Donald Trump

[ewerk 31847]

2 minutes ago, Renton said:

 

Aye, it won't be a pandemic, it'll be something else they'll create or manipulate. After a certain point, it won't matter anymore because all pretence of democracy will be gone.

American Kleptocracy/Oligarchy, got a nice ring to it.

 

 

[Renton 22808]

9 minutes ago, ewerk said:

 

 

And the irony here is that Trump and his fellow fuckers fought on an anti-corporate platform. You have to admire their chutzpah. Actually, no, you don't/. You have to despair at the shear stupidity of his voters which is magnitudes higher than I thought possible. 

[Toonpack 10651]

13 minutes ago, Renton said:

 

Aye, it won't be a pandemic, it'll be something else they'll create or manipulate. After a certain point, it won't matter anymore because all pretence of democracy will be gone.

American Kleptocracy/Oligarchy, got a nice ring to it.

 

I wouldn't be so sure, poultry and dairy industry over there is aflame with bird flu, with the growing madness for raw milk anything could happen. Already been two fatalities in farm workers, if it mutates to human to human transmission..................

[Kid Dynamite 7381]

1 hour ago, Renton said:

 

That was great. What he doesn't say though is how "the left" could have countered this. I mean there were obvious mistakes but say, take immigration, there are no easy answers. Again, I think it comes back down to the root problem of how disinformation is handled. I don't think people would vote for this future if they were informed. But they're willfully ignorant and manipulated. How do you stop that? 

 

Didn't the left win the UK election 6 months ago?

 

The biggest reason the Democrats fucked up was Biden hanging on, then Kamala being the default choice and having to figure out how to sell herself as the choice for change without slagging off Biden's last 4 years in powers 

[Toonpack 10651]

1 minute ago, Kid Dynamite said:

Didn't the left win the UK election 6 months ago?

 

The biggest reason the Democrats fucked up was Biden hanging on, then Kamala being the default choice and having to figure out how to sell herself as the choice for change without slagging off Biden's last 4 years in powers 

 

The problem is that now, the right (far right) own the information space, lies are the new truth, look at the pitiful coverage of Musk's "weird hand gesture". We're fucked.

[Renton 22808]

9 minutes ago, Kid Dynamite said:

Didn't the left win the UK election 6 months ago?

 

The biggest reason the Democrats fucked up was Biden hanging on, then Kamala being the default choice and having to figure out how to sell herself as the choice for change without slagging off Biden's last 4 years in powers 

 

Labour winning was a massive outlier globally though. And already they are undermined on a daily basis by the right through lies perpetuated through social media. There are specific reasons for every election result, but the global growth of oligarchy, kleptocracy, autocracy and disinformation is undeniable. And the problem as I see it is, you get to a certain stage, and you effectively lose democracy because elections are rigged or they simply won't happen at all. That's where we are with the US imo, and this will act as a contagion for everywhere else. 

Edited 4 hours ago by Renton

[Renton 22808]

5 minutes ago, Toonpack said:

 

The problem is that now, the right (far right) own the information space, lies are the new truth, look at the pitiful coverage of Musk's "weird hand gesture". We're fucked.

 

Exactly. Oh, it's just Boris being Boris. Just Elon being Elon. What a jape. He fucking sieg heiled at an inaugauration and, listening to R5 this morning, it wasn't even mentioned. 

Edited 4 hours ago by Renton

[Kid Dynamite 7381]

I don't disagree with any of that, but all hope is not lost. Labour need to catch up sharpish though if they want to split the Tory/Reform vote at the next election. Play Musk at his own game across social media 

[Gemmill 47872]

Lads, I've got the solution. Get yourselves a Digitakt, put in a sequence of notes, and then set an LFO to randomise the pitch of said notes, and but a kick drum under all of it. Then sit with your headphones on staring into space while your silly little black box generates an every changing musical landscape, and soundtracks the end of the world. 

[Renton 22808]

2 minutes ago, Kid Dynamite said:

I don't disagree with any of that, but all hope is not lost. Labour need to catch up sharpish though if they want to split the Tory/Reform vote at the next election. Play Musk at his own game across social media 

 

Erm, social media are literally owned by the oligarchs. You'll not be able to catch up with them. Besides, our only dometic politics aren't that important. We don't live in a vacuum. We're sandwiched between two super powers, one of which we have rejected and is in decline anyway, and the other of which we are gravitating to despite it being a fascist oligarchy. 

I mean, things might be okay, but when sieg heiling is normalised, forgive me my concerns. 

