[Cause]

We would be in a dictatorship already if these people were not so incompetent. Pam Bondi wrote a lawsuit to force California to drop their emission standards on cars and she called it Trumps DOJ against California or something close enough to those lines.

Republicans are cooked. The economy is down, gdp was revised down, inflation is up and this is before the Iran costs are effecting the data. The Iran war on top… mid terms are going to be a blood bath.

Which worries me, if it’s not a tough fight but a guaranteed route how far will they go with their election denial/supression bullshit.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

 Cause, on 19 March 2026 - 11:41 PM, said:

We would be in a dictatorship already if these people were not so incompetent. Pam Bondi wrote a lawsuit to force California to drop their emission standards on cars and she called it Trumps DOJ against California or something close enough to those lines.

Republicans are cooked. The economy is down, gdp was revised down, inflation is up and this is before the Iran costs are effecting the data. The Iran war on top… mid terms are going to be a blood bath.

Which worries me, if it's not a tough fight but a guaranteed route how far will they go with their election denial/supression bullshit.

Quote

'Trump is aiming for dictatorship'. That's the verdict of the world's most credible democracy watchdog

The US is no longer a democracy. One of the most credible global sources on the health of democratic nations now says this outright. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at Gothenburg University reaches the alarming conclusion in its annual report, that the US is hurtling towards autocracy at a faster rate than Hungary and Turkey.

[...] Threats to bureaucrats and poll workers administering elections are already alarming, Lindberg says. "We've seen media reports that 40% of election/poll workers have quit since 2020. And Trump never accepted his defeat then. Why would he accept a defeat now? If we see a denial of the election results in 2026, then it's a complete democratic breakdown."

'Trump is aiming for dictatorship'. That's the verdict of the world's most credible democracy watchdog | Martin Gelin | The Guardian

However, the Trump administration's extreme incompetence in attacking Iran---particularly their failure to anticipate and prepare for the Iranian retaliation---is likely diminishing his support in the military. And resulting inflation seems to be reducing his support in red states. But he may still have enough hardcore supporters or others willing to commit to aiding his auto-coup (perhaps in hopes of personal gain) to pull it off...

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 20 March 2026 - 12:02 AM

[Grief]

We are in a very weird limbo state at the moment.

The mid-terms could put the US on a path back towards normality. Not back to normality itself, that's a long way off, but moving towards it instead of continuing to drive away from it.

The mid-terms could also be the final nail in the coffin.

There is a world of difference between an outgoing President crying foul about their election defeat - which was already bad enough and already saw a genuine attempt to overthrow the incoming government - and a sitting President trying to overturn election results while they are firmly within their term.

The latter feels practically inevitable unless Trump kicks the bucket beforehand. He does not seem capable of doing much else than deny negative election results. Not just from a political perspective but in terms of his own personality.

The question feels more like "what happens when..." than "what happens if...".

Large parts of his base could go along with him. The Republican party might or might not do the same depending how the wind looks like it is blowing on a given day. They have certainly not been inclined to oppose his anti-democratic tendencies before now, even where they have opposed him on other issues, and in many cases they seem in too deep at this stage. The time where they might find some excuse to turn away from Trump and not get tarred themselves seems long past.

Are the Democrats set up to mount a real opposition against an authoritarian power grab? It doesn't especially feel like it. At the same time, I'm not sure any kind of preparations would be publicly visible.

[Cause]

With the Cold War over is the US still bullying Cuba to satisfy the Cuban voter bloc in Florida? Is there more to it?

Apparently the island is basically under an energy siege.

This post has been edited by Cause: 20 March 2026 - 11:24 PM

[Primateus]

Robert Mueller is dead, and...

Of course the Orange Windbag is celebrating.

[Werthead]

There's a whistleblower case going on regarding Tulsi Gabbard sitting on a "very serious" complaint involving two foreign agents recorded discussing Jared Kushner and the CIA. The normal sequence of events for this would be a briefing of the Gang of 8 (the high-ranking bipartisan members of Congress with the national security brief), but Gabbard sat on the report for 4 months before finally that briefing was forced to happen a couple of days ago. The result of that briefing was members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence going apoplectic why this incident was not reported sooner and what action is being taken.

