this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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US Authoritarianism

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[–] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 136 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Wherever you look in history, the world's most damaging decisions have all been made by conservatives. Conservatism is at the root of every major problem humanity faces.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 67 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It's in the name, conservatism is the opposite of progressivism, progress is a natural state, nothing stays as is forever, the only way to stop progress is to go against nature.

[–] blaue_Fledermaus@mstdn.io 39 points 2 years ago (1 children)

"Change" is the natural state, and not all changes are "progress".
Conservative used to be "want to take things slow to see which changes are good and which are bad".
Stagnatives and Retrogrades should be separate categories.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Found the Nurgulite.

To be clear that's not an insult.

[–] blaue_Fledermaus@mstdn.io 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Is this a reference to WH40k? I'm not well versed in its lore.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Indeed it is. Nurgul is the Chaos God that is in charge of natural cycles of death decay and rebirth. His followers spread diseases all over the place. Though now that I think about it Tzeench is in charge of "change," IIRC.

If The Emperor Had a Text To Speech is a remarkably close to canon primer for the universe, if a bit tongue in cheek.

[–] SaintWacko@midwest.social 29 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Conservative isn't really the correct term for the right anymore. They're not just conservative, they're regressive

[–] hglman@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

Fascist, the term for today's conservatives is fascist.

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[–] GroundedGator@lemmy.world 131 points 2 years ago (5 children)

That man created so many problems,

[–] Draegur@lemm.ee 18 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I wish John Warnock Hinckley had succeeded.

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[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You mean the Republican all other republicans idolize?

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago

All other Republicans and most of the Dem leadership, yes.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Him and Nixon. Those two are only in the shadow of Wilson and Jackson for being terrible presidents.

[–] APassenger@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

And Trump? Please say, "and Trump."

[–] space@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 2 years ago

He's more of a symptom of the disease in American society rather than the cause. His presidency was a disaster, but he was too dumb to do a lot of damage.

But I also see his presidency sort of like crossing the Rubicon. He has crossed a lot of boundaries no other president has done before. I would be really worried about who will come next.

[–] Soggy@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

Need a bit of time to see how his tenure impacts long-term, but he's certainly up for consideration.

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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 112 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The amount of harm caused by Reagan and specifically engineered to be possible after his time in office is immense. The man was a rat to his fellow actors, informing on suspected socialists and commies. He only got worse from there.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 102 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Reagan helped destroy 'The Fairness Doctrine.' Back when there were only a limited number of TV and radio channels available for broadcast, the government had strict rules, One was that any time a station ran an editorial it had to provide equal time for a response. Another was that no one could own more than one TV station in an area.

[–] thegreekgeek@midwest.social 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah that last bit would clip Sinclair's wings a bit, but if we brought the Fairness Doctrine back in it's old incarnation it wouldn't cover cable or internet productions.

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[–] Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world 59 points 2 years ago

Obligatory fuck Ronald Reagan

[–] De_Narm@lemmy.world 51 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (8 children)

US 'democracy' ist just fundamentally broken. All my life I've heard shit that dates back to Reagan, people always complain about it, yet neither party ever cared to fix things he broke. You guys really need more parties, but of course neither party is willing to change the system enough to make that viable since they'd give up power. That alone should call for mass protests.

[–] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 20 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Democracy is a progressive idea. It tends to work in spite of conservative opposition to it. Conservatives have ham-strung and sabotaged it since the beginning in the U.S. If they are ever able, conservatives will remove democracy entirely and replace it with whatever causes the most harm to the most vulnerable people.

Nothing good in human history has ever come from conservatism. Nothing at all.

[–] Blahaj_Blast@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 2 years ago

Enter Project 2025

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[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world 34 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] blindbunny@lemmy.ml 25 points 2 years ago (2 children)
[–] APassenger@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

And that was Obama.

I think people want to remember that as part of the Bush years (or... At least I know I do).

That was undone on Obama watch.

[–] blindbunny@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 years ago

I had friends there. Obvious feds fucked that shit up from the inside out. Thanks Obama

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

It was in that fuzzy in between time right after Bush nationalized half the financial sector and right before Obama sold it back to the investor class at small profit/large loss (depending on how you weight the massive cut in interest rates as subsidy).

But oh man, that takes me back. Remember when the NYPD arrested 700 OWS protesters as they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge?

[–] batmaniam@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

If I could go back in time and say "you will unrionically be thrilled to hear from Mitt Romney and Liz Cheny, and watch heads explode...". Like to be clear, this isn't a both sides, those folks have blood on their hands.

But what I wouldn't give to go back in time and be like: "so... Listen... It gets pretty ugly..."

[–] Lemming6969@lemmy.world 31 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Shorting should also be illegal

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 20 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Shorting DJT is funny as shit though.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 26 points 2 years ago

Not when it's going up.

The fact that a Mastodon instance that hasn't been updated since 2022 has a $6B valuation should be in the first chapter of every Econ 101 textbook.

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[–] Ibaudia@lemmy.world 24 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Reagan and Nixon's administrations really do feel like the US' modern original sin. So many of their policies have had catastrophic long-term negative effects.

[–] nforminvasion@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Just look up "what the fuck happened in 1971". There's a website with tons of graphs and charts all changing for the negative during the Nixon administration

[–] madcaesar@lemmy.world 19 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Nixon, Regan, W, and Trump

4 absolute awful, piece of shit presidents. Hurt the middle and working class for generations. Caused wars and deaths of thousands.

All Republicans.

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[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 18 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah it's my opinion that Regan was the worst president until Trump - worse than Nixon. He's my pick for retroactive lead-based timeline correction.

[–] Droechai@lemm.ee 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Was Nixon a bad president? He wasnt a crook (allegedly) and made a boss Nass impression with his "Law and Orhrhrder" line.

/Foreigner who only know pop culture references to Watergate

[–] TheEEEdiot@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

He did sabotage the Paris peace accords which ultimately extended the Vietnam War by many years. Also, he created the HMO system that kept the US from having Universal Healthcare. He also authorized G Gordon Liddy to wire tap his Democrat opponent (very much making him a crook). So... yeah. Bad president.

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[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 years ago

Ronald Reagan is my personal dinkleberg tbh

[–] roguetrick@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago

Used to be a lot more dividends. Stock buybacks are essentially the same thing as dividends, but dividends are taxed at the marginal tax rate and buybacks are taxed at capital gains rate. It's all a tax dodge for the super rich.

[–] pascal@lemm.ee 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The more I read about this Reagan, the more it seems he was not fit to run as president, probably Trump did less damage to the country than him, and that's a very low bar.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Regan came up with the strategic defense initiative after watching Star Wars and deciding that lasers could shoot down ballistic missiles.

He also got concerned about cyber security only after watching Wargames.

After watching Sneakers, he made a lot of his generals watch it too.

Bro let Hollywood dictate too much of his thinking.

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[–] thegreekgeek@midwest.social 7 points 2 years ago

And while we're ragging on the Gipper let's not forget how he eviscerated the ATC union to the point where we are STILL recovering to this day.

[–] wolfpack86@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Keep them legal, but only if it's to buy stock to distribute to employees.

[–] MrVilliam@lemmy.world 27 points 2 years ago

That's just legalizing c suite embezzlement. They won't give that shit away to us peasants.

[–] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago

Cool, new easy buyback loophole.

  1. Employ my spouse
  2. Buy back stock
  3. award stock to spouse
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