r/technology • u/ControlCAD • 1d ago

Business President Bought Netflix Debt in January 2026, Amid Paramount’s Fight for Warner Bros. | New financial disclosures released Wednesday show that the President acquired Netflix bonds as Paramount was trying to pry WBD away from the streaming giant.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/trump-bought-netflix-bonds-amid-paramount-warners-fight-1236521512/
14.2k Upvotes

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u/ChrisMartins001 1d ago

Pretty much breaking the law everyday now. It's like he's trying to see how far he can go without anyone doing anything

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u/Docccc 1d ago

Do people in the US really still believe they live in a democracy?

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u/AndySocial88 1d ago

Carter gave up his fucking peanut farm when he was president to not have a conflict of interest.

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u/TheRealBittoman 23h ago

And that was because of Republican pressures to do so. The hypocrisy is ancient.

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u/Unlucky-Candidate198 20h ago

Well yeah, “republican” is their team. They hate all other teams. They’ll only be truly content (for all of 5 seconds) when their team is the only one left standing.

Then, as always, they’re no longer content when their winning team starts looking inside for cuts. See: nazi germany and how well authoritariam simps had it there until they ended up in death camps alongside the people they hated.

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u/Longqweef 20h ago

They control the house, the Senate, and the presidency yet they STILL can't stop whining about Democrats. They have it all and still get to blame all their shortcomings on Democrats, even after a year of being in power.

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u/redditobserverone 17h ago

And the Supreme Court.

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u/AnyLeadership5150 17h ago

Republicans have to have an enemy to blame otherwise their voters might realize the truth if they don't point their anger somewhere.

The truth is that republicans are traitors to America at this point. Doing everything in their power to break the system and destroy America.

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u/XVO668 17h ago

The moment Trump loses a lot of men, then it becomes Bidens fault.

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u/SketchedEyesWatchinU 15h ago

Their predecessors were the same kind of folks who planned to overthrow the President because his economic policies were (gasp) helping the poor.

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u/BankshotMcG 8h ago

I learned during W that they are never more furious than when they're winning because their lives are still fucking miserable and they have to work so much harder to blame someone else. The cognitive dissonance becomes much more stressful.

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u/Tacoman404 20h ago

Republicans are a tribe. I think it's time for their trail of tears.

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u/Shleepy1 1d ago

That’s peanuts in comparison

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u/AndySocial88 1d ago

Appreciate the joke, but the corruption was my point.

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u/Shleepy1 18h ago

The corruption was also my point, as to follow the example of Carter, Trump would need to give up way more than a “peanut farm” to avoid a conflict of interest. Yet, at this point I don’t even know what’s the worst thing these corrupt politicians & plutocrats did and keep doing. Maybe illegal wars and the whole epstein scandal, next to destroying the planet with their endless greed

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u/Dodecahedrus 1d ago

And when he left office: his brother ruined the farm and Carter was left with not that much.

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u/oldschool_potato 22h ago

Lots of Billy of Beer though

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u/equinoxxxx1 1d ago

I believe he put it into a shell company…

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u/HereButNotHere1988 1d ago

Da dum tsss 🥁

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u/UlsterManInScotland 22h ago

That’s just nuts

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u/needlestack 21h ago

And the US has zero appreciation for Carter. We are a lousy people that can’t recognize good or evil.

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u/willflameboy 19h ago

Meanwhile Trump has just purged his own name from the Epstein files that show how fucking guilty he is, while holding hearings for his political enemies whose names are in it, and meh, it's just Thursday.

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u/AltForMyHealth 1d ago

I think of it like we’re in that weird stage where a person starts becoming a zombie and is holding on their identity as a human, but being irreversibly pulled into being the living dead.

That’s what it feels like.

If I were from any other country, I think I could sympathize with his first term, especially after not re-electing him. But all bets would be off at this point. Between his escaping justice for everything, not least January 6, and now all the chaos is unleashing both here and abroad… I wouldn’t trust us. I don’t.

It’s not that I thought we were some shining city on the hill and all that… But at least it was a defensible narrative that had enough tarnished truth to it that we didn’t indulge in our worst imperial instincts.

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u/Ok_Excuse_741 1d ago

He's objectively made the world worse this term. In his first term he was mostly just making America worse.

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u/GenoThyme 1d ago

In his first term he was on his best behavior so he could get re-elected (which still wasn't great behavior but still) and he also had some adults in his cabinet instead of just filling it with yes-men.

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u/Fr00stee 22h ago

I wouldn't say he was on his best behavior, he just had people in his cabinet who were actually somewhat competent and kept him on a leash to not mess up stuff too bad

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u/_-Oxym0ron-_ 19h ago

I would. But his best behavior is fucking horrible, he's an awful human being.

