We got a Russian sock puppet as president again. Yay.
Again? Who was the ot- Oh you mean when he was president the first time.
Booooooo!!!
If only we could have seen this coming like 10 fucking years ago.
I need an “I’m with stupid” shirt pointing all around me.
How about
I 🇺🇸 STUPID
I should make some bumper stickers for this.
I feel like such a shirt would look kinda off. Like, you can’t have one arrow pointing up obviously. And going in all directions to the side is gonna get you questions like “are you missing a few friends?”
Of course. Wouldn’t work in actual application.
Many people did. Plenty of people raised the alarm about escalating US aggression in Europe, following the 2014 Maiden Coup and installation of the far-right puppet government, but everyone insisted on denial.
That’s the joke
But it seems like some people think it started with Trump, when a lot of this started during the Obama admin.
We can’t stop this madness, if we only attack it from one angle.
Woosh
Panama is also currently investigating the Trump Org for tax evasion
i hadn’t heard that one. but woohoo get 'em boys. do a noriega–come here and drag his fat diaper-covered ass back there for judgement.
The guy illegally attempted to overturn an election. Spread a deadly lie about our institutions that incited an insurrection. Stole classified documents and refused to return them when asked. Stated he trusted Russian intelligence over U.S. intelligence on live television.
The man is quite literally a traitor to the United States of America.
And, as a nation, we decided that not only was it not a big enough deal to do anything about, but that we should totally let him be president again.
No one should be surprised about this, or any of the insane shit we’ll be hearing over the next 4 years.
Welcome to the new normal. It’s going to be bad. And it’s going to get worse. And it’ll probably continue after Trump is gone because that’s what happens when this kind of stuff gets normalized.
America is failing, and this is probably just the beginning.
Yup, failing, or already failed and we’re just waiting for the ashes to settle. I don’t think democracy can work when the public is intentionally being misinformed, and no country can be stable when it’s governed by a shitstorm of lies.
Y’all weren’t that misinformed. He got up on stage and rambled. He got up on stage and said nothing while he barely gyrated his hips for 40 minutes. He grabbed em by the pussy.
The whole election campaign was so laughably bad that it became a flex of how he is going to get away with everything. If you voted him in knowing all this than who gives a fuck what he does.
The fires have been lit, but we haven’t completely burned down quite yet… It’s really only a matter of time, though.
11 days until the real fun starts!
Just wait till you see the price of eggs…
Donald Trump is Putin’s bitch
I want to make t-shirts, billboards, bumper stickers with that slogan… Put them everywhere - putin holding trump’s leash who is lifting a leg and pissing on the US.
I wonder if that would get under his thin, spray painted skin like the ‘President Musk’ stuff did.
The crazy part is, this isn’t “all of the sudden”. It’s just another crazy talking point people forgot about from his last term.
And Biden was also annexing regions in the arctic.
And I wipe from back to front. What’s your point?
Boring, kooky, and now repetitive. I’ve scratched my head all day trying to make sense of your many, many posts on this page, and all I’ve got is a fresh bald spot.
Time for a time out.
It’s also a distraction tactic, so the Trump admin can ban trans people from sports, to ease people for the eventual banning of trans people.
I kind of suspect treating people poorly is the distraction. He’s trying to make sure people don’t notice that putin’s hand is up his ass.
Yeah he doesn’t care about trans people, he cares about sweet sweet corruption.
Trump doesn’t have anywhere near the power he thinks he has. This is all just bluster like 90% of everything else that comes out of his mouth.
I hope you’re right.
I am expecting the worst. We are going to be turned into shithole Russia very fast.
bro literally did something that would get him on the chair in any country that knows what freedom and liberty means, and americans put him back in the office right after supreme court threw out all his charges saying “president can do whatever”. One can now only hope he is more talk than walk.
With greenland you get all of the mineral rights that are melting out of it, you get the fishing rights around it and access to the northwest passage route as the north pole melts.
Putin’s poodle is a pushover again.
Send this to my dad so he can write, “Russiagate” and then go listen to reruns of rush.
I have no idea how we get through to these people.
The US is a client state of the russian mafia. And Americans at large are too stupid to care
Absolutely none of this bugs me in any way whatsoever.
