• Victor@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    I just feel like after a public rapist becomes president, twice, there’s no hope for Americans. It really is hopeless by now.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        The DOJ had four years to prosecute him under Biden and they dragged their heels.

        The Southern District of New York had ample reason and opportunity to prosecute him as a mobbed to businessman in the '00s and '10s, but he was friends with the mayor so they didn’t.

        The Clintons certainly knew about Epstein in the 90s and could have busted that whole thing up 30 years ago. But the donations were too sweet, so they didn’t.

        Trump is a creature of consequences.

    • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Think about it this way, if you disqualified politicians who engaged in some kind of sexual assault there would not be many left to govern.

      It is accepted and now normalized. If you are rich you can rape and do whatever you want.

      The problem for me is I grew up in a country that I thought was beyond that. I was apparently wrong.

      • Fillicia@sh.itjust.works
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        4 days ago

        there would not be many left to govern

        Good. There is not that many positions to fill anyway.

        It’s not normal that a criminal record that would make it almost impossible to find an entry-level grocery packer job is completely OK for a politician.

        • Victor@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          a criminal record that would make it almost impossible to find an entry-level grocery packer job is completely OK for a politician fucking president of a huge country

      • Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de
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        4 days ago

        If you are rich you can rape and do whatever you want.

        This is why I hate capitalism so much. Extreme power disparity is the heart of tyranny and the extreme disparities in wealth that capitalism creates only leads to extreme disparities in political power.

        I fear that the US went past a breaking point and that the US will fully be an oligarchy after Trump is done

      • Victor@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        I refuse to think about it that way lol. Quantity does not equal acceptance for me. We have to hold our countries’ representatives to a higher standard than being outright criminals, guilty of many, serious offenses. If there are only a handful of politicians left after such a sift, then so be it.

        Thank God I’m not in the USA. But it’s not like this doesn’t fuck over the rest of the world too.

      • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        There would absolutely be men who would qualify, as well as a lot of women. Why do you think everyone is sexually assaulting everyone else? Let’s not allow violent criminals (which rape is both violent and a crime, it is torture via sexual acts) to be in office. At a minimum.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        if you disqualified politicians who engaged in some kind of sexual assault there would not be many left to govern.

        I’ve heard arguments to the effect that politicians who are too clean simply don’t succeed, because people don’t want to give you big campaign checks unless they have Compromat on you.

        So you get invited to the Eyes Wide Shut party, your rich friends catalog your debauchery, and this is what keeps you loyal.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 days ago

          I guess it didn’t work on Tim Walz or Bernie Sanders?

          Seems pretty easy to avoid.

          And Bernie took his goddamn honeymoon in the USSR, I imagine they could have bugged every room he entered if they wanted to.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            I guess it didn’t work on Tim Walz or Bernie Sanders?

            Both are about as loyal as any Dem foot soldiers you could name. Sanders, in particular, has been at least as zealous on Israel as Biden throughout his career.

            Bernie disagrees with the Neoliberal rhetoric and wants to save capitalism from itself. But he’s staunchly partisan.

            If anyone could use some Compromat its Manchin

      • FierySpectre@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        The problem with disqualifying anyone based on any crimes is that it would enable the current ruling party to stick crimes on the opposition to eliminate the competition.

        Just in case to clarify, I’m not defending child rapists who most surely did commit the crime in question, just saying it’s a dangerous concept.

        • snooggums@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          The problem with disqualifying anyone based on any crimes is that it would enable the current ruling party to stick crimes on the opposition to eliminate the competition.

          As an example, Trump didn’t get elected because he was convicted of 34 felonies.

          Oh wait, maybe the possibility of false crime accusations don’t fucking matter when real ones aren’t a hurdle to getting elected.

          • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            Lol right? Let’s stop pretending sexual assault or even pedophilia allegations do ANY HARM when the FUCKING PRESIDENT IS ONE. Let’s stop silencing victims’ stories of abuse out of concern for their abuser since it doesn’t matter anyway, it doesn’t hurt the perpetrator clearly, and just helps the victim to let them share. It also helps other victims be informed. I’m so fucking done with that line of speech now.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          it would enable the current ruling party to stick crimes on the opposition to eliminate the competition.

          Don Siegelman was the last Dem governor of Alabama. Pursued on spurious charges in 2004, which were immediately thrown out by the judge of the case, then again in 2006 by a Bush appointed Judge who was more friendly with Republican prosecutors.

          I expect a lot more of this in 2025 once Trump takes office and starts settling scores.

    • lurklurk@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Perhaps they’ll fragment after he dies? A lot of dictatorships don’t survive the death of the supreme leader

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 days ago

        Still at it… She lost, dude. Go away.

        Yes, we were already hopeless, but we recognized that there was one option (out of the four: Trump, Harris, third party, or abstention) that provided a possible chance of ending the genocide, while the other three were a guarantee of not only the complete elimination of the Palestinian people, but the expansion into a much larger conflict across the Middle East and possibly the world.

        I hope that moral superiority makes you feel better when you see the what the difference between the Democrats and Republicans in Gaza (and beyond) will be. Assuming you actually give a shit.

        • Victor@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Pardon my ignorance as a non-American, but which out of the four was the option for (possibly) ending the genocide?

        • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
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          3 days ago

          This might come as a surprise, but the people opposing the genocide did not magically disappear. Almost like they were not a Russian troll farm but real people with morals and values.

        • kreskin@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          but we recognized that there was one option (out of the four: Trump, Harris, third party, or abstention) that provided a possible chance of ending the genocide

          You hoped, “we” didnt “recognize”. If Harris was going to end it she would have said so in the few days before the election. She proved pretty thoroughly that was never going to stop taking that AIPAC money.