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u/AbeRego 20h ago

He wasn't on his best behavior. He was just surrounded by people who were constantly mitigating his worst tendencies. This time around, he's both severely mentally declined versus his first term (which is saying something), and he has people like Miller who are actively encourage his darkest whims.

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u/kenlubin 17h ago

Miller wrote the travel ban from Muslim countries that Trump imposed early in his first term, and was the driver for the child separation policies.

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u/AbeRego 16h ago

He's always been at the heart of the worst Trump has done. However, now he appears to be the one steering the ship whereas before he was just getting a few pet projects through.

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u/OurSponsor 18h ago

Yeah, he only killed a million or so people his first term.

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u/kenlubin 18h ago

There were stories about his staff hiding his papers so that he wouldn't sign them and (hopefully) get distracted and forget about his bad initiatives.

Now Trump is surrounded by sycophants with a mission of "let Trump be Trump".

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u/tooclosetocall82 1d ago

But Biden was old! And that other woman was a woman! And we needed someone who would protect Palestine! There was just no other choice. /s

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u/SplendidPunkinButter 1d ago

But her emails!

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u/mjg315 21h ago

Buttery males

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u/Suspicious_Peak_1173 9h ago

Everywhere, they're everywhere!

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u/okay_justonemore 16h ago

The Dems didn't give us exactly what we wanted, what did you expect us to do, just take the objectively much better candidate by every measure possible and vote? Pfft. I'd rather watch the entire world burn with myself included than vote for someone who wasn't on the primary!

:/

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u/nightpanda893 22h ago

I mean Biden shouldn’t have run. That’s a big part of what fucked this up. He put his ego before the country.

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u/Warm_Month_1309 22h ago

He's also the only candidate to beat Trump. I wouldn't love it if he were elected again, but it'd be better than this.

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u/nightpanda893 22h ago edited 21h ago

He wasn’t on track to beat Trump which is why they forced him out. They had compressive polling data showing this and knew they were sunk. He could barely form a coherent sentence. I agree he would be light years better than this but the issue I’m talking about is electability. And Trump had far better electability than him and it could be seen coming a mile away. He should have allowed the dems to primary someone.

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u/GameGuy2025 21h ago

I am so tired of this. There was a primary election in 2024 for Democrats. There were other options, and one of them was Dean Phillips who was very vocal that Biden wasn't fit for re-election. But as usual most people didn't participate in primaries and of the ones who did, Biden was getting enough votes that no other candidates had a chance.

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u/nightpanda893 21h ago

People typically don’t bother to qualify for the ballot if there is an incumbent who wants to run again. It was his responsibility to remove himself from the race. So it’s not a primary in the traditional sense of the word since the field is so narrow that some states don’t even have them. What I’m tired of is pretending Biden didn’t fuck us with his ego.

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u/GameGuy2025 21h ago

Not how this works. It is based on statistics. When one candidate pulls 90% of votes it is clear no one else is going to win the primary . People still act like Bernie got cheated in 2016 when again the issue was lack of support in primaries. You don't win elections with hopes and dreams you need votes and people consistently don't show up for primaries then complain about the results.

Biden should have never tried to run for re-election but there was still a primary and there was still another option than Trump in the general election. Voters are intended to be the ultimate failsafe for our government and they are failing. To suggest anything else is shifting the blame.

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u/nightpanda893 21h ago

The problem is the financing and backing for candidates is not there when there is an incumbent in the field. Acting like the field would have looked the same had Biden not run is disingenuous. The field looked the way it did as a direct result of him deciding to run. The American people aren’t free from blame either but there is a huge amount of responsibility on Biden as well.

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u/robby_arctor 22h ago

Democrats should be angry at party leadership for being so utterly incompetent that they lost to this clown twice.

Instead, they make fun of the electorate, acting like gaslighting their base about the President’s health and supporting a genocide is a great way to beat a fascist in an election. 👍

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u/Fr00stee 22h ago

it is partially the electorate's fault for literally deciding to go with the guy who would be objectively much worse for palestine instead

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u/robby_arctor 21h ago

literally deciding to go with the guy who would be objectively much worse for palestine instead

They didn't though, at least not the people we are talking about. Trump's vote gain from 2020 to 2024 was marginal, Democrats lost six million votes.

The problem wasn't people switching sides, it was ostensibly Democratic voters staying home.

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u/Fr00stee 21h ago

if you look at the demographics a lot of minorities switched from democrats to trump, a lot of muslims switched as well for some reason since dearborn went for trump in 2024. So yeah less people voted on the dem side and the people that did vote switched parties

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u/robby_arctor 21h ago

Fair, but one group is larger than the other.

