That’s a dumb and misleading take on the situation. While Trump himself is just a rambling, demented egomaniac it’s going very well for the horse whisperers in the background. Inciting violence to enable the administration to justify even more atrocious acts in the process is part of a strategy. This is done deliberately to dismantle the US institutions and to build a new order out of the rubble. It’s now carried out in the open for everyone to witness and it’s a classic playbook of fascists everywhere in the world. Trump is just the ugly face of that, it does not matter much what he thinks or if his ego is hurt, as long as the people in the background manage to keep him under control.

While true, this is only half of the picture. Exporters “pay” through the products they can’t sell, because demand is shrinking. While most exporters can’t lower their prices much without making a loss this directly benefits low production cost countries like China.

In the end it’s a quadruple Eigentor (the German word for own goal) because you weaken your own country and your economic partners, isolate yourself on the global market and strengthen your enemies. Good job, America.

Is the image not AI generated? With all the odd swastikas and stuff?

Edit: Look at the hands of the Nazi dude on the right. Case closed

Using AI for good. I like it.

I’m pretty sure the author is well aware of this. It’s a good piece because it comes across as honest and takes a look at the psychological causes why so many people are still active on X. An honest look at yourself is the first step to free yourself from denial, and it doesn’t really matter how long it takes and how many bad things have to happen if they get it eventually and take action.

I rotated the photo so that the runway in the background is aligned with the horizon. Also filled in the resulting gaps to not lose too much of the original photo. Looks like it was tilted on purpose. The rotated image is much less dramatic but also boring. I guess sometimes you don’t need AI to manipulate people.

Edit: I don’t get why people think it’s necessary to resort to stupid little tricks like these. This is just dumb

Life of Brian

This is a train wreck from beginning to end, with only one winner: Trump.

It was stupid to call for an impeachment vote in the first place, because it had zero chance to succeed. It’s quite lame as a symbolic gesture too, because a failure is a failure in the books no matter what the intentions are. And you put your own party members in a position where they can only lose either way. This is terrible from a political strategy standpoint unless your explicit goal is to divide the party, which in turn weakens the party even more. A sad and unnecessary shit show all the way. The only hope left is that Trump dies laughing.

Not the onion, huh.

Catholics make up only about 25% of the US population. US Americans also seem to have their own flavor of Christianity, where being nasty and cruel to your neighbor and killing everything you don’t like weirdly is part of their beliefs.

I know it’s probably necessary to reiterate these points to people who still don’t get it, over and over again. But as someone with a functioning brain I find these “stating the obvious” headlines very tiring.

Trump going silent is indeed newsworthy. If only he would go silent on all the other topics as well.

Potato chips and chocolate. It was difficult but necessary to have them both at the same time

I remember last time Trump was in office. There were massive tariffs on european products as well. There are no communist countries in the European Union. Trump and his gang openly push the “America first” narrative and that very obviously means that every other country in the global market is under attack, even those who were traditionally viewed as allies. Communism is not the issue here.

We’ll see if the US manages to bully the world into submission but I have my doubts. A free global market is bound by capitalist mechanics. If the US is not an attractive trade partner the export profits will be made elsewhere.

I very much doubt that tariffs and pissing off basically everyone outside if the US will help a goal of a global free market.

You’ll be surprised how expensive everything is to build if you pay domestic wages instead of buying things dirt cheap from other countries where wages are low due to slave-like working conditions. This is probably what Trump wants to establish in the US, but when other factors like housing, food etc are already way more expensive than they are in those countries, this creates a poverty hellscape for y’all. The result will be that people can’t even afford to live at the standard of a chinese factory worker. Enjoy.

“Is a $100 Dunkin’ Donuts gift card for a trash collector wrongful?” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the court’s opinion. “What about a $200 Nike gift card for a county commissioner who voted to fund new school athletic facilities? Could students take their college professor out to Chipotle for an end-of-term celebration?”

In my country government employees (including teachers) can’t legally accept gifts above €10 in value. All of these examples would be illegal here. Sounds petty, but anti-corruption laws are pretty strict for a reason.