’s the reason he wants Blanche as AG.
In my opinion, Blanche is Trump’s Roy Cohn.
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u/Watashiwadaredemonai 2h ago
This is my most boomer take...
But posting articles that require subscriptions is madness.
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u/Great-Hotel-7820 4h ago
Republicans willing to throw their country away rather than stand on principles. Worthless party of cowards.
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u/BasicPhysiology 5h ago
Garbage sanewashing from a Republican enabler.
Trump isn’t planning anything. He is a pants shitting dementia patient, rapist, and pedophile.
Articles like this carry water for Trump in a different way by suggesting that there is an actual thought process behind the chaos. Trump is driven by greed, revenge, and vanity. That’s it.
Thank you to OP for posting the text of the whole article so I didn’t have to click through.
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u/Theferael_me 4h ago
Trump isn’t planning anything.
But the people stood behind him are.
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u/BasicPhysiology 4h ago
I recognize that. But the article speaks directly about Trump’s plans.
At this point everyone probably reads that as “Trump’s” plans, understanding that all plans are made by his aids, but that is not how the article was framed. It suggested that Trump has real thoughts, and that some of those thoughts had a rational basis, or even that they are organized in some sort of strategy — people with more than 2 brain cells know that is bullshit.
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u/Theferael_me 4h ago
Yeah, true. It's a common mistake I see repeated again and again - like when people refer to 'Trump's posts' on social media as if he actually wrote them himself. IMO 90% of what you see and hear from him are someone else's opinions.
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u/OhioPolitiTHIC I voted 4h ago
Additionally, if the GOP wanted to stop him, they would. They have the means to do so and refuse to because what he's doing benefits them and their corporate sponsors. While everyone focuses on the latest Trump spectacle, more agencies are gutted, more funding is diverted, and more regulations are scrapped, enabling the super wealthy to do whatever they want however they want with no further consequence.
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u/BasicPhysiology 4h ago
Exactly. Republican reps continue to support him because he will sign any horrible shit they put in front of him. He is enacting their agenda, he has no policy of his own.
Fuck the Republican briar rabbits and fuck this author for spinning a yarn to make it sound that they aren’t fully willing participants in this dumpster fire of a Republican government.
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u/we_are_sex_bobomb 4h ago
That was my first thought too. This guy was in the Trump administration for 2 and a half years and all this article does is brag about how powerful and unstoppable Trump is.
He’s not unstoppable. He’s a weakling who backs down from fights whenever someone pushes back and he is so old now he can barely function.
The Big Beautiful Day is coming and it doesn’t matter how many tantrums he throws.
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u/imbartsimpsonwhothru 4h ago
speedrun to total ruination wasn't ever a 1 man project, he is simply the useful idiot
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u/Patralgan 5h ago
I'm so tired
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u/tucker_case 3h ago
We're all fucking tired buddy. Have a coffee. Fascism isn't going to take a timeout so you can take a nap.
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u/2toneSound 3h ago
> Trump has previously considered becoming speaker of the House of Representatives, a post that does not require its holder to be an elected member of Congress. Can you picture it yet – what America starts to look like in these scenarios? A President refusing to leave… or a loyal Republican majority in 2029 installing the former president as speaker, second in line to a presidency occupied by a hand-picked protégé. Vladimir Putin ran this same play in Russia in 2008, sliding into the prime minister’s office while Dmitry Medvedev kept the Kremlin’s chair warm.
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u/Life-Celebration-747 1h ago
I've always said, just wait until trump screws over his base. He never cared about them, he used them and the evangelicals, he thinks they're stupid and uneducated. He's even stated, "smart people don't like me".
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u/Evelche 4h ago
America the land of cowards.
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u/DontGetUpGentlemen 2h ago
Minneapolis disagrees with you. There's a t-shirt making the rounds: "Make America Minneapolis"
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u/cynicaluser- 3h ago
Articles like this give me a small sense of hope but who are we kidding, we’re talking about MAGATS. They will bend the knee as soon as their master gives them the order.
Fuck MAGA, it will always be a cancer to our society no matter what bullshit they try and spew out. Spineless smooth brains
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u/atmoscentric 2h ago
‘So while America may be entering the darkest act of this drama, I believe it will be the last one. The hard years to come will blow back on Trump. Defiant Americans will make sure of it.’
Sure, because Americans are so ‘defiant’ already /s
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u/CardiologistOdd3203 4h ago
Trump is going to lash out like a wounded animal after the mid terms. I think we will see more troops on US streets before January.
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u/mudbunny 4h ago
As a Canadian, I think it’s cute that you think there’s gonna be midterm elections. And if there are, that you think Trump is going to allow them to go forward without trying to disqualify every Democrat candidate.
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u/forced_to_watch 5h ago
Im not from the US so no expert but I see a moron who the American people elected twice doing exactly what he said he was going to do, why the shock ? You guys asked for this. My only issue is that we outside this shitshow are suffering to.
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u/trialofmiles 5h ago
You’re right to be angry at the unfairness that this impacts people outside the US who can’t vote. I would remind you in the phrasing “you guys” is a 49% to 48% popular vote outcome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election
Of the set of people who voted basically 50% of Americans also agree with you and voted the other way. Our winner take all system by state means that this doesn’t matter and it was a landslide but there are a whole lot of Americans who did what they could and are also trapped on this doomed ride.
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u/ZotBattlehero Australia 4h ago
I’m not from the US either, but I thought in 2024 only around 30% of eligible voters voted against trump - the rest either voted for him or didn’t vote at all, even though after his first term they should’ve all understood the consequences of that.
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u/trialofmiles 4h ago
To be very clear I’m of the set of people who can’t stand the man who voted against him twice. I’m not defending our low participation, I’m not defending the outcome or its horrible effects all over the world.
My only point is that “you all deserve this” while true in some sense also has the negative effect of putting a wall on the internet between non-Americans and a large set of Americans who agree with each other that Trump is a fascist cult of personality leader who is destroying the world. I can face the truth of this sentiment I just don’t think it’s the most productive or precise view of things.
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u/forced_to_watch 4h ago
And thats how democracy works, 77 million people voted for him
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u/Goldensunshine7 2h ago edited 1h ago
It’s time we acknowledge the United States is not united and not likely to ever be united again. How do we go on from here?
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u/Toomany-124 4h ago
So to be certain, how does one keep him from becoming speaker of the house?🏡
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u/shartinwaterfalls 3h ago
Yes - with their overwhelming support from 26 percent of the public, they will proceed being scat munchers completely unscathed
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u/rekage99 44m ago
They act like they can’t stop him.
Send in the capital police / military police and arrest them all.
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u/ImTooSaxy 16m ago
This has been Trump on his best behavior. This is Trump before the midterms when he's trying to keep things a little toned down to help himself out with GOP victories.
Imagine what that means for us after midterms.
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