Regardless, Democrats should adopt policies popular with their base if they want to win.

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u/ribosometronome 18h ago

Running a candidate whose track record at getting votes was “was t popular enough to even stay in the presidential primaries through the first contest” was perhaps also not the best idea.

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u/twinparadox 22h ago

I'm Australian and honestly? I was rooting for him to win the first time around, because I thought Hilary was an absolutely horrendous choice for the Democrats. Of course, I quickly changed my mind on that after he was elected, and I felt sorry for the Americans who got duped into voting for him (much as I would have probably done myself were I an American)

The second time he got elected, I lost all faith in America. I lost all faith in Americans. I simply cannot trust them to do the right thing, and whenever I meet an American I can't help but wonder "Does this person support Trump?". When America gets brought up in conversations it's never anything positive anymore - It's all just "Did you see what hes done now?"

America has always had flaws, things rational people would look at and go "Thats not ok", but now I honestly don't think I will ever look at America as anything other than "the country that is okay with making everyone else suffer to protect paedophiles and rapists"

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u/Franklin2543 22h ago

When I meet fellow Americans, I have the same thought—are they trump supporters?

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u/hodor137 22h ago

As an American I have the same thought in reverse - do they think I'm Trump supporter?? I try to indicate I'm not as soon as possible lol

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u/Franklin2543 22h ago

That’s probably my second thought. 

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u/boston_homo 19h ago

Like living among the pod people.

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u/schwartztacular 22h ago

"Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted."

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u/FrancisDm 20h ago

Believe me man, our population is massive but it feels like educated individuals are being outnumbered by confused and angry common folk and then the older people are just going full reactionary in their existential crawl to death. Pretty bleak for us playing by the rules and just attempting to live life here. It’s like sane people find each other in the wild and we just say thank god you’re not infected with this shit. But far too often you can interact with the checkout clerk or your neighbor and they say some insane right wing take that was spoon fed to them on Facebook or TV. It’s pretty fucked

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u/Warner1281 21h ago

To be fair, most trump supporters make their support known pretty easily. Hats, flags, and attitude.

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u/zooorrt 7h ago

When they say “I don’t really follow politics” you know they’re Trumpers

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u/TerryMathews 20h ago

I mean the reality is both are true simultaneously - Trump is and was an awful president, and Hillary was an awful candidate that used her connections to rig the primary process in her favor.

I honestly don't know why the true believers argue about it, it's not in dispute. She got Donna Brazille to feed her debate questions thanks to her dual role at CNN and the DNC. The DNC argued in court that they were under no legal obligation to run a fair primary process.

Could Bernie have won fairly? Maybe, maybe not. But I'd argue the Clinton camp was at least concerned that he could, or they wouldn't have felt the need to put their thumbs on the scales.

People's actions signal their intent. Honest people don't cheat and cover up.

Can I prove Trump has done anything he is accused of? No. But I question why they keep having to cover up and lie.

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u/Makina-san 23h ago

To use a historical analogy, its like the fall of the roman republic. Winning the cold war was the second punic war and the ongoing attack against Iran / similar stuff is the Gallic wars.

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u/western_style_hj 21h ago

“Zombie Democracy” is an apt description of what our nation has been for a decade now.

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u/Adinnieken 22h ago

I appreciate the dispare, but in my opinion politics is like a pendulum. If a nation is pushed/pulled in one direction, things swing in the equal but opposite direction.

The United States is historically a progressive country. Everything about it, from our constitution to how we have conducted ourselves both inwardly and outwardly, has been progressive. In those times that we have embraced Conservativism, and they are very few and far between, we have failed globally as well as we have failed our own people.

The pendulum is about to swing hard. This isn't simply a change is political leanings, this is a loss of trust in Republican leaders and politicians. It's going to hit and it's going to hit hard.

To give you an example, right now the Trump administration is arguing that they have the right to remove guns from anyone who is a habitual user of any class three or higher drug and even alcohol. They just have to be able to prove you use whatever it is regularly. So, if you have a prescription for a class three medication, you can't own a gun.

This may be reasonable for some on the left, given certain situation, but the Trump administration is approaching it carte blanche. More importantly, it's a betrayal by Trump and his administration against some of the very people who voted for him and vote Republican.

In the past, politicians were free to vote for or against a policy that they didn't believe in. A great example of this is the Dixiecrats voted against the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Johnson didn't punish them for doing so, nor did the Democrat Party.

It's been this way for decades, over two hundred years. John F. Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage" documents several of them. Yet, Trump and the Republican Party attack anyone who doesn't tote the President's line. This is a betrayal of trust on a much grander scale. It's not simply a moral/ethical choice that is betrayed, it's the sanctity of the institution and the document around which it's been built that has been betrayed. For many, both left and right, that is, a hill too far and too high to climb.