This sounds extremely serious, the Gang of 8 is normally given emergency briefings only on matters of the highest national security importance (like the attack on Iran, for example).

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

As the Trump administration continues to bombard Iran, a top Pentagon official revealed that U.S. wars in the Western Hemisphere are also expanding, unveiling an effort dubbed "Operation Total Extermination."

Attacks on Latin American drug cartels are "just the beginning" [...] The attacks in Ecuador are also part of, and an expansion of, Operation Southern Spear: the U.S. military's illegal campaign of strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. The U.S. has conducted 46 attacks since September 2025, destroying 48 vessels and killing almost 160 civilians. The latest strike, on March 19 in the Pacific, killed two more people and left one survivor. The Trump administration claims its victims are members of at least one of 24 or more cartels and criminal gangs with whom it claims to be at war but refuses to name.

[...] Recent official leaks about the potential U.S. indictment of President Gustavo Petro of Colombia on drug charges — the official reason for Maduro's kidnapping[...] suggest the U.S. may employ that tactic as [...] an eventual pretext for military action.

Pentagon Reveals Attacks in Latin America Are Just the Beginning: "Operation Total Extermination" - The Intercept

I guess the "charitable interpretation" is that they're "trolling" people who think that genocide is a bad thing, and they really just want to "exterminate" the cartels... the joint actions with the government of Ecuador might be legitimate attacks on cartels, but Colombia seems more like Venezuela---a possible pretext for using military action secure US control of resources (in the case of Colombia---oil, natural gas, gold...).

[Macros]

Wouldn't it be delightful if the new democrat person elected in Florida found some reason to shutter maralago

[Cause]

The Trump Administration strikes again. Pete Hegseth says military chaplains will no longer wear there rank but will wear there religious affiliation instead and that he wants them to minister to troops again and stop acting as councilors. He will reduce the number of recognized faith codes from 200 to 31.

I imagine the administration is about to get a new wave of endless lawsuits but more than that I am pretty sure there’s a very strong reason why chaplains were trained to be councilors. There are only so many chaplains in a regiment but that regiment may have soldiers from several backgrounds. A Muslim or a Jew don’t need the Christian’s bibles teachings but they may still benefit from a more generalized support counciling session from a Christian chaplain while in theatre.

[Abyss]

Cause, on 26 March 2026 - 05:27 PM, said:

The Trump Administration strikes again. Pete Hegseth says military chaplains will no longer wear there rank but will wear there religious affiliation instead and that he wants them to minister to troops again and stop acting as councilors. He will reduce the number of recognized faith codes from 200 to 31.

I imagine the administration is about to get a new wave of endless lawsuits but more than that I am pretty sure there's a very strong reason why chaplains were trained to be councilors. There are only so many chaplains in a regiment but that regiment may have soldiers from several backgrounds. A Muslim or a Jew don't need the Christian's bibles teachings but they may still benefit from a more generalized support counciling session from a Christian chaplain while in theatre.

who is he pandering to w this genius move?

[Cause]

Abyss, on 26 March 2026 - 06:26 PM, said:

Cause, on 26 March 2026 - 05:27 PM, said:

The Trump Administration strikes again. Pete Hegseth says military chaplains will no longer wear there rank but will wear there religious affiliation instead and that he wants them to minister to troops again and stop acting as councilors. He will reduce the number of recognized faith codes from 200 to 31.

I imagine the administration is about to get a new wave of endless lawsuits but more than that I am pretty sure there's a very strong reason why chaplains were trained to be councilors. There are only so many chaplains in a regiment but that regiment may have soldiers from several backgrounds. A Muslim or a Jew don't need the Christian's bibles teachings but they may still benefit from a more generalized support counciling session from a Christian chaplain while in theatre.

who is he pandering to w this genius move?

Himself and Christian white supremacist nationalist crusader wannabees. A bit of a tautology there.

The very fact that he has the bandwidth for this crap and to announce it himself while this whole Iran war is playing out is so telling.

Trump I am sure will tell us more exciitng news about his coin, the arch or the ballroom soom. I always though Nero fiddling while rome burns was meaent to be figurative.

