United States Politics Thread 47

[malloc]

More terrible news on the political propaganda front. Long time liberal pundit Stephen Colbert is losing his show and retiring next year. This decision further cements the already overwhelming dominance of right wing politics in American media at possibly the worst time. Believe me when I say I hate being right all the time.

[keenir]

More terrible news on the political propaganda front. Long time liberal pundit Stephen Colbert is
retiring next year[/url].

good lord, how will we survive without sarcasm on tv?

also, thats not propaganda. i'm starting to think you don't actually know what propaganda is.

Believe me when I say I hate being right all the time.

oh gods no, not a long-time comedian retiring from daily television broadcasts! How could Malloc ever have predicted that someone would retire??

[jcb]

Poor people are often put off by the soaring, West Wing style rhetoric liberals really love. When you have trouble affording groceries, you don't want to listen to prose poetry about how society is becoming more just for other groups. What you want to do is break something.

Dividing the working class like this is dangerous for minorities. It has repeatedly led to fascism.

Not only is prose poetry an oxymoron, people react differently. I think most people with limited funds just want more food, not vandalism.

I personally have no sympathy for those who sold out the people over the price of eggs. And if your face is now being eaten by leopards, well, you're getting what you deserve. You should have thought first before you voted.

Nobody's saying that such people aren't dumb. What matters is that they vote, and who wins the most votes determines who wins the election. Therefore, anybody that cares about democracy should try to win their vote.

[malloc]

good lord, how will we survive without sarcasm on tv?

also, thats not propaganda. i'm starting to think you don't actually know what propaganda is.

Colbert has been a prominent liberal voice going back to the Bush administration. His politically motivated cancellation is a great loss regardless of your cynicism. Meanwhile the Right has not lost any prominent advocates and only continues to expand its market share.

[Raphael]

I'm starting to wonder how long it'll take for Trump to say something like "I should run for President some day. I'm sure I could do a better job than the guys we've had recently" on camera.

[MacAnDàil]

Here is a NYT article detailing how Trump is undoing civil rights in the US. This notably includes housing discrimination. Trump's first legal affair, in 1973, involved discriminating against black people at his father's and his housing. Trump refused to accept guilt at the time. They violated the settlement Perhaps, he has still not swallowed the decision. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/maga ... 617c89e59d

BTW I feel like, from prose poetry to the number of deaths after the fall of the Soviet Union (this is an objective report; search for socialist analyses of how capitalism played into this), you people don't actually know anything. Blame the miseducation your society has subjected you to since childhood. I'm in the same boat as you. It's not physically possible for a mere mortal such as I to teach you literally everything. My advice is to assume that you are psychotic, lose faith in your perception of reality, and study every subject, from literary theory to each decade of history, from scratch. With luck, we will be capable of having one true and original thought before we pass away.

I was mistaken in the non-existence of prose poetry. Thank you for correcting me.

However, one mistake is not a reason to reject a person's entire knowledge. Also, it is rather disrespectful to advise others to assume they are psychotic. In addition, this was not the main part of the argument. Lastly, I fail to understand the relevance of prose poetry to US politics.

[jcb]

Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal for publishing this article:
- https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-jeff ... n-f918d796
But, it's probably not going to go well:
- https://youtu.be/OJ1Oj8GdG_8?si=baRkfOM14ptPkkUf&t=245

So, Trump is using a bunch of culture war items to try to distract from his Epstein problem, like:
- Accusing Obama of treason: https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/22/politics ... n-analysis
- Whining about the Washington Commanders' (a football team) new (since 2022) name: https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/pres ... -old-name/
- Pushing for Coca Cola with real sugar (yes, really): https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consum ... rcna220181

If the nitty gritties of soda companies are on the table, maybe he can push Pepsi to return to using the logo it had during my childhood years:

Also, he probably had "a series of mini-strokes" recently:
- https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... s-n1239006

[malloc]

Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal for publishing this article:
- https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-jeff ... n-f918d796

Sounds like terrible news. Not that I would consider myself a fan of the WSJ but this strongly discourages other newspapers and other media from acknowledging anything negative about Trump.

[Travis B.]

Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal for publishing this article:
- https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-jeff ... n-f918d796

Sounds like terrible news. Not that I would consider myself a fan of the WSJ but this strongly discourages other newspapers and other media from acknowledging anything negative about Trump.

Did you see that the WSJ has gotten their revenge? They've now published an article reporting how Bondi told Trump that he was mentioned multiple times in the Epstein files prior to the DOJ doing their "there's nothing to see here" thing, and everyone's picked up on that. So much for discouraging media.

[jcb]

A good article from the Jacobin, today:
- https://jacobin.com/2025/07/working-cla ... oters-cwcp

Working-class Trump voters are winnable, if Democrats care to try. (I'm not holding my breath.)

A neat article summary of a paper that was secondarily linked from the Jacobin article, that shows that the Democrats have become the party of the highly educated:
- https://www.promarket.org/2024/02/26/ho ... ed-voters/

While until 1976, every additional year of education predicted a three percentage point decrease in the likelihood of identifying as a Democrat, the exact opposite is true today–every additional year of education predicts almost a three percentage point increase in the likelihood of identifying as a Democrat.

[malloc]

Apparently the FCC is taking steps to prevent CBS from presenting anything negative about Trump under the guise of avoiding unfair bias against him. Between this, the cancellation and retirement of liberal pundits, and lawsuits against critical newspapers, the general public will soon know nothing about anything horrible Trump does.

[keenir]

Apparently the FCC is taking steps to prevent CBS from presenting anything negative about Trump under the guise of avoiding unfair bias against him. Between this, the cancellation and retirement of liberal pundits, and lawsuits against critical newspapers, the general public will soon know nothing about anything horrible Trump does.

Malloc, I know you can read...but the question is turning into one of do you bother to read?

Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal for publishing this article:
- https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-jeff ... n-f918d796

Sounds like terrible news. Not that I would consider myself a fan of the WSJ but this strongly discourages other newspapers and other media from acknowledging anything negative about Trump.

Did you see that the WSJ has gotten their revenge? They've now published an article reporting how Bondi told Trump that he was mentioned multiple times in the Epstein files prior to the DOJ doing their "there's nothing to see here" thing, and everyone's picked up on that. So much for discouraging media.

Why should this silence the newspapers, the youtubes, and every other media outlet in the USA (and others outside the USA), when none of the earlier ones accomplished that?

Heck, you think China or Iran or France are going to tell their journalists "shh, Trump is suing his country's journalists, so don't do anything to make him upset?" In the immortal words of the great prophetess{i think she was} Kara Thrace, "Frack No!"

[malloc]

Heck, you think China or Iran or France are going to tell their journalists "shh, Trump is suing his country's journalists, so don't do anything to make him upset?" In the immortal words of the great prophetess{i think she was} Kara Thrace, "Frack No!"

Do you honestly think the average American consumes media from China or Iran or even that China and Iran would criticize Trump in ways consonant with liberal democracy? People in China and Iran are hardly consuming Western media critical of their own regimes after all.

[keenir]

Heck, you think China or Iran or France are going to tell their journalists "shh, Trump is suing his country's journalists, so don't do anything to make him upset?" In the immortal words of the great prophetess{i think she was} Kara Thrace, "Frack No!"

Do you honestly think the average American consumes media from China

yes

isn't that where TikTok or something is based? Trump used to keep complaining about it, for that reason.

or Iran or even that China and Iran would criticize Trump in ways consonant with liberal democracy?

that wasn't your complaint before - you said nobody would dare criticize Trump. you did not say "nobody will dare criticize Trump in ways consonant with liberal democracy".

People in China and Iran are hardly consuming Western media critical of their own regimes after all.

China's regime =/= other China's Regime =/= American Regime

[malloc]

yes

isn't that where TikTok or something is based? Trump used to keep complaining about it, for that reason.

Technically yes, but most Americans are not consuming Chinese news or political content on TikTok and would probably recoil if they stumbled on CCP critiques of American politics or economics. Generally speaking, the kind of people who consume foreign media are educated cosmopolitans who already oppose Trump and his reactionary agenda. Meanwhile the average American is hardly reading or watching news from Europe and Asia and it makes no sense to hold out hope that foreign media will keep them informed about the atrocities of the Trump dictatorship.

[zompist]

The Republicans' attack on the media is a sign of incipient fascism. At the same time, it's also true that media can and do resist the creep of fascism.