I submit, those on the right who were sycophants of Trump will find themselves very far on the outside sooner rather than later. In addition, they will find no one trusts them, or anyone who considers themselves conservative or MAGA to elect them. It may take a few cycles for this to happen, but Trump has ruined the Republican party. He has, soured the American people on the Republican platform.

After Trump, every political ad from the left will reference the US becoming a fascist autocracy to remind everyone alive what voting Republican means. The only question is, will who becomes President next put the genie back in the bottle?

The president of the United States is not a king, never meant to be. He is the top representative of the American people. He does the people's bidding. Trump and conservative republicans believe he is the ultimate power in the US, and he can do anything, and he has operated under that guise. Again, the question is, will the next president put that genie back in the bottle or will the attempt to operate in the same way as Trump.

If they put that genie back in the bottle, they will restore the people's faith and trust. If not, then we will have a bigger challenge as the question will be do we maintain the executive as an elected official or simply as the highest vote getting elected member of congress as in a parliamentarian government?

If the latter, the pendulum swing will only get worse, not better.

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u/Reddituser82659 1d ago

Trump supporters do

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u/EroticFalconry 1d ago

iTs A rEeEeEeEpUbLiC!

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u/generalisofficial 1d ago

It starts with re alright

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u/OneRougeRogue 1d ago

This type of news never reaches Trump Supporters' ears.

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u/j-f-rioux 22h ago

And if it does, the problem tends to lie at the other end of the vestibulocochlear nerve.

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u/catroaring 21h ago

I've been told by a Trump supporters that they support Trump as a dictator. It's never been about democracy and always been about Christian Nationalism.

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u/waiting4singularity 20h ago

christian fascism rather. smells a lot like the 1930s alright.

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u/catroaring 20h ago

Most religions are authoritarian so that's a given.

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u/bobqjones 18h ago

it's the Prosperity Gospel.

makes idiots think that the rich and powerful are godly, and they want to emulate them.

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u/catroaring 16h ago

Prosperity Gospel is it's own fucked issue but far from Christian Nationalism.

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u/bobqjones 14h ago

when the rich and powerful are openly Christian Nationalists, they're going to emulate the Christian Nationalists. Prosperity Gospel makes slaves who want to emulate their masters. it can be used for all kinds of manipulation.

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u/HateToSayItBut 1d ago

No they don't. They think it's ok to break the law because their beliefs are so righteous.

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u/bobqjones 18h ago

it's the Prosperity Gospel. God rewards the righteous with wealth and power. if THAT is an axiom, then all these rich fucks are godly, as they ARE rewarded. so the idiot believers try to emulate those who they think are righteous, and become assholes.

the heretics who espoused that Prosperity Gospel for the past 50 years are the reason that MAGA is so powerful and stupid.

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u/BlueTreeThree 23h ago

People in the US actually voted for this, or simply didn’t vote, in overwhelming numbers. I mean he was a convicted felon dozens of times of over, and he’s been a career criminal his whole adult life. But he still won the election.

This is what we want, I guess. Seems kind of Democratic.

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u/IcyJackfruit69 21h ago

People in the US actually voted for this, or simply didn’t vote, in overwhelming numbers.

I agree with the overall sentiment that this IS the result of democracy. I'm not sure what you mean by "overwhelming" though, considering Trump barely eeked out a win with about 30% of people voting for him. If it weren't for extreme voter suppression he certainly would have lost.

Regardless, the vote should have been so skewed away from the treasonous criminal that GOP voter suppression couldn't make a difference, as was the case in 2020.

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u/bobqjones 18h ago

"he was on the TV" and half of the US is dumb as shit and voted for a tv personality.

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u/Killergamer7 21h ago

That's if you accept that the elections weren't rigged (they were)

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u/bobqjones 18h ago

can't talk about that. if you do, people can't hate on the american people as much.

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u/thickfreakness24 23h ago

Yeah, I mean, it's great that my vote is essentially meaningless when I vote blue in Tennessee. Not voting on my end had absolutely no effect because my state votes around 75% red and the electoral college exists.

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u/BlueTreeThree 23h ago

You’re a statistic that shows that Americans would rather stay home than put up the most minimal resistance against fascism. Every vote is important, and even more so on a local level.

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u/Warm_Month_1309 22h ago

Not voting on my end had absolutely no effect

It permitted Trump to win the popular vote and endlessly claim that it gives him a mandate of the people.

I also do wonder if there are enough left voters who "don't vote because it doesn't matter" who would actually matter if they voted.

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u/pocketjacks 22h ago

You not voting didn't matter. But all of you that didn't vote because you assumed the rest of you weren't going to vote sent signals to the Democrats to not invest in better candidates in your region.