Honestly I think the “Trump as an agent of Russia” take is an extremely uninformed take on geopolitics. Trump is an agent of the U.S. empire. That’s why he supports all the U.S. fascist militarism, xenophobia, giveaways to arms manufacturers, oil/gas/etc. companies, giveaways to Wall Street, all of that. Russia is a whole separate power structure whose interests are largely opposed to those of the U.S. empire. So where does that leave you? It seems this is meant more for Democrat ingestion and boogeymanism/scapegoating to detract attention away from the actual workings of the system here.
Ooh, this is interesting.
I’ve talked before about how I have a working theory about how when the top comments section looks “wrong,” some of the propaganda accounts will make new top-level comments and top-level replies, in a sudden flurry of activity to a previously pretty dormant comments section, until it looks “right” again and the conversation they’re trying to downplay, in this case suprh_ninja getting ridiculed for being transparent propaganda, is shifted to way down the page.
That might sound like some tinfoil hat stuff except for how low-effort and bizarre this comment is. Trump was proven after extensive investigation to be an agent of Russia. He’s pretty open about it. He is actively hostile to the US empire, both the good and bad parts, although he is also aligned with a lot of domestic fascist elements. Are you saying Trump is happy about spending $60 billion dollars on aid for Ukraine, because it’s part of “all the giveaways to arms manufacturers”?
He’s “actively hostile” to the U.S. empire? Show me where he decreased its budget:
It’s ridiculous to just start throwing around “propaganda” accusations at any random user you disagree with. Evidence first, smears later.
What “extensive investigation”? What is the specific evidence that was shown to the public, and what does it establish?
Trump is a war criminal and a fascist, focus on what you can actually prove that he’s done wrong, so you’re not chasing red herrings that validate him to his supporters when you can’t prove them.
And now there are three more top-level comments.
Timestamps of all the top-level comments on this post:
- Original post, Jan 8 6:38 PM
- Flurry of new-post replies, ending with:
- Jan 8, 7:43 PM
- Jan 8, 8:55 PM
- Jan 8, 9:02 PM (last comment before things die down)
- Jan 9, 9:51 AM
- Jan 9, 10:14 AM (this is surph_ninja’s comment with a massive replies section which over the last couple of hours started going poorly for him)
- Jan 9, 12:52 PM
- Jan 9, 12:43 PM
- Jan 9, 1:00 PM
- Jan 9, 1:13 PM
- Jan 9, 1:18 PM
Why just now did it become active again, and all with top-level replies, not people responding to anything in the conversation below?
This is actually the first time I’ve seen some real confirmation for my theory about specific activity to bury conversations that people don’t want to have at the top of the comments. Before this, it was just a feeling, but this seems pretty hard to explain any other way.
real confirmation
Sure about that one kiddo?
^ Beware of confirmation bias.
Dude figured out how the ‘Hot’ sorting algorithm works, and thinks he’s uncovered a conspiracy. LoL.
That’s actually, in all seriousness, a really good point. I think it’s “Active” that works that way, not “Hot,” but I get your point. It still doesn’t explain why they’re all top-level comments, or why there was a sudden rush of new ones all with similar totally bizarre lazy takes, like “Trump loves expanding the US empire and doing the bidding of the US foreign-policy establishment.”
It’s so cool watching conspiratorial thinking consume every level of society.
The russians are highly invested in swaying the tens of people on lemmy, theyre watching this post like a hawk.
To be fair, there’s definitely astroturf and propaganda accounts/bots on here. They don’t set those propaganda budgets up for nothing.
But accusing every single criticism of US foreign policy of being a foreign bot just makes me think that account is a domestic bot. Or a deeply propagandized individual.
I believe Russia has influence operations for purposes of making US divisive, fanning both neo-nazi/hatred, and victim attention/reaction against right wing hate. You can consider Russian influence assistance to the GOP agenda of pillaging America, but there is no debt/subservience to Russia by US politicians, and GOP messaging would not differ in the slightest. It just gains volume. Russia DGAFs about Canada, Greenland, Panama changes.
There should be a reaction from “allies”/world to pivot to much lesser evil Russia/China from new US warmongering freedom, but even Biden’s war on Russia was simply a perpetual weapons and oil profits scheme meant to subjugate Europe. That Trump offers bigger military budget and harsher terms for EU existence is just a continuation of simps who promise to be simps under all circumstances being punished more harshly for their alliance.
