I read an article that claimed some top Generals are trying to distract him with an invasion of Iran (which is also really, really bad). Traditional neocons certainly don’t want this, though; they don’t want to throw away 80 years of military alliances. Still, if the president tells the Pentagon, “make me a Greenland invasion plan,” they’re gonna do it.
Well, I hate to throw cold water on that comfort, but I’m not sure the numbers matter. Trump is increasingly unresponsive to polling, even within his base, and it seems like the Pentagon really is planning an invasion. It would fracture his own MAGA movement, completely destroy NATO, make America a global pariah, and potentially start WWIII, but it seems he is seriously considering it.
I really want to stress how deeply unpopular this is in the U.S. The MAGA movement is about 30% of the electorate, so you can generally expect that even the dumbest, most insane Trump decisions have a floor of 30% approval. 9% of Americans support this, 86% oppose it. At minimum, two-thirds of Trump’s most rabid, loyal followers are against this.
Sure, ICE should be scared that someone might kill them, but a more interesting question is if a prosecutor could find 12 people in an ICE-occupied city that would convict someone of that killing.
OK. Weird it took five comments on the potential of Democrats adopting Democratic Socialism for you to realize you don’t like Democratic Socialism, but I’m glad we got there in the end, I guess.
What makes you think the party elites give a shit what they think?
As I said, I think they’ll be out on their ass. Schumer will not get another term in leadership. Jefferies might, since he kept the House together on shutdowns, but his polling is still underwater and his days are numbered. The rank and file will go where the wind blows. We’ve already seen this when normie-centrists started dumping AIPAC money because of their base. I’m sure leadership will fight it until they’re ousted, and donor class will pivot to Republicans, but the average Dem politician would rather adopt a Democratic Socialist platform than lose their seat.
One anomalous Mamdani cannot reasonably justify hope in electoral reform.
Platner is also polling ahead or Mills despite the whole, “having a Nazi tattoo,” thing. Kat Abughazaleh is in a dead heat with Biss despite Biss having the establishment backing. Richie Torres is getting a DSA primary challenge after he had to drop his bid for governor against Hochul, and Hochul herself had to pivot to supporting Mamdani (she saw how the wind was blowing). There’s also Donavan McKinney primarying Shri Thanedar in Michigan, but I’m not following that one closely enough to say much about it. The point is, it’s not just Mamdani, there are several strong DSA or DSA-aligned challengers that are doing well.
Capital will do all it can to extinguish Socialism as it always does. This system was made by and for capitalists and cannot be used as the sole means of establishing a socialist system.
OK, well, the entire philosophy of Democratic Socialism is blending public ownership with heavily regulated private businesses using the current system of democratic institutions. If you think that Democratic Socialism is impossible, fair enough, you’re entitled your opinion and I’m not really interested in debating political theory. But even if you’re right, and Democratic Socialism will be a failure, I don’t think that means that the Democrats won’t adopt it.
Polling shows capitalism is on a downswing while socialism is on an upswing, especially within the Democratic party. Socialism is losing its status as a boogeyman. Beyond that, Mamdani’s Democratic Socialist platform is broadly popular across the country, and even as voters are voting heavily against Republicans in special elections, the democrats are still at historically low favorability levels.
Again, when I say Democratic Socialism will be the norm, I’m not saying that the majority of Democrats will identify as Democratic Socialists. I’m saying thst the majority of Democrats will adopt the policies of the Democratic Socialists or be primaried by candidates that do (and, again, they’ll probably frame it in the context of the New Deal rather than socialism). But the NYC mayoral election has made it clear that the corporate Democrats can no longer control the narrative, and I think it’s just the beginning.
There’s a reckoning coming for Democrats as well. Their poll number are still rock bottom in their own base. Primaries are coming for Torres and Jefferies, and it’s basically assumed Schumer won’t have a Minority (or, dare to dream, Majority) position in the next Congress. Despite the entire Democratic establishment lining up against him, Mamdani won. I think, with a little luck, Democratic Socialism will be the norm by '28 (though they’ll probably call it, “Getting back to our New Deal roots,” or some shit).