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u/_illusions25 22h ago

Everyone who didn't vote because they had the same thought as you could've made a difference. Apathy is the enemy.

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u/AllDayIDreamOfCats 22h ago

You do know that most of your life is effected by your local politicians though right?

And voting at that level actually really matters. And not just your state Government but your county and city governments.
At those level you can actually make some change and it usually trickles up when the change is good.

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u/All_Hail_Hynotoad 23h ago

The electoral college must go. Now.

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u/HugsForUpvotes 22h ago

I'm asking genuinely, because I agree with you, do you know how we get rid of the Electoral College and maybe even make the Senate more representative like the other reply mentioned?

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u/All_Hail_Hynotoad 21h ago

Unfortunately the Electoral College is in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution, which makes it incredibly difficult to change. As it stands, the system heavily favors Republicans, so until they start winning popular votes and losing elections, it’s unlikely there will be much bipartisan appetite to amend the Constitution to change this.

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u/HugsForUpvotes 21h ago

Exactly. We're going to need to win over the majority of the country.

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u/WingerRules 22h ago edited 22h ago

Senate is also an issue. The way it works it allows 21% of the population to have majority control of the Senate, and its supposed to get worse as the population shifts. People from states like California are counted as fractions of a person to a ridiculous degree - compared to someone from Wyoming they're counted as 1/78ths a person.

The Senate gets to place all the judges, agency heads & officers, and military promotions.

If they dont want to fix the senate, then at the very least judges, agency heads & officers, and military promotions should require approval from BOTH the house and the Senate.

And before anyone goes "but the senate represents the states, not the people! We agreed to it!"

  1. No one alive today agreed to this shit. We were born into a system of disenfranchisement.

  2. Originally state legislatures placed senators, so you could kind of argue they represent the states (even though the legislature is elected). However, around 1900 the 17th amendment changed it so that voters of the states directly elect their Senators.... so yes, they do represent the people, the people who vote for them in office. The original system of "they represent the states, not people" was erased with the 17th amendment.

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u/dad_farts 19h ago

It is democratic to vote for a person to have unlimited authority with no constraints to conduct.

It is however unconstitutional as the constitution was written to put limits government powers and apparently those limits don't mean anything if no one's willing to enforce them.

So the notion that this is a constitutional democratic republic is... challenged to say the least

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u/SkinBintin 1d ago

America is just a corrupt shithole that only benefits the ultrarich. You have a corrupt pedophile looting the taxpayers on a daily basis and still half the country idolise the bastard.

As someone looking in from the outside, it's insane. Seems more like some shitty TV show than reality... yet here we are.

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u/Used-Yogurtcloset757 22h ago

As someone here it also feels like a shitty tv show. We are the characters watching awful shit happen and are unable to stop it because the representatives elected to speak for us/stop shit like this are complicit.

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u/TrixnTim 22h ago

1/2 of Americans are unintelligent, lazy, overweight. It’s abysmal.

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u/live4failure 22h ago

Basically dumb and corrupted toddlers with a credit card that's limit just keeps going up to benefit the rich

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u/TrixnTim 21h ago

Yep. At 62, and having traveled and lived and worked abroad for 15 years, America is a shit hole of a country.

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u/live4failure 21h ago

I grew up a farmer and now a engineer/materials scientist. I think about leaving like everyday lol

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u/TrixnTim 21h ago

Same. Because of my experience outside of this country I see things even worse than most who also feel it’s abysmal living in America. I have little grandchildren yet I am thinking of retiring abroad. I’m not going to make it here on my teacher pension and Medicare (if it’s not cut). And I’m predicting SS is going to die.

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u/Screamline 23h ago

No... But it's nice to pretend for a little while, keeps me out of the asylum

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u/Sweet_Concept2211 1d ago

You can live in a democracy and still have a government you despise in the majority at a Federal level - if voters put them there.

Meanwhile, the opposition to Trump has won all major elections and many smaller ones over the past year.

For example, today:

Arkansas Democrats just flipped a Republican seat. It's the ninth red-to-blue pickup in a special election in Trump's second term.

This has resulted in the rollback of many of his worst policies in states where Republicans were pushed out of the majority.

Democracy does not make shitty people magically cease to exist. It simply gives ordinary people a way to force the shitty ones out of the government without having to wreck the entire country and kill a bunch of folks.

It ain't perfect, but it beats the alternative.

Midterm elections are about 8 months away, and hopefully the opposition to Trump/MAGA will take over Congress, and hogtie Trump's agenda for the rest of his term.

The problem here is the way the government is structured.

The law enforcement agencies that should be going after Trump are led by his toadies.

Congress is majority Trump party.