An empire builder would work with existing alliances, surely, rather than weakening them all systematically, threatening the allies, and undermining their governments until only the USA’s enemies remain strong, while simultaneously implementing policies that damage the USA’s own economy.
Empires are generally more about having puppet states - subsidiaries - then “allies” that they’re on equal footing with. It’s tempting to think of things in terms of countries being allies, since that’s how we’re used to thinking of the organization of the world, but economically - i.e., in terms of the bulk of how power is exercised - those boundaries are more like minor obstacles than defining features. I say “U.S. empire”, the U.S. is the seat, but states like the UK, Germany, and so on ad infinitum, are just under the same command structure. One “country”, the government and related machinery, undermining another, that looks more like a power struggle inside a corporation.
I’d also point out that Russia doesn’t have this kind of influence compared to the West. At all. The U.S. has over ten times the GDP of Russia. You factor in the other OECD countries, we’re talking 20-30 times as much. That’s one economic bloc. You throw in the other BRIC countries on the other side, it starts looking a little more balanced, but still not even close.
This reads like a conspiracy theory. But this whole site is basically nothing but.
Greenland is a good move, strategically, for the US.
Just like Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland were good moves, strategically, for Germany. It doesn’t make it OK.
The way you go to a ridiculous extreme is why people don’t take you seriously.
What’s ridiculous about interpreting the man telling us daily how he’s going to take over some or all of our country as meaning he plans to take over some or all of our country? He has said this repeatedly about Canada, Greenland, Panama and Mexico. Is it ridiculous and extreme to suppose he might mean it?
Yes. Yes it is.
Very sad Putin derangement syndrome in post.
Greenland is needed for US to attack Europe. He doesn’t want it to put Russian bomber/nuke bases there, he wants it out of Europe control.
Panama is obedient US slave for its sanctions on Russia. Panama is not threatening to remove sanctions before US and other colonies remove them. Russia does not do much transit through there. It already has access to both oceans. Pure propaganda to say US control of Panama canal is for Russian interests. It is to block Chinese use.
Russia is not interested in developing far away Canadian offshore resources. Like Greenland, there is no infrastructure there to bring them to customers/users. Russia has many decades of resources/development projects on its own sparsely populated, largest by far coastline, Arctic waters. Explosive level of delusion to think Trump wants to give Russia access to “New USA” coast for projects.
War on Russia is extremely stupid and unwinnable. You don’t need to be paid by Putin to not understand the stupidity and evil. Much better to take over Canada, Europe and Americas for successful evil. The derangement level in this post deflects from the actual obvious evil of US empire, as if you morons should go fight Russia instead.
I’ve talked before about how I have a working theory about how when the top comments section looks “wrong,” some of the propaganda accounts will make new top-level comments and top-level replies, in a sudden flurry of activity to a previously pretty dormant comments section, until it looks “right” again and the conversation they’re trying to downplay, in this case surph_ninja getting ridiculed for being transparent propaganda, is shifted to way down the page.
Timestamps of the top-level comments on this post:
- Original post, Jan 8 6:38 PM
- Flurry of new-post replies, ending with:
- Jan 8, 7:43 PM
- Jan 8, 8:55 PM
- Jan 8, 9:02 PM (last comment before things die down)
- Jan 9, 9:51 AM
- Jan 9, 10:14 AM (surph_ninja’s comment with a massive replies section which over the last couple of hours started going poorly for him): https://lemmy.world/comment/14379661
- Jan 9, 12:52 PM
- Jan 9, 12:43 PM
- Jan 9, 1:00 PM
- Jan 9, 1:13 PM
- Jan 9, 1:18 PM
- Jan 9, 1:24 PM (this comment I’m replying to)
I feel bad that this comments section has now completely been taken over by conversations about propaganda. It’s meaner and less fun to talk about than the original political subject matter. On the other hand, for as long as people are posting propaganda, I guess it’s important for us to be talking about how people are posting propaganda. I will give kudos to the parent comment for being a lot higher caliber of propaganda comment than surph_ninja’s attempt.
