Comment

Comment on I am in the US and its gotten very political but as pretty much a peon do I just tune the stuff out thinking its fear mongering? Or should I closely pay attention to it?

dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

The very situation we are in now was greatly enabled because lots of people did what you are doing. Dont lose sleep and sacrifice your help, but if you were ever an undecided candidate while Trump was running, or you don’t know what an oligarchy or nepotism is or why they’re relevant, or can’t recount what happened on Jan 6 2021, you NEED to pay more attention.

source

Sort:hotnew top

skeezix@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Sacrificing your servants is the worst thing you could do. Who’s going to butter your toast?

source
- dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That’s a funny typo, but I gotta fix it.
  
  source
OrteilGenou@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Honest question, in the pre-Trump days people rightly pointed out that the "ruling class " (Koch brothers, Adelsons, Soros, Bloomberg, etc. etc.) would try to buy influence in their preferred party but also donated to the “other side”.

Those people were called oligarchs.

Now that Trump has taken the reins, the term has turned toward him. If you look at the donors in 2024, the top six or so donated to the Republican party (Elon tops that list) but it’s not THAT far off from previous years.

Aside from the obvious (Trump being a dangerous radical, to put it mildly) has anything changed in the way influence is bought and sold, or is the increased use of “oligarchy” more of a tactic to try and mitigate the damage that Trump can do by calling it out as loudly as possible?

I’m Canadian, and I’ve heard the term oligarchy thrown around in reference to American politics for many years, but never do often nor so forcefully as in the past two months.

source
- Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Aside from the obvious (Trump being a dangerous radical, to put it mildly) has anything changed in the way influence is bought and sold
  
  The world’s richest man did a nazi salute on stage, in front of at least 3 of the other richest men in the world who all showed up to support the incoming administration.
  
  The owners of Twitter, Meta, Amazon, and most recently Tiktok with the “thanks Trump!” obvious power play have all quite openly kissed the ring and bent the knee.
  
  This is very far off from previous years. The wealthiest of the wealthy are making public displays of loyalty to a man who has flagrantly profitted off of the office for four years straight while actively making life worse for everyone except the rich.
  
  Now he flagrantly profitted off of the office again before he was even inaugurated by launching a cryptocurrency, and his first actions in office are all directly and obviously against the best interests of the people but custom-designed for the well-known interests of wealthy conservative idealogues.
  
  Yes, this is new. And yes, this is very, very, bad. Was America an oligarchy playing dress-up as a democratic republic? Yes. Were there massive donors pulling strings behind the scenes? Absolutely. Were politicians and lobbyistsvenjoying a revolving door of public and private sector benefits and making bank on book deals? All true.
  
  But now the masks are off, and the worst and wealthiest have taken control with a smile and a laugh. They aren’t playing the world’s biggest and stupidest game of Monopoly. They have the Commander in Chief of the Military with all the checks and balances intentionally removed, so at the very least they’re playing the world’s worst game of Risk.
  
  They aren’t going to make money off of book deals. They will make money off of wholesale looting and dismantling the government, and they’ll blame the inevitable economic and societal problems on us, on immigrants, on un-American citizens, and they’ll do it in broad daylight on 5th avenue.
  
  That’s bad.
  
  source
- 0xD@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  They’re now completely shameless, out in the open, and know that nobody is gonna stop them.
  
  source
- dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Under trump yes it’s both overt and flagrant. Any of his friends, people he owes, people he likes, or those in his orbit get things like cabinet positions, or government contracts, or ambassadorships. This is new under trump. There have always been better or worse candidates for positions and questionable angling, but the “my kid gets this position, her father in law gets that one, this fox news guy gets this” undeniable.
  
  This is in addition to the fact that the connections are now in the open as well. Trump just calls up a supreme Court justice when he’s got a case before them and they answer. Senators, governors, and of course house reps are the same and increasingly industry CEOs are playing the game.
  
  To wrap a brief oligarchy/plutocracy comment, you can even go find a soundbite by trump that says basically “Elon gave us a lot of money, so I guess I’m a fan of electric cars now”. There is no more quiet part, or quiet part loud, it’s just all loud.
  
  source
- drthunder@midwest.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  On top of what everyone else has said, I’m gonna be that person and bring up capitalism, which I’m defining as private ownership of business (as opposed to state ownership, or ownership by the workers, etc). Capitalism concentrates money, and by extension power, which is never good for people without it. I’ll admit I’m biased as a socialist, but at this point the biggest indictment of capitalism for me is that most of what we’re seeing these days isn’t new: rampant wealth inequality which leads to institutions decaying, followed by liberal and conservative elites being either unable or unwilling to fix problems that are plain for everyone to see, followed by people being radicalized.
  
  The new thing is global warming, which can’t be attributed solely to capitalism but is being exacerbated by it. A handful of people who get their money and power from fossil fuels would rather burn the world to ashes than give up that money and power (yes, they’re probably investing in renewables, but if they treated global warming like the existential threat it is, they wouldn’t be bankrolling climate deniers.
  
  (this should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the Soviet Union or the current Chinese government, they are/were both also results of capitalism failing but neither of those is relevant to democracy failing in the West™ also I’m not a tankie, authoritarianism of every stripe is bad)
  
  source