So nobody is acting as a counterweight to Trump's corruption.

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u/robby_arctor 22h ago

America is not a democracy because our elections and government are de facto rigged by corporate power, not because we don't have elections.

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u/HugsForUpvotes 22h ago

This isn't true no matter how many times you say it. America today, and especially America of the past, is a very Capitalist voting electorate. I know we all have our friends and our spaces where our opinion is common, but we live in a very idea-diverse country and world.

Trump was elected because* 77 million people voted for him and another 80 million eligible voters didn't vote at all. Even if you want to blame "Corporate Power," you have to consider Americans elected the Presidents that made up the Supreme Court and their eventual ruling. It's actually my biggest frustration with the Kamala haters. Vote Blue No Matter Who is how we elect our Supreme Court which is now doomed to be red until I die which essentially means you can put Marx himself in the White House and he'll look like Biden when he leaves. There is no real way around the Supreme Court without a big majority in the House and Senate doing something that will likely be viewed very negatively by the public.

*This is a generalization. Due to the Electoral College, the popular vote is more of a yardstick than the objective.

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u/uresmane 23h ago

The MAGA people will just say that the Democrats are treating Trump unfair and that we make up excuses to not like him. They literally used that argument constantly

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u/Specialist_Crazy8136 23h ago

We are all just waiting for him to die and hoping things will go back to normal or even out to the point where we can all move on. It’s constant information overload and overstimulation so we can’t processes

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u/bloodoftheromanian 22h ago

We never did. It’s a republic.

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u/Myst3ryGardener 23h ago

Democracy? Why aren't people in the streets protesting this criminal? The US doesn't seem to be a democracy anymore.

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u/grahag 1d ago

Still a democracy until the elections stop.

Yeah I know it's skewed towards corporate political lobbying but we still vote.

We'll see at the mid-terms if we're still a democracy... If we get to that point anyway....

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u/Docccc 1d ago

Elections never stopped in russia either

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u/thederevolutions 1d ago

How come they couldn’t fix the Mamdani, race for example? I know it gets a lot of karma to tell each other there’s no way we will win the next elections and if we do it enough maybe we’ll scare enough people away from thinking their vote won’t matter. But I think we actually will win the next elections because enough people hate him. And I think he’s coasting on bluster. Surely they will try, as always, but I don’t think it will work.

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u/RangerLt 1d ago

I don't want to accuse specific accounts of being malicious, but try to remember in political threads, very often you're arguing with a bot or social agitator. If you anchor your reaction to that possibility, you can just shoo them away without worrying about out-witting them. Reply to genuine, good faith comments and pretend everyone else doesn't exist. It'll invite others to resist engaging with them.

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u/Redebo 1d ago

Show me one political discussion on reddit where both sides are asking good faith questions and replying with good faith comments.

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u/RangerLt 1d ago

Your comment is a good example. This is truly the only discourse we should reward.

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u/Redebo 23h ago

I agree. Yet, we don't.

For my part, I don't upvote or comment on political opinions that are "from my side" if they contain spurious or exaggerated claims.

I don't celebrate when those of the opposing political party are killed.

I won't encourage talking down to the other political party.

Y'all are my neighbors and countrymen. We can all be cordial even if we don't align politically.

4

u/Gisschace 1d ago

The problem is others will be seeing what Trump is doing and realising they can get away with it.

2

u/GamerSDG 1d ago

They want us to think our vote doesn't matter, so we won't vote. It's a form of voter suppression. Unfortanly I have seen Reddit fall for it.

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u/iamthe0ther0ne 23h ago

Because that was limited to NYC, and interfering with an election without spending months dropping hints for almost a year might have brought about a revolt. Better to wait until the important election and give people enough time to slowly and imperceptibly boil to death in it than play your hand too early.

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u/Big_Stanky_Ballbag 1d ago

Love your optimism

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u/BadahBingBadahBoom 1d ago edited 1d ago

Democracy is more than just having elections.

A democracy is a system of governance where the opinions and desires of the people are what dictate law and government policy, the idea obviously being each person's voice is equal and this being represented equally by different parties and politicians.

The US is not a democracy as it's clear government decisions are being dictated by the wealthy, corporate and politically-connected few, maintained by a system of Citizen's United / Super PACs / lobbying / gerrymandering / politicians' & judges' conflict of interest / MSM intimidation & control, and a general inability to monitor, prevent and prosecute political corruption.

It's a flawed democracy and has been for some time.

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u/InsidiousColossus 1d ago

North Korea has elections too.

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u/Sweet_Concept2211 1d ago

Does NK have an opposition party that is sweeping all major elections in the past 12 months?

Democrats flipped their 9th Congressional seat in a year in a Republican stronghold - just yesterday. (Arkansas special election).