This post has been edited by Cause: 26 March 2026 - 06:32 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Trump's been so hard at work addressing the various crises he's caused that he has just come up with a new and obviously brilliant solution... he's adding his signature to US paper money! Yeah, that'll solve the affordabiltiy crisis... by wasting more money on stupid dictator shit.

Quote

U.S. dollars will bear the signature of President Trump later this year, the Treasury Department said, an unprecedented change to the nation's currency [...] "There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S. dollar bills bearing his name, and it is only appropriate that this historic currency be issued at the Semiquincentennial,"

https://www.nytimes....?smid=url-share

[Primateus]

Azath Vitr (D, on 26 March 2026 - 10:24 PM, said:

Trump's been so hard at work addressing the various crises he's caused that he has just come up with a new and obviously brilliant solution... he's adding his signature to US paper money! Yeah, that'll solve the affordabiltiy crisis... by wasting more money on stupid dictator shit.

Quote

U.S. dollars will bear the signature of President Trump later this year, the Treasury Department said, an unprecedented change to the nation's currency [...] "There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S. dollar bills bearing his name, and it is only appropriate that this historic currency be issued at the Semiquincentennial,"

https://www.nytimes....?smid=url-share

Is there a possibility that Trump adding his signature to the dollar bills might devalue it on the global market?

[Garak]

That would be hilarious.

[Cause]

I just love that American education has fallen so far in 250 years that they don’t realize the irony of celebrating 250 years of independence with Trumps signature on the dollar or his face ona. Giant gold coin. Can we find him a scepter and crown?

[Tsundoku]

https://www.mcsweene...e-change-a-quiz

Does Your Country Need Regime Change? A Quiz
by Carlos Greaves

“In announcing the U.S. military strike on Iran, President Donald Trump went significantly beyond his previous justification of destroying the country’s nuclear program. He’s now also calling for regime change—and encouraging the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow their government.” — ABC News

- - -
Is your country ruled by an aging megalomaniac whose supporters worship him with an almost cult-like zeal?

Has your leader eroded trust in elections by attempting to bring them under his direct control and/or stoking false claims of voter fraud?

Is there a fear that your leader has access to nuclear weapons that you could totally see him using if the end result would benefit him personally?

Is your country a notorious bad actor in the Middle East?

Has your leader deployed the country’s military domestically against civilians who were protesting peacefully?

Is your nation’s frail, kleptocratic economy being propped up, thanks in part to being a major oil exporter?

Do your leader’s supporters claim that he was ordained by God to rule?

Is your leader currently breaking ground on several expensive and cartoonishly vain construction projects in the nation’s capital?

Does your leader and his inner circle regularly engage in petty bribery, shady investment deals, and other dubious behavior to enrich themselves?

Does your leader view the lives of armed services personnel as disposable by mocking their service or saying things like “that’s the way it is” whenever they are killed?

Is your leader in the process of consolidating control over the nation’s prominent media outlets?

Is there currently a paramilitary force actively engaging in ethnic cleansing, including, but not limited to, systematically attempting to remove an entire ethnic group from the country?

Has your leader created his own form of currency of which he is the face?

Does your leader give bombastic speeches about returning the nation to its former glory by vanquishing an enemy from within?

Has your leader been credibly accused and/or convicted of several crimes, which he is using his position of power to dodge accountability for?

Are politicians within your leader’s own party so terrified of retribution that they’ll let him insult and ridicule them right to their faces like he’s a septuagenarian Biff Tannen?

Has your leader renamed several prominent institutions after himself?

If your leader were deposed, would millions of people across the country take to the streets to celebrate?

Does it feel like every single news story, every article, every think piece, every bit of media content revolves around your leader, almost as if, no matter how hard the country tries to talk about literally anything else, he seems to keep finding ways to pop back into the spotlight and suck all of the oxygen out of the room, to the point where it feels like you’ve spent every waking moment of every day for the past ten years hearing about every single stupid and/or evil thing this guy’s done, and you’re just so fucking exhausted?

Did your leader just start a war he clearly has no idea how to end?

