• carl_dungeon@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s weird how all the things fucking up our country have been Republican lead- it’s almost like they don’t have people’s, or the country’s best interests at heart? Crazy coming from such flag waving patriots…

    • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Making sure, that Putins and Xis interests are protected… The Republican party is evidently chilling for Russia and at least by coalignment helping China tremendously too. How these traitors are not rotting in prison cells is beond my understanding. But well at least it is entertaining to watch from afar.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlM
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        1 year ago

        Nobody has done more to advance Russian and Chinese interests than the democrats in the past year and a half. We now have a whole new world economy that’s completely independent of the west emerging around BRICS. This would have never been possible had US not decided to fight an economic war with Russia and cut it out of the global financial system. The proxy war has also exposed the west as being incapable to defeat Russia on the battlefield and showed that western weapons do not live up to the hype.

        • Vode An@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Western Wunderwaffe cannot lose, the Ukrainians are just using them wrong /s

          • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Bernie Sanders supported the carpet bombing of Yugoslavia. He is not a socialist.

            You can be critical of politicians and I have nothing against that. But those two things, if the first thing is even real, are not even close to being even remotely connected. One is strictly foreign policy while the other is pretty much economic policy (or at the very least social policy) and definitely not foreign policy. A person can be a socialist and want to nuke every capitalist country in the world. It most definitely isn’t a good idea nor one people should support, but it doesn’t mean that person isn’t a socialist. Similarly you can criticize Sanders for supporting bombing Yugoslavia (Once again, if it’s true. I don’t know and frankly I don’t care), but his foreign policy does not mean he isn’t a socialist.

            I’m also not saying he’s definitely a socialist. Some of his political positions are socialist while others are more socialist-adjacent, so he’s somewhere on the border of socialism and depending on your own beliefs he may or may not be a socialist. I haven’t gone over everything he stands for (because I’m not American and I don’t care that much about American politics) but I personally would call him more of a social democrat than a democratic socialist.

    • PunnyName@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They literally want less government.

      You’ve all seemingly misunderstood my comment. Oh well, downvote away.

      • darq@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        The definitely do not. They want the government to be involved in private medical decisions about one’s own body. Conservatives love invasive and overbearing governments.

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        1 year ago

        That’s why they want politicians to tell us what medical procedures we can get, why they want women to not be able to leave their states, why they want governments to pick and choose what books people can read and even what nicknames you can be called! Because small Government!

      • Stoneykins [any]@mander.xyz
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        1 year ago

        That isn’t really true, now or ever. It is old, crusty propaganda. It is their excuse for their actions of opposing any and all (useful and fair) government spending, but they really just want to funnel all that same amount of government money, if not more, into the pockets of the people who bribe them. They also obviously don’t believe this as far as personal liberties, they want more power with which to control all finances to their own ends.

        None of that is “small” it is better described as “ineffective” or how I see it, “not designed for your benefit”

      • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They want to show the government is “failing” so they can gut it and replace it with what they want. Profit and control. They know not enough people will pay attention to notice it’s republicans actively causing the failures.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        They literally don’t. The last time Republicans cut anything (spending, agency scope, etc) was… back in Reagan’s time? They say they want smaller government, but every time Republicans have control, they grow government, they just grow it differently than Democrats.

        For example:

        • Bush Sr. - didn’t do much other than passing bipartisan bills
        • Bush Jr - Patriot Act, TSA, military spending
        • Trump - tax cuts and increased spending (at the tail end of an economic boom), stupid tariffs

        And Reagan wasn’t the epitome of small government either, he just talked about it a lot. According to Mother Jones (strong leftist bias), Reagan grew the national debt substantially and increased the number of government employees (there were far fewer in 2012 than the end of Reagan’s presidency).

        I used to consider myself Republican back when I believed they were actually in favor of small government, but I have seen no evidence that Republicans actually are. So I switched my registration to Libertarian and now vote for both parties, depending on how I think the candidate views government.

  • Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz
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    1 year ago

    I wonder how many of their supporters have already forgotten that welfare checks won’t be sent out either?

    • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Their supporters aren’t on welfare, that’s for freeloaders.

      Their supporters are all on SSDI because they have back pain from being overweight, and they can both cash the social security checks (which come out of a different section of the budget) and as a bonus they can sell any oxy pills they don’t snort.

      • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        “everyone else are freeloaders. I actually need the support I get though!”

        smh, it would have been funny if it isn’t such a common mentality.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I wish we could just cut the BS and do something like UBI or NIT. The welfare system is so complex that understanding it is a job in itself, and I really can’t understanding how the poor navigate it. Just give them cash, and phase it out as they earn more.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        can sell any oxy pills they don’t snort.

        God I basically know a town made up of these people. Then they have to trade back pills for pill counts, crazy lifestyle those people live.

    • keepcarrot [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      How many republican supporters are on welfare? I realise there’s a stereotype of white trailer trash, but what are the numbers like?

      • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        GOP voters are richer on average than DNC voters, who are richer on average than non-voters. I believe the breakdown of annual income was something like non-voters $35k, DNC voters $60k, GOP voters $80k. The vast majority of “trailer trash” don’t vote and are just a punching bag for rich liberals so they don’t have to confront their rich small business owner class-allies who actually make up the core of the GOP.

        It’s funny that people’s stereotype of the GOP is either of dirt poor trailer trash reactionaries, or uber-rich Koch billionaires when the reality is that DNC is the party of billionaires and haute bourgies and the ultra-poor have no party. GOP is the party of the petty bourgies, the landlords, small business owners, home owners and labor aristocrats - the “middle class”. GOP so controls the conversations that Americans all believe “small business owner” and “home owner” are benevolent sacred things, but in fact it is the source of much evil. Democrats are afraid to attack the middle class and the GOP for being petty fascist crooks and mini-tyrannical monsters they are because their own party contains the haute imperialist crooks and the mega-tyrannical monsters.

        • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Yes, red states also have massive black populations and poor populations and have very low voter turnout. The poor people with entitlements and low tax output aren’t the ones voting for the GOP en masse, they’re just checked out and the ruling middle-upper class reigns unopposed. This is what happens when you abandon major sections of the population, they check out when they keep getting betrayed. The poor are struggling and uneducated, they do not buy into the institutions or feel compelled to do their rituals.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        That depends on how you define “welfare.”

        This article looks at food assistance:

        Of these, about one-in-five (22%) of Democrats say they had received food stamps compared with 10% of Republicans. About 17% of political independents say they have received food stamps.

        This article looks at entitlements generally:

        While the two parties are sharply divided over entitlement spending, the differences in the proportions of Republicans and Democrats who have received entitlements is fairly modest: 60% of Democrats, 52% of Republicans and 53% of independents have benefited from one of these six major classes of federal entitlement programs.

        So at least from those two studies, Democrats use welfare more than Republicans. The “red states get more welfare funding” notion can be understood to mean that the poor in those states probably vote Democrat and use lots of federal welfare.

        Here’s another article from another source:

        Hardly surprising, we see that in a two-party split, 60-80% of welfare recipients are Democrats, while full time Workers are evenly divided between parties.

    • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      welfare checks barely exist anymore, thanks to both democrats and republicans in the 90s and their “welfare reform”. Are you talking about disability, unemployment, pensions, social security, EBT or medicaid/medicare? Many of these are not even “welfare” but essentially insurance payouts on things that those people paid the premiums/contributions for and are entitled to.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Wouldn’t all government welfare be “insurance” since they’re funded with tax dollars? Even if you’re not a net tax payer, you’re still paying your fair share as defined by the tax code.

        So I really don’t understand that line of discussion. Whether you’re getting Social Security or food assistance, it’s welfare. I don’t care if you need it or not, if you’re getting a benefit from the government, I consider it all the same thing.

        Imo, we should combine most of the various government benefits into a single check you get based on your income. Here’s my plan:

        • if you make nothing, you are brought up to the poverty line
        • if you make under a living wage (say, 2x the poverty line), you get a benefit on a sliding scale based on income
        • if you make over a living wage, you get no benefit

        This would replace the EITC, Social Security, food assistance programs, etc, though probably not Medicare/Medicaid.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Hardline Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday rejected a bill proposed by their leader to temporarily fund the government, making it all but certain that federal agencies will partially shut down beginning on Sunday.

    The defeat left Republicans - who control the chamber by 221-212 - without a clear strategy to avert a shutdown that would close national parks, disrupt pay for up to 4 million federal workers and hobble everything from financial oversight to scientific research if funding is not extended past 12:01 a.m.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday that a government shutdown would “undermine” U.S. economic progress by idling programs for small businesses and children and could delay major infrastructure improvements.

    Holdouts say Congress should focus on writing detailed spending bills that would cover the entire fiscal year, rather than temporary extensions, even if doing so prompts a shutdown.