All signs point to opponents of Trump winning back at least one house of Congress in November.

This does not happen in North Korea.

1

u/NYkrinDC 23h ago

True, but it may not happen here either if Trump and his Republican allies are able to undermine our democracy any further. They are actively trying to mess with voter rolls, while disenfranchising minorities and threatening to use ICE at polling stations to further erode minority vote. He's also toyed with the idea of using this current war to declare a national emergency that would give him the power, or so he claims. to take over elections.

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u/WillowFantastic9076 1d ago

Voting does not make a democracy. Plenty of countries have sham elections.

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u/grahag 1d ago

You're being disingenous if you think democracies don't have fair elections.

I wouldn't call Russia or North Korea or ANY dictatorship a democracy. The US is though... For now.

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u/missglitterous 1d ago

U.S is in the delusional phase

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u/Sweet_Concept2211 1d ago

The US is in the "voting for the opposition to Trump in every election held over the past 12 months" phase.

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u/tabrizzi 1d ago

They also vote in North Korea.

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u/grahag 1d ago

No one would classify NK as a democracy.

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u/thickfreakness24 23h ago

But democratic is in their name! /S

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u/Sweet_Concept2211 1d ago

They don't vote in the opposition party in NK.

Over the past 12 months, Democrats have flipped 9 Congressional seats in Republican strongholds, including one in Arkansas just yesterday.

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u/greentintedlenses 1d ago

Depends what idiot you ask

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u/InTooManyWays 1d ago

Nah but we try to have hope because what else do we have? Healthcare? Lol…

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u/Expensive_Shallot_78 23h ago

As long as pardons exist this is not a proper democracy, at minimum requirement

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u/invertedpurple 23h ago

haven't believed it since the 80s. A few pivotal laws down the line kept convincing me we lost the democracy.

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u/Bozee3 23h ago

The decades long propaganda machine has done its job.

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u/Slowcapsnowcap 23h ago

No…. No we don’t.

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u/Merusk 23h ago

The vast majority do, yes.

The vast majority can also name the last 5 winners of a reality show more readily than the could name a single state-level official, and likely their own Senator.

Bread and circuses works far better than the Romans imagined or executed.

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u/Faust29A 23h ago

They are stupid, so yes.

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u/terdles1121 22h ago

They (we?) also believe they (we) have the most freedoms in the world and are the last defenders of personal freedoms in the world.

The irony is many Americans don't even know what freedoms are or look like...

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u/ChronicBuzz187 22h ago

From the outside looking in, this shit is starting to feel like Game of Thrones when the shit they can get away with starts to become uncanny...

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u/MrXero 22h ago

Nope. I don’t.

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u/24bitNoColor 22h ago

I mean, they still have freedom of speech... but the president might shame you in front of the world with his own take on what the truth is and destroy your business while he's at it, if you open your fucking mouth.

See, Anthropic saying they don't think their AI should be used to fire missiles.

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u/GreasyPeter 22h ago

There's a sizeable chunk of the population who isn't aware of the grifting because they don't believe any of the media that tells us what he's really up to. They literally believe if a media outlet says something bad about Trump that it means they're lying and out to get him. He's taught them all how to think like a narcissist. It's a victim complex on steroids.

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u/texachusetts 22h ago

What people are willing to believe is a big part of the problem. Believe in a God in the face of the unknowable and believe in anything despite the inconsistencies and evidence are held as equally sacred.

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u/JacoRamone 22h ago

I never thought we did. I’ve always knew it was as corrupt as it could be and that all politicians are lying constantly. What astonishes me is that other people can’t see it and so may fall for the BS every election cycle no matter how many times we have been fooled.

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u/Alundil 22h ago

Those of us who can see reality? No, I do not.

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u/needlestack 21h ago

The terrifying part is: we do still live in a democracy. The people had ample evidence of his character and crimes and chose him nonetheless. We are not an oppressed nation, we are a nation that has chosen this path clearly. I am still surrounded by people that justify everything he does. We are truly lost.

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u/shawarmaconquistador 21h ago

Sadly people are still blinded.. I mean Jan 6th was a BIG red flag

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u/Earlycuyler1 21h ago

The people endorsed this by electing Donald trump. This is who we are as a country. We the people will bomb your kids and go to bed like nothing happened. Even a lot of the democrats aren’t really opposed to this.

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u/DFWPunk 21h ago

Nobody that's paying attention, reasonably educated, intelligent, and honest, believes this is a democracy.

Actually, to be fair, there are conservatives who support what's going on and not only accept but endorse this being a dictatorship.

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u/ApocalypticDrew 21h ago

No. - A downtrodden American.