This just reached my frontpage. There are alternated explanations to your madness. Propagandist evil deflections bordering on absurd just because “Putin is evil because Stalin was evil” but Yeltsin was a glorious “freedom and democracy” CIA sockpuppet who privatized the country with western financing, and then everything Trump does is because Putin has a pee tape, is a meme narrative that you are significantly overstretching here. All of these threats are pro US empire threats. That reaction against the threats gives colonies a rationality wake up call to no longer treat US as a friend is the open question that most colonial leaders are already too invested in corruption/capture to contemplate.
Putin is evil because Stalin was evil
Yeltsin was a glorious “freedom and democracy”
everything Trump does is because Putin has a pee tape
Boy howdy, that sure is exactly what I said. I’m amazed at your ability to cut through the apparent meaning of my messages and discern that at the core, I’m talking about Putin mostly in terms of Stalin, and also how I sure do love Boris Yeltsin. You can reach back to literally the only thing I ever remember saying recently about the Yeltsin era, that post I did of an article from a State Department person who was active in the 90s, and reference back to what stupendously great things for freedom and democracy I think the US and the Russian government were doing during that time.
Your original post distracts from Trump punishing allies for extreme sycophancy to Biden, by demanding extra tribute from the colonies. If you want to offer a different explanation for your Putin derangement syndrome than historical US hatred for Russia, you can go ahead. Russia is not going to welcome all NATO expansion, and no, NATO is not a purely defensive alliance.
You think you’re playing chess, while you keep playing checkers.
You can only DARVO and spell out your own strategy over and over so many times before people realize you’re projecting.
Maybe not every person critical of US foreign policy is a bot.
You think you’re playing chess, while you keep playing checkers.
You win today’s Thomas Friedman award for nonsensical metaphors.
It’s not competitive on the same level as “When you’re in a hole, stop digging. When you’re in three holes, bring a lot of shovels.” But then, what is?’
Edit: I got the quote wrong.
Friedman came up with lines so hilarious you couldn’t make them up even if you were trying-and when you tried to actually picture the “illustrative” figures of speech he offered to explain himself, what you often ended up with was pure physical comedy of the Buster Keaton/Three Stooges school, with whole nations and peoples slipping and falling on the misplaced banana peels of his literary endeavors.
Remember Friedman’s take on Bush’s Iraq policy? “It’s OK to throw out your steering wheel,” he wrote, “as long as you remember you’re driving without one.” Picture that for a minute.
Or how about Friedman’s analysis of America’s foreign policy outlook last May: “The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, stop digging. When you’re in three, bring a lot of shovels.” First of all, how can any single person be in three holes at once? Secondly, what the fuck is he talking about? If you’re supposed to stop digging when you’re in one hole, why should you dig more in three? How does that even begin to make sense?
It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if the editors over at the New York Times editorial page spend their afternoons dropping acid or drinking rubbing alcohol. Sending a line like that into print is the journalism equivalent of a security guard at a nuke plant waving a pair of mullahs in explosive vests through the front gate. It should never, ever happen.
Courtesy of the formerly-glorious Matt Taibbi.
+1 for slamming Thomas Friedman.
It is mind-boggling that he was taken seriously for decades as an economic and foreign policy thinker. He’s a pre-LLM argument for the idea that being able to put any number of sentences together so they scan is not an indication that there’s any intelligence behind the text. He’s a walking wrong answer. He was unerringly backwards about so many things, on such a basic level that even a very casual critical reading could identify the flaws, and no one noticed at what was supposed to be the highest levels of American journalism, save for a handful of heretics who had to shout from the margins and were basically ignored for basically his entire career.
Enjoy. I started rereading it just now, and it’s just as great as it was back when everyone was reading Judy Miller and Paul Krugman.
This would be a small thing were it not for the overall pattern. Thomas Friedman does not get these things right even by accident. It’s not that he occasionally screws up and fails to make his metaphors and images agree. It’s that he always screws it up. He has an anti-ear, and it’s absolutely infallible; he is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius. The difference between Friedman and an ordinary bad writer is that an ordinary bad writer will, say, call some businessman a shark and have him say some tired, uninspired piece of dialogue: Friedman will have him spout it. And that’s guaranteed, every single time. He never misses.
