- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmings.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmings.world
Schmoozing the super-rich to fund a $300m ballroom while cutting food aid for those on low incomes threw the president’s architectural folly into sharp relief
It was a feast fit for a king – and any billionaire willing to be his subject. From gold-rimmed plates on gold-patterned tablecloths decorated with gold candlestick holders, they gorged on heirloom tomato panzanella salad, beef wellington and a dessert of roasted Anjou pears, cinnamon crumble and butterscotch ice-cream.
On 15 October, Donald Trump welcomed nearly 130 deep-pocketed donors, allies and representatives of major companies for a dinner at the White House to reward them for their pledged contributions to a vast new ballroom now expected to cost $300m. That the federal government had shut down two weeks earlier scarcely seemed to matter.
But two weeks later, the shutdown is starting to bite – and throw Trump’s architectural folly into sharp relief. On Saturday, with Congress still locked in a legislative stalemate, a potential benefit freeze could leave tens of millions of low-income Americans without food aid. Democrats accuse Trump’s Republican party of “weaponising hunger” to pursue an extreme rightwing agenda.
The American people are allowing themselves to be embarrassed daily by this man. This can all end as soon as the American people decide to end it.
Hi, American here. I decided to end it. It doesn’t seem to be ending. Now what?
Please enlighten me to this silver bullet action item that I can take to end this. I’m showing up to protests, I’m calling my representatives. It’s not working.
You are a single person within the US. They are saying “the American people” which is to say that the collection of people made up of the general population of the US must decide to stop this nonsense.
That means that all of you need to finally stop chasing centrists, stop voting for fascists, etc. We aren’t stupid, we know that there are people trying, but “the American people” is a group still that includes tens of millions of nazis and tens of millions of people who don’t even vote because they’re ignorant of what’s going on.
The bullets don’t have to be silver. The GOP aren’t werewolves.
What have you done?
Its called revolt. By the point Americans have reached, many countries would be in full revolt. By the time Americans realize that revolt is their only option the army will be setup in their cities and bought and paid for by the oligarchy. The good soldiers will be removed from the army and they will have no protectors to stand with them.
Ah yes the classic 'why don’t you just go die in a war" argument.
And as always the one suggesting it either doesn’t live in the country or they have some reason they can’t start it themselves. It’s always easier to tell others to go die
Were telling you that because if you don’t do it, we will be the ones dying in ww3 bailing your asses out
No one is coming to bail us out of fascism. The only country with enough military power to oppose us on our own soil is China, and that is diametrically opposed to their historical stance on foreign policy.
You’ll do well to shore up your own Democracies against the tide of foreign-backed propaganda and billionaire oligarchs.
I share a border with you, so no
Yes of course, and the 3rd Reich will reign for 1000 years. The USA is unbeatable!
I think you are misreading my tone. I’m not proud or excited about the changes in the US; I’m just stating a fact about the size and capacity of our existing military.
I don’t know if you’re Canadian or Mexican, but the two countries combined only have a little over a quarter of the number of military personnel of the US. Population-wise, the two countries have about half the population of the US, which, while it’s more competitive than current enlisted numbers, still limits your total military size and more importantly, your industrial production of military equipment (presuming the war drags on long enough for all sides to have time to ramp up).
China has more bodies to throw at us and a vastly deeper reserve of production capacity. They also are one of the few countries to already have their own military industry (equipment wholly divorced from the US supply chain and manufacturers). Demographically, all of Europe acting together might have a chance, but they consistently fail to act as a unit and they are aging faster than the US.
Anyway, all of this is justification for a quip which was not my main point. My main point is that the US will have to get itself out of this. Though, I did issue a plea somewhere else for certain countries to perform extrajudicial renditions of their malevolent billionaires that got exported here. That would help us.
Even then I’m pretty sure China would probably stall out at the West Coast at best. Fact of the matter is most of their shit is purely on paper, they haven’t fought in a war since like Vietnam so they have effectively no institutions when it comes to hands on shit.
If ww3 happens to the tune of the US collapsing, there’s good odds it ends in a nuclear wasteland. There are too many religious nut jobs in power that probably believe nuking new York City means Jesus will come back or something.