[wykikitoon 21824]

Buy this

 

[Toonpack 10651]

7 minutes ago, Kid Dynamite said:

I don't disagree with any of that, but all hope is not lost. Labour need to catch up sharpish though if they want to split the Tory/Reform vote at the next election. Play Musk at his own game across social media 

 

Social media is lost, yanks reporting that on Intagram today if you search #democrats you get no results, if you search #republican you get shitloads.

[Renton 22808]

7 minutes ago, Gemmill said:

Lads, I've got the solution. Get yourselves a Digitakt, put in a sequence of notes, and then set an LFO to randomise the pitch of said notes, and but a kick drum under all of it. Then sit with your headphones on staring into space while your silly little black box generates an every changing musical landscape, and soundtracks the end of the world. 

 

Fucking AI. Makes things too easy.

 

[wykikitoon 21824]

 but look how happy he is

[Dazzler 11067]

30 minutes ago, Renton said:

 

Labour winning was a massive outlier globally though. And already they are undermined on a daily basis by the right through lies perpetuated through social media. There are specific reasons for every election result, but the global growth of oligarchy, kleptocracy, autocracy and disinformation is undeniable. And the problem as I see it is, you get to a certain stage, and you effectively lose democracy because elections are rigged or they simply won't happen at all. That's where we are with the US imo, and this will act as a contagion for everywhere else. 

Reform would have pissed the election if they had the financial backing to stick people in every constituency.

 

Labour won on an anyone but the tories basis. The fact that reform got as many votes as they did despite the lack of numbers should have people seriously worrying, especially now after trump got in.

 

Misinformation and dehumanisation is lurching every thick cunt to the far right, and it turns out that there are a lot more thick cunts than initially thought.

 

The left haven't helped themselves either mind. Even Biden pardoning people for crimes not even identified yet going back as far as a decade is politically stupid, it just plays directly into Trump's hands that the people he's pardoned were up to no good, even if there is zero evidence. 

[ewerk 31847]

19 minutes ago, Dazzler said:

Reform would have pissed the election if they had the financial backing to stick people in every constituency.

 

They stood 609 candidates up and down the country and were successful with five of them.

[Renton 22808]

10 minutes ago, ewerk said:

 

They stood 609 candidates up and down the country and were successful with five of them.

 

Their main problem is they couldn't find sane candidates. And they have zero policies. To win an election, you need some kind of manifesto, their's - what there was of one - was batshit, including the UK rejoining the gold standard which would destroy the country overnight. 

I actually see Reform more as useful idiots damaging the tories still. Having said that, my political jusdgement is terrible nowadays. 

[spongebob toonpants 4204]

People across the world want change because on the whole they are being screwed.

Biden got in because enough people were revolted by Trump, but then failed to prosecute him and put him in prison like he should have done. No surprise that plenty of average Americans failed to believe he was that dangerous when the previous admin did nothing to him

 

I fear for Labour, they need to be radical or they will fail. If they continue on their way on incremental decline and austerity light then it will be no surprise if Reform win next time 

 

The whole Labour Admin is being fundamentally dishonest over Europe, and its undermining them and the whole country. And don't give me the shit about the media not allowing it, the media are already full in on howling outrage at every turn

[Renton 22808]

25 minutes ago, spongebob toonpants said:

People across the world want change because on the whole they are being screwed.

Biden got in because enough people were revolted by Trump, but then failed to prosecute him and put him in prison like he should have done. No surprise that plenty of average Americans failed to believe he was that dangerous when the previous admin did nothing to him

 

I fear for Labour, they need to be radical or they will fail. If they continue on their way on incremental decline and austerity light then it will be no surprise if Reform win next time 

 

The whole Labour Admin is being fundamentally dishonest over Europe, and its undermining them and the whole country. And don't give me the shit about the media not allowing it, the media are already full in on howling outrage at every turn

 

I don't disagree entriely. Might disagree a bit about excusing the average American for recognising what Trump is, I mean, its in plain sight, every day. Truth is they just don't care, and that's what shocks me most.

 

As for Labour going shit or bust over the EU, I don't think that's remotely the panacea you think it is (I know you probably don't either, but anyway). First of all, Europe is an absolute mess at the minute with the far right becoming ever more dominant. Secondly, we're not going to have any meaningful close relationship with them over the course of the next parliament imo. As usual we are talking to ourselves about this as if ascension to the EU is in our gift - it's not - they decide, and it only takes one nation or even region to block us. We should move to closer relations (which we are tbf), but the effects over the next election cycle will be neglible. And whilst I agree the media and gammons can't be placated, this will reignite over conflicts once again and be a massive political distraction for a whole another parliament. Even I can barely stomach that prospect. 

