It’s the natural conclusion of the strategy republicans set into motion to manipulate their base.

It started just after Watergate. Nixon was facing massive calls for justice from both sides. Republican think tanks realized that their base of conservatives consumed news from all sources that informed their mostly unbiased decision to hold their guy accountable. So those republican think tanks devised a plan to create a conservative news outlet that explicitly demonized other news so that the conservative base would never turn on one of their own again. That strategy was realized in the 90’s with the creation of Fox News.

Since then, conservative media has been slowly transforming politics from the perspective of the average conservative into a team sport, where the main motivation isn’t “who runs the country better” but rather “my team is better than yours”.

It wasn’t so pervasive 20 years ago, but conservative media has found themselves with a base that now only responds to the outrage they’ve been conditioning them with, and that has created the raging confrontational assholes you see today.

Being a conservative doesn’t mean what it used to. And that’s because the Republican leadership robbed conservatives of that in order to maintain control of their base.

You’d think it would be a win, but honestly Trump is a clown. More “centrists” who detest Trump might rally around someone like DeSantis, that’s what I’m afraid of.

I like the “formally” vs “formerly” suggesting Elon is never going to get away from Twitter in favor of X

Hey man, nice tittles

My mind is blown. This is very well written. Thank you

Our conservatives aren’t like conservatives elsewhere in the world. Our liberals are like your conservatives, policy wise.

Our conservatives are brainwashed by four decades of targeted conservative media that’s explicitly designed to keep them in an anger loop in order to create a political climate where republicans (who are the actual politicians) don’t have to appeal to the conservative base with actual policy.

Republicans, through channels like Fox News and OANN (seriously, go watch some of it and see what we’re dealing with here) have demonized everyone to the left of them so hard that entire generations of conservatives genuinely believe that there’s a bloody revolution coming.

It would be nice if it were actually bullshit, but these lunatics who make up half of our voting population put a con-man entertainer with zero political experience in the whitehouse for four years and installed conservative justices to our highest court who are systematically dismantling our democracy.

It’s very real. It’s so real that some of the less insane conservatives are waking up to how dangerous the details of this plan actually are, and that’s why Republicans are panicking about this.

Wow, I don’t think I’ve seen an edgier comment on the whole of lemmy.

You sound like you’ve got a lot to lose.

Telling me I’d like to watch it all burn, and then calling me a political pacifist in the next breath?

Yeah. You’re actively expressing both of those views at the same time by thinking yourself higher than the society you live in.

Anyway, the debt isn’t a tangible thing like you seem to think. And you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about, and I won’t take on the responsibility of teaching you how to use a search engine, so I guess this is where the edgy comment chain ends.

Have fun in your cabin in the woods, brother. The rest of us understand what it means to live in a functional society. It’s not worth engaging any further with someone as far gone as you are ✌️

The call where Biden urged a ceasefire and Netanyahu completely ignored it? I think you think the US has more power in this situation than they actually do.

Could Israel continue this war without US aid?

The US provides about 1% of Israel’s GDP in military aid and Israel already exports weapons and ammo it doesn’t need. Who would provide American-centric weaponry is irrelevant to the question of whether the war would stop.

To add to that, it literally doesn’t matter who steps in to aid Israel, as the aid itself is less important than the potential ally and the strategic act of robbing the US of influence in the middle east. You think Russia or China wouldn’t stoop to changing their position on a massacre to get a step up politically? Two countries currently hosting genocides of their own?

A magic stop button doesn’t exist for the US. We’re clearly not going to agree on that so this is where our conversation ends. Goodnight.

There’s no magic button that ends this conflict, except the one that lies on Netanyahu’s desk. Israel isn’t dependent on the US in the way that you’re trying to make it sound. If the US pulls away from Israel, it creates a vacuum that US’s adversaries are chomping at the bit to fill.

They won’t suddenly go broke. They won’t suddenly be disarmed. They won’t suddenly decide the war isn’t worth it. They will take money and weapons from other nations who want their influence in the middle east and the only thing that will change is the US losing that influence.

Look, I’m not saying that Biden’s hands are clean either. The US as a governmental body is complicit in this heinous war.

What I am saying is that you are woefully naive if you think a phone call could end this. That phone call already happened. It was international news. Netanyahu laughed in Biden’s face.

All of these things, but still Biden does not directly have the power to end this conflict. Blaming him for it happening as if he’s the one crushing Palestinians under the rubble of their houses is dishonest.

Oh right, the war in Gaza is completely Biden’s fault and not the product of decades of politics coming to a head in a way the US can’t explicitly control. I think I saw Biden out there personally shooting Palestinian children in the face 🙄

Being self righteous about doing nothing is worse.

Despite your own brand of defeatism in insisting the outcome is the same no matter what, one side actually is better. Even if the metric of “better” pales on the grand scheme of what we deserve or should be doing.

I’m not trying to project self-righteousness by recognizing that there are only two real choices. I’m asserting that advocating non-action or pointless action is such a tired trope that what you’re doing is circlejerking for dopamine instead of applying what little influence you have as an individual to work toward the avoiding the actual worst outcome.

When the American populace as a whole is brainwashed into believing the only choices are red and blue, you have to accept that whining about it and voting green (or not voting) is going to accomplish nothing.

So make your colorful allegory and feel good about yourself on the internet. In the end, you are accomplishing less than the people you look down on who recognize the shitty reality of our situation.

The debt will never come calling if calling on the debt means destabilizing the world economy. I’m sure you’d like to see that, but virtually every single player in that debt doesn’t.

So take your cryptic misinformation and go hide in a cabin in the woods. Meanwhile, the adults who understand that shit doesn’t get done by itself will be picking up the mess that political pacifists like you leave when you cower behind the notion that both sides are the same.

🙄 “Both sides”

Vote 3rd party and shut up then. I’m tired of hearing about how both parties are “equally bad”

The fact is that things tend to change for the better under democrats, albeit slowly. Republican judges just today gutted a long standing regulatory precedent that’s going to pave the way for capitalists to bleed Americans dry.

One party is luke warm. The other one is actively and progressively destroying our nation. I won’t entertain the idea that they are even close to the same.

That’s what makes this extra stupid. Maga hats don’t think that far

This is kind of obvious and I probably don’t have to say it but…

Trump is doing this to weasel his way out of a debate he shouldn’t have agreed to. No way in hell Trump subjects himself to the same drug test. He’s betting on Biden not agreeing to it either so he can just say “well those liberals are obviously playing dirty so I’m out”

The drugs in question are necessarily irrelevant

I think it’s a fair thought that any form of life doesn’t perfectly recycle their resources and all forms of life give off waste for other life to utilize. That said, a reasonably advanced civilization might just inevitably grow to the size where the waste they put off makes their planet unlivable for them before they can take action to control it.

For us, it’s carbon dioxide.

Get out of here with your “both sides” garbage.

I’ve never had someone left of center tell me a whole group of people deserve to be locked up or killed. I had a right wing nut tell me just yesterday that all lgbtq folk are complicit in rape and pedophilia and deserve to be hanged. Sadly, that’s not even close to the only time someone has said that to me.

Both sides might be part of the problem here, but only one side is off their fucking rockers.

Any response other than “I already have” or “I donate resources” paints you as an armchair hypocrite who doesn’t have the credentials to understand, let alone have an opinion about this conflict.

You my friend, are the one who is adorable.