Based on the reports of torture and abuse out of, “Alligator Alcatraz,” (God I fucking hate having to use that stupid fucking name), we are certainly heading there. They described torture techniques similar to CECOT, including denial of medical treatment. We don’t know what’s happening inside ICE detention facilities, but an alarming number of detainees are dying. We just kidnapped a sovereign head of state, and Trump is actively talking about doing the same to other nations.
Things don’t start at the end. There were six years between Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor and the invasion of Poland. It was five years between the opening of the first concentration camps and the mass interment of Jews, and another three years before they opened the gas chambers in Auschitz. If anything, 2025 has shown that this administration is moving faster than the Nazis, and the midterms will probably be our last chance to purge these people (including the Democrats who refuse to fight them) from our government before they kill what’s left of our democracy.
And given how many American politicians support that genocide, that’s saying something.
He’s always been a bloodthirsty neocon with a fetish for regime change in Latin America. The Trump administration is just freeing him of the pretense of civility. Wait until they get to Cuba; he’ll be demanding we make them a U.S. territory to, “free,” them from communism.
Alright, I’m prettty sure the only reason you’re so bitchy about this is because my second reading of the meme is what you actually believe, and you’re pissy that someone called you our for defending propaganda. Block me if you want, it’s really more of a mute button anyway. Enjoy being media literate.
There is no dichotomy…
This is just making fun of liberals in the US who comment on lemmy threads about RT being unreliable and not much else. The implication is really that the western media is equally unreliable.
This is the false dichotomy: RT and western media. You’ve even stopped distinguishing between western corporate media and western media in this comment, because you boiled it down to this false binary. What about Common Dreams? ProPublica? Democracy Now? Those aren’t western media?
If the point here is, “Liberals think CNN/MSNBC/NYT isn’t biased because its not state media,” fine, but with no context, this just as easily reads, “RT is fine because corporate news is also biased.” That’s why this is sitting at 59% upvotes.
All that’s present is a false dichotomy between state propaganda and corporate propaganda, and the implication that people who choose corporate propaganda are idiots. This reads as apologia for consuming state propaganda, framed as media literacy. If it’s not, it needs more context.
I guess media literacy is when you think those are the only two options.
Yeah, if you’re going to use a phrase like this, you need to make your intention crystal clear. If this was an attempt to satirize old, racist tropes, casually using one of those tropes in the first panel of a comic with an unrelated punchline does not achieve that goal.
It just looks that way because they’ve got very narrow heads. Its much clearer on owls, which have very broad faces, that birds of prey have fully forward facing eyes.
My point is that they’re entirely forward facing. Calling it a mammal rule isn’t really accurate. It’s about whether or not the animal needs to judge distance to attack. Sharks use their vision to scan for prey above and below them, but they use their other sense to attack. Hawks and cats have a significantly different sense of vision, but both need to be able to accurately judge distance with their eyes when attacking.
That article says exactly what I said about Panda’s:
Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivoran, the giant panda’s diet is primarily herbivorous, with approximately 99% of its diet consisting of bamboo. However, the giant panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore, as well as carnivore-specific genes, and thus derives little energy and little protein from the consumption of bamboo. The ability to break down cellulose and lignin is very weak, and their main source of nutrients comes from starch and hemicelluloses.
While primarily herbivorous, the giant panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the giant panda’s bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements.
They have developed some minor digestive traits that help them process bamboo, but they don’t have the four chambered stomach of a cow or the extra-long hindgut of a gorilla to thoroughly digest plant matter. They have to seasonal migrate to get the amount of nutrients they need from young bamboo shoots and mature bamboo leaves. Their bodies could easily process a carnivorous diet, but their metabolism has become too slow for then to manage to hunt almost anything besides plants.
Maybe. MAGA is fracturing right now. Withholding the Epstien files really was too much for some of them, and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s defection gave a lot of them permission to question and criticize him. Invading an ally for no reason might actually break through to good chunk of the average red hats.