 

[PaddockLad 18118]

Tbh without Covid there’s no Biden term as president. The economy was doing ok and Trump hadn’t started any wars. He’d made a lot of noise which is his MO to distract most people from him putting plans/people (that’s precisely what Musk did last night… he’s not a fascist, he doesn’t worship any nation state, he worships money and his own ego) in place to rob federal government which is his de facto reason for being president. Look out for him selling the federal student loan scheme to a hedge fund and condos in Yellowstone National Park 😑
 

Covid temporarily fucked Trump 2 but people have short memories (also he apparently only won by about 200k votes across the board, notions of some sort of landslide are bullshit) This time it appears strongly that he’s out for revenge and he’s using his usual mob intimidation/leverage tactics on the tech bros and nation states to achieve it. Then you’ve got the Putin factor, to what extent will he be emboldened? Worse case scenario in the near future for Europe is the threat to the Baltic states/Finland, possibly even Poland as he tries to rebuild the Russian empire bit-by-bit. I’m not pretending to be an economics expert but if he goes through with this tariff bullshit hes going to have massive problems domestically as his financial bullying of natural US allies and trading partners falls apart very quickly.
 

There again, he might settle down after the first year and fuck off and play golf. He didn’t jail Hilary, and he didn’t do a number of other things he threatened to do in 2014-16. That's about the best we can hope for…. but then there’s the campaign for the elections in 2029 which will start in early/mid 2027… that’s when shit will get really interesting/horrifying….  

[Renton 22808]

2 minutes ago, PaddockLad said:

Tbh without Covid there’s no Biden term as president. The economy was doing ok and Trump hadn’t started any wars. He’d made a lot of noise which is his MO to distract most people from him putting plans/people (that’s precisely what Musk did last night… he’s not a fascist, he doesn’t worship any nation state, he worships money and his own ego) in place to rob federal government which is his de facto reason for being president. Look out for him selling the federal student loan scheme to a hedge fund and condos in Yellowstone National Park 😑
 

Covid temporarily fucked Trump 2 but people have short memories (also he apparently only won by about 200k votes across the board, notions of some sort of landslide are bullshit) This time it appears strongly that he’s out for revenge and he’s using his usual mob intimidation/leverage tactics on the tech bros and nation states to achieve it. Then you’ve got the Putin factor, to what extent will he be emboldened? Worse case scenario in the near future for Europe is the threat to the Baltic states/Finland, possibly even Poland as he tries to rebuild the Russian empire bit-by-bit. I’m not pretending to be an economics expert but if he goes through with this tariff bullshit hes going to have massive problems domestically as his financial bullying of natural US allies and trading partners falls apart very quickly.
 

There again, he might settle down after the first year and fuck off and play golf. He didn’t jail Hilary, and he didn’t do a number of other things he threatened to do in 2014-16. That's about the best we can hope for…. but then there’s the campaign for the elections in 2029 which will start in early/mid 2027… that’s when shit will get really interesting/horrifying….  

 

Aye. Fuck knows, maybe it would have been better for him to get 2 terms consecutively, he maybe would have been less mad and vengeful, and not been so pally with the broligarchs. Such is history, full of chance events and sliding doors moments (the original mutation to the coronavirus probably being the chance event). 

As for Europe, considering the fucking struggle Russia have had in taking even the Eastern third of Ukraine, are they really a threat? I think even NATO minus US could probably kick their arse. And Western Europe still has an independent nuclear deterrent (don't give me that shit the Americans control Trident, and the French still have a large nuclear presence). Putin won't attack a NATO country militarily imo, even if the US do fuck off. 

[Gemmill 47872]

 

 

[Alex 36033]

2 hours ago, wykikitoon said:

Buy this

 

Maybe you should read it rather than just buying it, mate  

[acrossthepond 907]

The sun still came up yesterday, and on inauguration day 2029 the sun will rise that morning as well. We've survived worse than this tinpot dictator and his kleptocrat buddies. It's not like America hasn't been an isolationist corporate hellhole before. That was the entire post-Civil War period. Sure, it took us a worldwide depression and two world wars to fully snap us out of it, but we've been here before and recovered. The pendulum will come back around, as it always does.

 

In the meantime, we just have to do as much as we can to minimize the damage. Stop buying from Amazon, stop engaging with any social media, stop paying for subscriptions to the Times or the Post, resist anything that originates from the people who are responsible for this situation. Many public interest organizations will be fighting tooth and nail against every executive order issued - donate to them, or volunteer with them (if you are in the USA.) Above all don't lose hope and accept this as "the new normal." They only beat us when we think we're beaten, when we think there's no alternative to Republican domination of the country based on tiny majorities in a handful of states that have been gerrymandered to fuck and beyond. There is. Labour's victory shows that a pernicious, media-controlling regime of thieves and charlatans can be overturned. We can do it. We will do it.