His intellectual defenders make their case that the danger is overblown.

  • anon6789@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Call me overly cautious, but I don’t really want a president that jokes about becoming a dictator either…

    • ceenote@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      He literally already tried to be.

      “Does he want to?” is not up for debate. “Can he?” is the question. People downplaying the danger he poses are pushing the needle towards “Yes, he can.”

    • xor@infosec.pub
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      10 months ago

      i don’t see how there’s any other topic in the discussion at this point
      “well moving on from the plan of a brutal, unending dictatorship, what’s your position on corn subsidies?”

    • OpenStars@startrek.website
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      10 months ago

      It is not. Conservatives are gaslighting you, and the media is trying to sell their clickbait. Possibly unpopular thought: at some point it becomes our own fault for choosing to engage? Like the big bad wolf asks “are you home right now?”, where even if you answer “no!” then you have still fallen for the trick? (i.e., of COURSE he would be a dictator, that’s not even a point, but why allow them to control the conversation to switch to the talking points that they choose, rather than driving our own points that we would rather be discussed, like what to do about school shootings or climate change and such?)

      Innuendo Studios has a fascinating whole entire video series called “The Alt-Right Playbook” if anyone wants to learn more about their limited variety of tactics, that are nonetheless extremely effective for those who do not recognize them.

        • OpenStars@startrek.website
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          10 months ago

          IRK? It totally changed my method of responding to the world… I used to painstakingly attempt to respond unless it was extremely obvious that someone was 110% a troll, but now I know that even halfway reasonable people simply cannot be “reasoned” with, if they have an entirely different worldview than me. i.e., don’t give someone a list of 100 reasons to not allow Trump to win - they don’t care (after the 1st impeachment, and the 2nd impeachment, and January 6, and everything else), nor are they looking for facts and willing to change their minds. I would change my mind in a heartbeat if the facts pointed in a different direction, but they will not, b/c it is not “facts” that are causing them to support him, even if for some people that once was true.

          Ofc I still fall for the tricks, but like 90% less often now:-).

  • antidote101@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Project 2025 is a plan to reshape the executive branch of the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.[2][3] Established in 2022, the project seeks to recruit tens of thousands of conservatives to Washington, D.C., to replace existing federal civil service workers it characterizes as the “deep state”, to further the objectives of the next Republican president.[4] Although participants in the project cannot promote a specific presidential candidate, many have close ties to Donald Trump and the Trump 2024 presidential campaign.[5] The plan would perform a swift takeover of the entire executive branch under a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory — a theory proposing the president of the United States has absolute power over the executive branch — upon inauguration.[6]

    • xor@infosec.pub
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      10 months ago

      “yeah sure, but biden is really bad too…
      basically the same thing…”

      • pseudo-leftists on hexbear
      • OpenStars@startrek.website
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        10 months ago

        I gave up on hexbear entirely, and lemmygrad too. The sheer tone of voice finally was enough to convince me. Plus, responding to my comment like an entire week later after everyone and their brother (& sister, & mother & father too) has already jumped all over it and I long since stopped responding - they obviously are simply looking for an excuse to work in a “dig”, not even realizing what self-pwns they were dishing out the entire time. Consent should matter to people… but sadly it does not always do so.:-(

        It is such a truism - actual scientists are all like “well I am not 100% certain of this, but I think what might be going on is…”, while it is the literal, actual children that come back with “nuh uh, I know you are but what am I? your [sic] stupid!”

        My experience on Lemmy has improved 1000% since blocking both instances, after the upgrade to v0.19. I am not here to babysit.

        • xor@infosec.pub
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          10 months ago

          it’s pretty weird… im pretty sure it’s half actually paid trolls, and half mentally ill people…
          i’ve seen it on every leftist group that wasn’t heavily modded…
          the goal being, of course, make leftists seem like absolute garbage people…
          i mean, on hexbear it’s been, yes a torrent of people digging on me, intentionally misinterpreting things i say and acting enraged, and extremely repetitive…
          it’s doesn’t seem organic…

          but if you go to any leftist meetup in person, they’re all the nicest, most considerate people ever…

          online it’s always caricatures of the super unreasonable leftist memes…

          • OpenStars@startrek.website
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            10 months ago

            I know what you mean - it sounds like a conspiracy theory, except there’s tons of evidence to support it which makes it by definition not. Or I mean, that that stuff happens, not necessarily about any one situation in particular.

            And Putin’s troll farms have been caught influencing both sides of debates involving popular topics before, it is not hard at all to imagine it happening again.

            Also sheeple are fairly mindless - once something like that is first made, it would involve far less effort to just allow it to coast forward from there…

            So at this point it actually could be entirely authentic douchy people, just living their best lives by acting that way - it is sad to think that people could be really like that, but I am sure that some at least are.:-(

            • xor@infosec.pub
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              10 months ago

              did you know the term “conspiracy theory” was invented by the cia to make conspiracies seem like a crazy idea?
              conspiracies are constantly happening, you just can’t identify it until way after the fact…
              they’ve fiiiinally declassified the proof that the vietnam war was started with an imaginary attack… not even false flag, there was just no ship that sunk.
              operation northwoods was declassified, where the joint chiefs of staff, of all the military branches, signed off on a plan to fake a cuban terrorist attack and crash a real drone plane… with whole fake backstories on each passenger.
              the leftist online spaces became dominated by shills sometime around occupy wall street… or at least that when they shifted to the “shrieking incoherent accusatory left” narrative.

              even r/conspiracy got turned into a nazi circle jerk…

              in person, leftists are nice as hell…
              i’m pretty sure when they do go online, it’s only private forums and over 7 proxies

              • OpenStars@startrek.website
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                10 months ago

                I think it is important to be skeptical about everything - including about being skeptical.:-)

                For most things the extreme amount of effort required to figure out the truth makes finding out not worthwhile - hence people with money, time, and dedication are going to win out over those who have lesser investments.