It's actually pretty hilarious that the WSJ is the latest target of Republican wrath. It's owned by Rupert Murdoch, the notorious right-wing media tycoon— also the publisher of Fox News, one of the mainstays of GOP support. It has a market cap of $17.5 billion; Murdoch himself is the 31st richest person in the US.

The Epstein affair is perhaps the stupidest thing that could fracture the MAGA coalition, and yet there it is doing just that. It's a remarkable self-own: the Republicans built it up as a conspiracy theory for years, promising big revelations and takedowns; now that they're in power and have all the files, suddenly they want to ignore it and reveal nothing. The MAGAheads are furious and Congress actually had to be adjourned early lest it do something.

As someone pointed out, though the details of the conspiracy theory don't affect anything, the overall thrust is actually quite true: that there are too-rich people, in both political parties, who can do what they want without repercussions. The MAGAhats haven't realized that this includes Trump, but his trying to cover it up is Not Going Well.

[malloc]

The Republicans' attack on the media is a sign of incipient fascism. At the same time, it's also true that media can and do resist the creep of fascism.

Some media outlets have resisted while others have folded. Perhaps some stalwart newspapers and niche channels will continue to resist but unless those reach the majority of people, they will hardly impact public opinion.

The Epstein affair is perhaps the stupidest thing that could fracture the MAGA coalition, and yet there it is doing just that. It's a remarkable self-own: the Republicans built it up as a conspiracy theory for years, promising big revelations and takedowns; now that they're in power and have all the files, suddenly they want to ignore it and reveal nothing. The MAGAheads are furious and Congress actually had to be adjourned early lest it do something.

Sure but Trump could easily extricate himself from this problem simply by releasing the files with all mentions of him removed. He could even have his enemies added to the files and use that as a pretext to arrest or purge remaining liberals in political office. That might not fool committed opponents of the Trump regime but it would certainly satisfy his supporters.

[keenir]

The Republicans' attack on the media is a sign of incipient fascism. At the same time, it's also true that media can and do resist the creep of fascism.

Some media outlets have resisted while others have folded. Perhaps some stalwart newspapers and niche channels will continue to resist but unless those reach the majority of people, they will hardly impact public opinion.

Malloc, they've already reached the entire American public, and its barely dinged or dented your awareness.

The Epstein affair is perhaps the stupidest thing that could fracture the MAGA coalition, and yet there it is doing just that. It's a remarkable self-own: the Republicans built it up as a conspiracy theory for years, promising big revelations and takedowns; now that they're in power and have all the files, suddenly they want to ignore it and reveal nothing. The MAGAheads are furious and Congress actually had to be adjourned early lest it do something.

Sure but Trump could easily extricate himself from this problem simply by releasing the files with all mentions of him removed.

cue everyone comparing that set of released files, with the earlier files that'd been distributed.

also, when has anything "easy" Trump's tried to do, actually turned out good for him?

He could even have his enemies added to the files and use that as a pretext to arrest or purge remaining liberals in political office.

many of his enemies are Republicans.

That might not fool committed opponents of the Trump regime but it would certainly satisfy his supporters.

no it wouldn't, because then they'd ask why he didn't do that in the first place, when they first asked for it.

[jcb]

As someone pointed out, though the details of the conspiracy theory don't affect anything, the overall thrust is actually quite true: that there are too-rich people, in both political parties, who can do what they want without repercussions. The MAGAhats haven't realized that this includes Trump, but his trying to cover it up is Not Going Well.

Even Jacob Chansley, AKA the "Q-Anon Shaman", one of J6ers who spent years in prison, has turned on Trump now.
- https://people.com/qanon-shaman-slams-d ... d-11779154
- https://x.com/AmericaShaman/status/1948055892710269333
- https://x.com/AmericaShaman/status/1948116480194990458

Edit (4 hours later): His Twitter account is deleted now.

[malloc]

Malloc, they've already reached the entire American public, and its barely dinged or dented your awareness.

This scandal will fade just like all the others. Trump has weathered dozens of scandals by this point, each of which would have destroyed any other politicians but which somehow have left him utterly unscathed. Consider how little impact the January 6th coup attempt had on his reputation.