    “We’re in the middle of a Republican civil war that has been going on for months, and now threatens a catastrophic government shutdown,” top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries told reporters.

    McCarthy and Biden in June agreed to a deal that would have set agency spending at $1.59 trillion in fiscal 2024, but hardliners like Gaetz say that figure should be $120 billion lower.


    The original article contains 714 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    It’s a good thing Democrat leaders like Joe and Pelosi have made sure to voice their support for the existence of a “strong Republican Party.” It is definitely good to keep them around to do helpful things like this rather than try to stamp them out.

    • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      They are shutting down the government to stop money to Ukraine, so in this one particular example it just happens to be kind of good they can do this. Most of the time it isn’t.

      • D61 [any]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Down side is, it will also stop money going to lots of other things, services for marginalized people are going to be reduced.

        • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Yeah such is American politics. Nothing can be by itself, and nothing can be simple. It all has to be riddled with contradictions, with shit injected into the middle of something good to confuse the masses and keep everyone divided. Anything good will be co-opted and used by the system to whitewash something bad, muddying everything into a permanent morass. Rainbow imperialism is a great example on the other end of the spectrum, something the Democrats cynically use. Republicans do a weird faux-populist faux-isolationism, but their critiques are always that we should invade some other place (like Mexico or China or Iran) which is incoherent and not truly anti-imperialist.

      • Vode An@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        It really says a lot that the democrats care more about feeding conscripts to artillery than keeping WIC afloat. The CR without the Ukraine aid would have prevented a lot of suffering.

          • Vode An@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Yay, instance based phrenology. Exactly what we needed to recapture that miasmatic feeling I was missing from Reddit.

              • Vode An@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Do you mind explaining how you see it? What’s the Wesley reference?

                Something I’ve noticed is that any instance that doesn’t mandate a tightly enforced line can be quite diverse, for better and worse. .ml basically enforces the line of “don’t be a bigot” which is good, hence my account here. I know very little of .zip, do you/y’all take exception to the lemmy creators having a no slurs rule or something? Is that the generally leftist (by American standards) user base? What’s the issue?

                • Ubermeisters@lemmy.zip
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                  1 year ago

                  The issue is that you morons come in and say troll shit and then wait two days and then try to make it into a serious conversation like you weren’t just being a fucking cunt to begin with goodbye

  • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    You know the Democrats could have stopped the government from shutting down forever by getting rid of the dumb accounting rules and passing something like the Stop STUPIDITY act in 2019, or similiar bills during Obama’s terms. But For some reason they just didn’t want to, almost like they don’t really care that funding keeps getting disrupted, or that abortion is getting banned or any of the things we all see the the government doing.

    • Scary le Poo@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      This is actually a myth. An oft repeated one, but it isn’t true. There was a supermajority in name only and only for a period of something like 2 or 3 months.

      • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Why does the GOP get what it wants without a majority, but the democrats need a super-hyper-majority, plus the parliamentarian, plus the presidency, plus a majority of State Governors, and they still can’t accomplish anything besides naming a post-office and passing a republican healthcare plan?

        • Scary le Poo@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Because Democrats are not a monolith. Democrats are a coalition.

          Until trump split the party, Republicans have, by and large, been a monolith in lockstep with one another. Now the Republican party is fractured and you’re starting to see the cracks show. Kevin McCarthy reaching across the aisle for a budget bill is an example of that.

          • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Perhaps the DNC should stop allowing abortion, healthcare and the envrionment to be compromised on if their official position is that those things are human rights? If you never make a stand for anything, what good are you?

            • Scary le Poo@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              The dnc is not “Democrats”. The d party is a coalition, and like it or not, a not insignificant chunk of that are moderates.

              You keep wanting to approach things as though Democrats are one block. They are not, and most of us who are much further left despise the dnc. Remember when they actively sabotaged Bernie’s campaign, outright lied, cheated, and stole? I remember. That was the Democrats “dear leader” moment.

              • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                The DNC is the non-profit organization that controls fundraising, ballot access, and ultimately defines what “the democrats” are. If you are elected into office as a “democrat” you have sworn fealty to unelected organizations known as the DNC, or the DCAA and a few others. Make no mistake. The reason Hillary was the presumptive nominee is because she had paid those orgs and so do all the other “who’s who” of the democratic party. For all intents and purposes, if you are a “democrat” you are there because the various unelected powers have allowed you to be.