                Which makes places like hexbear and lemmygrad seem all the more insulting, if opponents of leftism think that will work. Except it’s far more complex than that, bc at the same time it ACTUALLY does work, for the average joe. Then again, we cannot forget the more simple explanation: they might like to encourage such an extremist solution, but there truly are people that talk and think like that, and the latter sort did not need much encouragement to do so only a safe space to allow that.

                Like the antivaxxer movement: it likely was not created externally so much as heavily promoted that way. i.e. it may have had an organic beginning, and be largely organic now, only needing promotion there for awhile to help grow it up to the national scale, hehe some might say to make it “go viral”:-). If only there was some vaccine against misinformation - which in that case though, there is, and even reading a Wikipedia article about vaccination would have been sufficient innoculation.

                • xor@infosec.pub
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                  10 months ago

                  i can say, ive met very nice, dedicated leftists in person, who say that they gave up on all online forums because it’s 90% shills…
                  and it does work.
                  if all reasonable discussions are violent shit all over by “super hardcore leftists”… who’s going to participate in that conversation other than unhinged leftists who see that as a good way to talk to people?
                  it’s definitely partly natural, but then steered by “the man” or whatever…
                  one dead giveaway is the upvote/downvote totals…
                  come in with a calm head trying to just talk to people, that disagrees with some point… you’ll get bombarded with troll posts, the same exaggerated emotion memes (super hard laugh, picard head slap, pig poop) over and over, trying to get you to react angrily…
                  and your downvotes will be more than total votes of the original post, the upvotes will be more than all of the other votes…
                  there’s a good breakdown of tactics called “The Gentleman’s Guide to Forum Sliding” out there…
                  really, as long as who is upvoting/downvoting on this, everything is easy to manipulate by a very small troll farm… .

                  my strategy is just continuing to say what i think, and blocking anyone who seems sorta like a troll.
                  incidentally, i was banned from r/communism for posting the aforementioned guide, while being accused of posting it as a brag of how i’m manipulating the forum… even with a photo of vietnamese guards executing prisoners with a “sent to gulag” message…

                  tankies aren’t real…

    • GodlessCommie@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      P2025 has been in existence for decades amongst the marginalized and it really started to ramp up under Clinton and his DLC.

    • Anemia@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Exceedingly unlikely given the fact that he’s already that old and also that he only has one term left. He would have to be really industrious to turn america into shit(tier?) in that limited time.

      But I don’t disagree that he’ll give it a go.

  • Xhieron@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Maybe not, but you know, just to be on the safe side, better vote against him just in case.

  • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    He said he would, and he literally tried to. Were it not for a handful of DC police and Secret Service personnel, he probably would have.

    Anyone who doubts this should probably abstain from voting, or really making any critical decisions until their brain damage can be evaluated.

  • anon6789@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    For all the deniers jumping in, just where is supposed to be the cutoff point where we let “talk” get to before rational people can say enough is enough?

    It isn’t the first time we’ve had “talk” of overthrow, and how often do we need to leave it up the chance that they don’t get the opportunuty?

    The Business Plot (also called the Wall Street Putsch[1] and The White House Putsch) was a political conspiracy in 1933, in the United States, to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install Smedley Butler as dictator.[2][3] Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler testified under oath that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans’ organization with Butler as its leader and use it in a coup d’état to overthrow Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified under oath before the United States House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the “McCormack–Dickstein Committee”) on these revelations.[4] Although no one was prosecuted, the congressional committee final report said, “there is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.”

    Early in the committee’s gathering of testimony most major news media dismissed the plot, with a New York Times editorial characterizing it as a “gigantic hoax”.[5] When the committee’s final report was released, the Times said the committee “purported to report that a two-month investigation had convinced it that General Butler’s story of a Fascist march on Washington was alarmingly true” and “… also alleged that definite proof had been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Major Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated”.[6] The individuals involved all denied the existence of a plot.

    While historians have questioned whether a coup was actually close to execution, most agree that some sort of “wild scheme” was contemplated and discussed.

    And if you want a political crime family…

    In July 2007, a BBC investigation reported that Prescott Bush, father of U.S. President George H. W. Bush and grandfather of then-president George W. Bush, was to have been a “key liaison” between the 1933 Business Plotters and the newly emerged Nazi regime in Germany,[51] although this has been disputed by Jonathan Katz as a misconception caused by a clerical research error.[52] According to Katz, “Prescott Bush was too involved with the actual Nazis to be involved with something that was so home grown as the business plot.”

    So it seems if one would want to say that an overthrow of the United States has been in progress by politically connected individuals for over 100 years, both actively and “just talk”, they would have a whole bunch of things they could talk about.

  • GodlessCommie@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    How is it liberals claim Biden is powerless to do anything and everything requires small, slow, incremental baby steps, but think Republicans get everything they want on day one? That’s not the best argument for electing democrats as liberals think it is.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      It’s almost like Trump doesn’t care about obeying the nation’s laws or honoring his oath of office or something…

      • GodlessCommie@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Then the 2 other branches of checks and balances will keep him in check. He says this random weird ass shit because he knows that people will talk about it. That’s what narcissists do they want their name to always be front and center. The easiest way to make a narcissist go away is to stop talking about him.