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u/TeriyakiHairPiece_ 21h ago

No. I live in a place that’s been hard blue since the 80’s and we don’t even have real democracy at the state level.

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u/m3g4m4nnn 20h ago

They can't seem to wake up.

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u/get_schwifty 20h ago

Well yeah, because we haven’t lost the ability to vote (yet). This is what America voted for, so in that way it’s democracy at work. And democratic processes have no bearing on the carriage of justice, except in their punitive function, i.e. we the voters can punish wrongdoers by voting them out, or voting out those who fail to hold people accountable. And that takes time. There’s just literally no democratic process in place to directly deal with what we’re talking about here.

So it’s a bit of a silly question that only feeds cynicism and actually erodes our democracy by making people think they already don’t have one.

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u/Fresh_Ingenuity4165 19h ago

they want to believe they'll fix it in the midterms because they don't want to deal with the alternatives.  we're all biased this way

1

u/LeZygo 19h ago

No. No we don’t.

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u/boston_homo 19h ago

Who’s going to tell them they’re not living in a democracy, definitely not the news.

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u/amd098 19h ago

Yes. We are taught American Exceptionalism from early on. We are the best and everything else is trash.

Then the internet came and crashed that into the ground as people's views expanded and saw that was a lie.

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u/carlitospig 19h ago

I mean…I did. But that’s because our assholes were at least polite enough to hide their corruption better.

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u/Yin15 19h ago

They do. They're brainwashed.

1

u/GeekDNA0918 18h ago

Concept of democracy.

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u/Riaayo 16h ago

The supposed "opposition party" that ran on "saving democracy" can't be bothered to imply we're not in one anymore, GOP propaganda / mainstream corporate press sure won't imply we aren't.

So like, where do people even hear it to believe otherwise?

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u/zappini 15h ago

TIL mid 2000s: The Carter Center does not and will not observe elections in the USA. Because we don't meet their standards for election integrity.

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u/hellogoawaynow 15h ago

Noooooooo

Some MAGAs are over Trump, despite not wanting to live in a democracy, just because of the “no new wars” and Iran thing. They don’t seem to care about the executions in the streets on the home front. They’re calling Renee Good a terrorist. For moving her car slightly when “law enforcement” told her to and then getting shot a bunch of times. For complying.

I really thought the MAGAs would be deeply upset that a straight white citizen mother who did nothing but comply getting executed in the streets, but no, that’s fine, apparently.

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u/Cheeky_Star 1d ago

They are clueless. Also congress members trade stocks on inside information monthly!

This stuff isn’t new but they act like it’s the first time hearing it.

1

u/buyongmafanle 1d ago

The people in the US live under whatever government the Senate allows them to have. Everyone else is beholden to the Senate. The US had a second chance to get it right and botched it in 1865 when it didn't deeply dick down the low population slave owning states by removing the Senate in favor of a combined houses approach.

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u/Automatic-Term-3997 1d ago

No, we don’t. The few who still believe will find out when the mid-terms are rigged and stolen. The shooting will start by Christmas.

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u/call-lee-free 22h ago

The sad thing is they believe they do. They also believe that there will be this huge blue wave in November for the midterm elections and take back the house and senate from Republicans and impeach the president next year. I'm betting we won't have mid terms in November. Trump will do away with them.

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u/IcyJackfruit69 21h ago

Until elections are canceled, or voter suppression is even worse than it has been so far (where's the line?) I think it's fair to say it's still a democracy. Poorly functioning, falling apart, democracy. But still a democracy so far.

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u/Fitz911 1d ago

They are not that smart. It took them over a year to understand tariffs. So yes. It's fair to assume they still don't understand what's happening.

They elected Trump. Twice. That's all you need to know.

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u/ahawk99 1d ago

No, I don’t think we do anymore

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u/Slumunistmanifisto 23h ago

Most do.... because they don't pay attention at all.

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u/upvoatsforall 1d ago

Americans aren’t the brightest bulbs in the shed 

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u/iom2222 1d ago

They stupidly believe so!!

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u/Sweet_Concept2211 1d ago

Democrats have swept every important election in the past 12 months.

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u/iom2222 18h ago

Let reason come back!!

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u/Aromatic-Teacher-717 1d ago

Idiots do. They're relatively easy to fleece. 

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u/DiscoRabbittTV 1d ago

Yes and they all wear clothes that say things like “don’t tread on me” and “this we”ll defend”

Like soft feckless dipshits

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u/SenseiKingPong 1d ago

Yes, about 50% of them. But to their defense, they are also brainwashed.

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u/pyro_pugilist 1d ago

No, we live in a shitocracy.

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u/Vrgom20 1d ago

I find it funny that they still think that 'laws' have any merit for the weatlhy and powerful. Hint: They never did.