Ok, and?
Many countries are smaller than most of our states. Many countries’ governments are not as well physically insulted from their populace. There are multiple bunkers with secret locations for them to hide in. We also have the small problem of the fascists actually having a fairly large following still. They are about to get hungry at the time of year they are accustomed to enjoying a little excess while the man they worship is wallowing in opulence. Maybe it will anger them enough to work with the rest of us, but I don’t know, because their king appeals to their hatefulness, pettiness and greediness.
We have no leaders. Plenty of us are ready to fight. Armed, practiced and willing, but brother I am not a tactician and I certainly don’t have the charisma to rally up the resistance. We are also nearly all less than a paycheck away from joining the people about to lose their welfare in destitution. Mighty hard to start the revolution when work starts at 6:30 and you gotta provide for your family. So for now we wait.
Ah well. That solves it then
The only bottom-up revolts ever in history have been when the masses were literally starving. Anything else was elite driven.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elites?wprov=sfti1
Revolt looks different these days… we’ve had one example… other examples could look like that or different. What they will all have in common is that the grossly unequal will begin to fear that their lifestyle is not so sustainable or tolerable as everyone else suffers.
Meaning, what? The GOP controls Congress, the courts and the WH.
ThEy JuSt LeT hIm GeT aWaY wItH iT.
I’m so tired of this short-sighted take.
You are actively letting them get away with it.
Ignorant comment. Fuck America, but not from your perspective. It is deplorable, but the people have been cultivated to be ignorant and malleable. It’s deeply flawed, but it’s system is rigged to beat everyone down and break their collective will.
Those of us who stand up are divided constantly. We’re undermined at every turn. We are marginalized for speaking the truth. Our spirits are broken by the weight of ineffectiveness sold to us as Democracy.
American Exceptionalism is taught from birth and is fully unfounded. There was a time decades ago when the national anthem would give me goosebumps, but now I know that was not excitement. It was subconscious fear of something yet to emerge.
You obviously don’t live here. This is my personal resounding “fuck you” while completely mirroring your words. You have no inkling of which you speak. What you would have us do is nigh impossible.
Our only hope is that a unifying event will de-polarize our population and unify our resolve.
While we stand divided we shall fall united.
I guess I have a bit more faith in the American people than you.
It’s probably easier to have faith in the American people when you aren’t surrounded by American people. Those of us who live here know better than to expect much from the brainwashed.
They’re not even get grifted by the Monorail guy from the Simpsons, they get grifted by a fat, stupid pedophile that shits his pants. Crayy
Au contraire
It doesn’t take “people”
Just one person who loves beautiful WWII Italian music
Bella ciao, baby.
I want to have so much hope and optimism going into the mid-terms next year. But, even those hopes and dreams have been dashed simply because of how unwilling and defeatist a lot of Americans are to doing anything that’s happening infront of them.
We just sit there and take the rape.
I get second hand embarrassment from the lack of spine in the everyday American. I thought they’d care about democracy. I was very much wrong.
People are successfully resisting armored gunmen with sheer numbers and their bare hands. Perhaps it is you who is uninformed.
Some folks don’t even know they’re just mirroring mainstream u.s. media lies. Folks think they’re too smart to gaslight or can’t think outside a stereotype or empathize with a different logistics set.
But also did anyone get sniped on Jan 6? But also is a non whitenationalist crowd going to get the same treatment?
A prayer for the bailfunds and the civil rights lawyers.
I didn’t think the people propping up this administration ever cared about democracy but I didn’t think they’d cheer for themselves being cuked multiple times a day by the wealthy elite who are spitting down at them from the literal palace trump is building on top of the corpose of the home of the American people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_embarrassment
Finally! I had no idea we did have this term in the English language!
We should upgrade it… I feel Entromped! Or she makes me Tromparrased!
Democracy is when we’re allowed to own guns.
So to them it’s all in the green.
Til you tell them why they’re allowed to have guns. Then they put them back in the safe again, no one wants to actually use their guns for that reason, even if that reason is very much in play, at this very moment. I’m very disappointed in the American people.