No Stupid Questions

for no gain.

Nearly $3 billion USD flowed through the TRUMP cryptocoin rugpull, whoever owned initial coins made very, very large gains.

The $3 billion in quid buys a lot of anti-Ukraine pro quo

But, thanks to the Supreme Court, Trump could go on national TV and say he change US policy on Ukraine because he was bribed and he'd still be immune to any legal consequences (other than impeachment, but never anything criminal).

Because they think it owns the libs, plain and simple!

OP should try Truth Social, I hear it's technically a Mastodon fork...

OP's also not going to get an answer that's interesting or helpful out of them even if you go to where they live and ask and don't get immediately flamed for asking.

There's no acceptable answer for it. I have plenty of conservative friends and I could make sense of voting for Trump the first time. Not for me, FUCK that, but not all Trump v1 supporters were racists and there were valid conservative reasons to vote for him. He was definitely an unknown, nobody could have told you with certainty how he would act once in office. I could have told you what I expected and it was about as horrible as I expected, but people often see things in politicians that they want to see, rather than seeing what's really there.

But any of the "OK to vote for Trump v1" falls apart completely for Trump v2. We saw what his first term was like and especially how it ended. His campaign in 2024 was even more unhinged and less grounded in reality than in 2016. Voting for him in 2024 is really inexcusable.

The US will be unimaginably worse off by the time Trump leaves office this time, tariffs and tax cuts for the rich and inflation, it's going to be bad for Americans on an individual level. On a global level, Trump will have shredded alliances and any goodwill we had built up over the past decades, while also validating and confirming the world's worst concerns about us.

And when Trump does finally leave office, the people you want to hear from will largely feel like it was a phenomenal presidency. It is a cult and logic and reason don't have anything to do with it.

Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it had occurred to me that the US disproportionately spends much, much more on military might than our allies do. Europe pulled a good one on us, ensuring they could lead more carefree lifestyles with first world social safety nets while we take on that heavy burden of being the sentry guard of the entire western world.

However, we made promises of security to Ukraine in return for their nuclear disarmament. It isn’t right that we turn our backs on them now.

Trump is a simpleton. He doesn’t truly understand the long-term butterfly effects of the decisions he’s making.

Great post! And I can see the point of most of that take.

My riposte, which I bring up frequently, is that a smart capitalist isn't going to invest in American factories, knowing damned well they'll be left holding the bag on a multi-million dollar facility when the tariffs drop.

That's not even mentioning the employment costs, which are far more than most on lemmy understand. tl;dr: If I'm paying you $15hr., it's costing me $30hr.

We need to bring manufacturing back to America and revitalize the rust belt. We can't do that if companies find it more profitable to go over seas and pay people pennies when they'd have to pay Americans much more.

Canada has

1. Higher wages
2. More safety regs

One of those must be the issue. ;-)

The thing is, it's not total rubbish. The problems are real - rust belt decline, life is harder for Americans than it was in the past. America is more protected from Russian aggression than Europe. He doesn't seem to realise or care that the reason for that is because we trusted that the US would have our back and its not like the us wasn't getting anything in return.

It's just that these truths are mixed in with lies - immigrants are the problem, tariffs will fix anything, that if america abandons it's allies and its promises (over protecting Ukraine after they gave up their nukes), this will lead to a better long term outcome for America.

Trump is too dumb to understand subtlety and he's being played by multiple bad actors, domestic and foreign.

When we spend money in other countries, we are spending it on Americans. When free people thrive, America wins. When people around the world have stable governments that at least try to look out for their own people, America wins. Even if 49% of it is wasted to fraud and abuse, we're still coming out ahead: the only Americans who have lived through a draft are in their 60s, and a nuclear attack in their 80s.

This hedgemony has staved of world war three and nuclear war for 75 years, and kept the world a relatively stable and safe place for virtually everyone.

Even if you completely disagree with me, and feel like voting for conservatives is the better alternative, two facts completely undermine that decision. First, the times America has failed to live up to its ideals or faltered in its highest pursuits have been exclusively presided over by conservatives. Second, the number of times conservatives have cut spending and passed the savings on to the 99% is exactly zero, but their track record of increasing spending while only significantly cutting taxes for the 1%...is 100%. And, as a bonus fact, this the wealthiest nation ever to exist in the history of the world. The diea that we can't afford to help Americans and keep up our global spending is meritless, for example, we could eat like three billionaires and end global hunger, provide healthcare and education to every American.

This is a good steel man response, very much like Facebook posts I have seen lately. It's really sad how much the right has abandoned listening to experts and just assuming we can apply "common sense" answers to fix problems that are complicated.

You're describing the Republican politicians. The Republican voters are a different bag entirely.

Out of the ones I have discussed politics with, their underlying motivations for supporting Trump are emotionally driven but explained through rhetoric aligning with their emotional motivations. It tends to be grouped into one of a few different feelings:

• cost of living/financial security

immigrants' fault, taxes, foreign nations taking advantage of US generosity

• fear of change/bigotry

immigrants, "DEI", "wokeness", border security

• American exceptionalism/egotism

immigrants, 1st ammendment

• distrust of federal government

"DEI", government corruption, regulatory overreach, socialism = communism

• distrust of industry

vaccines harmful, science bad

Aside from the bigotry and exceptionalism, those emotions aren't necessarily wrong. Cost of living increases, politicians owned by lobbyists, and profit-driven privatization of essential services are actual problems. The issue with conservatives is that they have scapegoats to blame those problems on instead of acknowledging the underlying causes. All it takes is some loudmouth, ignorant jackass offering an overly-simplified, emotionally-compelling solution to a complex problem, and others will latch on to it, oversimplify and exaggerate it even more, and disseminate it until the rest of them start believing it.

People can be hateful, narcissistic pieces of shit, and it goes without saying that this repugnant rhetoric is spread intentionally. But, it's also a direct consequence of a public education system failing among a landscape of patriotic propaganda and media controlled by a powerful few who put profit and self-gain above the health of society.

When someone grows up being told America is a flawless nation, that self-reliance is the foundational trait of success, is never educated to think critically of the government and media, and is bombarded by a neverending stream of false information that validates their fears and lulls them into feeling smarter than everyone else, they end up being indoctrinated into the right-wing cult we have today.

They won't blame foundational American principles (like the economic ideology) for American problems—they were made to believe America is perfect. It must be something external (like immigrants) making their life worse.

They won't question those they believe have authority over them—the teacher is always right. If Trump says it's the Democrats fault, it's the Democrats fault.

They won't make an effort to understand other views—self-reliance is antithetical to empathy, and they had it ingrained which one was more important. The only person they can trust is themselves and by extension those who agree.

They also won't need to understand other views. With the breadth of echo chambers available at the tip of their fingers, it's easy to seek and reinforce conservative views, social connection, and validation. Chuck McFuck has a sole trans daughter who begrudgingly interacts with him, in contrast to his 10,000 friendly and cooperative buddies on r/conservative.