If the answer to most or all of these questions is yes, it may be time for a massive nonviolent resistance movement.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Nick Fuentes, a [...] white-supremacist influencer, is notorious for a political outlook that he summarizes succinctly: "Jews are running society, women need to shut the fuck up, Blacks need to be imprisoned, for the most part." For Ericson Contreras, a left-leaning 23-year-old Afro Hispanic man from New York, Fuentes is not a natural ideological guru. So when Contreras was scrolling Instagram at 3 a.m. recently, he was surprised to find himself served a clip of a Fuentes monologue. More surprising still, Contreras was nodding along.

"Trump is better than the Democrats for Israel. For the oil and gas industry. For Silicon Valley. For Wall Street. Is he really better for us? I don't think so," Fuentes declared while gazing at the camera in one of these fan-uploaded clips. "Biden made it so that medical debt doesn't go on your credit report—that was good for me. Biden tried to forgive the student loans—that was good for me." Retouched in a tasteful black and white, the video featured an orchestral soundtrack that crescendoed as the fast-talking, besuited polemicist delivered his final punch: "The free market says that Republicans have enough money to bomb Iran but not enough money to pay for my student loans. And I'm going to vote for that 'cause I'm an idiot."

https://www.theatlan...t-clips/686485/

... Trump's so terrible he's even losing the Neo-Neo-Nazis... well, some of them, at least.

And not just them:

Quote

Iran Has Broken the Trump Coalition

[...] Schulz and many of his fellow manosphere commentators seem to feel—by varying degrees—duped by the president they helped elect. Some have been airing those grievances for months, starting with Trump's handling of the Epstein files and, later, the killing of American citizens at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis. To Schulz and others like him, a brand-new war in the Middle East is a betrayal so massive, you almost have to laugh. "The only shot you have at a good life right now is to hasten the rapture," Tim Dillon, another podcaster and comedian, said on a recent show. "The foreign and economic policy of our country currently is the rapture."

[...] The MAGA faithful are overwhelmingly sticking with the president. Not so for everyone else. A number of new polls show that [... t]he broad coalition that put Trump back in the White House no longer appears to exist. [...]

There's an obvious opening now for someone to pick up Trumpism's fallen mantle and carry it further than the president has been willing to himself. That person could be someone like Representative Thomas Massie, the consistently anti-war libertarian congressman famous mainly for being a thorn in Trump's side. It could also, theoretically, be someone more like Fuentes, a man with darker intentions and a growing following.

https://www.theatlan...mp-maga/686571/

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

I still just don't understand what people expected. Is Trump just a a blank slate that they applied all their hopes and dreams to? Because he certainly was not somebody who anybody that paid attention would expect to be for the common person... or, any person really but himself

[Macros]

Yeah, not once in his life has he been anything but selfish.

What exactly was expected?
How can you stand by the human turd still?

[QuickTidal]

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 30 March 2026 - 07:38 AM, said:

I still just don't understand what people expected. Is Trump just a a blank slate that they applied all their hopes and dreams to? Because he certainly was not somebody who anybody that paid attention would expect to be for the common person... or, any person really but himself

Macros, on 30 March 2026 - 02:05 PM, said:

Yeah, not once in his life has he been anything but selfish.

What exactly was expected?
How can you stand by the human turd still?

I think a significant bunch of truly uneducated or at least conspiracy-minded individuals in the States REALLY thought that as an "outsider", he would "drain the swamp" of the "elites" the boomers had watched destroy things in US govt since Vietnam...but once he got into that power the sunk cost fallacy dropped into place, and then Biden's term only reinforced the "old white man establishment" they thought Trump would destroy (with him still prattling on to his followers from outside the office of the White House for 4 years)...so they blindly voted for him and the Republicans again in the same stupid and fervent hope that he would destroy those people....only to learn way too late that all the stuff they painted Harris with, he is instead doing.

I'm not saying this was a good thing, but watching the Boomers go from young hippies who distrusted the establishment for sending them and their friends to die in a pointless war, to eventual septuagenarians falling for a con man's whole entire schtick about how he would fix it, only to stand there gobsmacked that they were conned...is one of the wildest things I've ever seen I'm my life. they say the last person in on the Con is the "mark"....in this case the Mark is everyone who fell for his shit, or is still falling for it.