4 ms·

The US presidency fully devolved into a mafia this time around, no more mincing words or operating behind the scenes. Just like a mafia don demands, all fealty

The US presidency fully devolved into a mafia this time around, no more mincing words or operating behind the scenes. Just like a mafia don demands, all fealty should be in public and fully subservient, no half measures. Till now, commenting or criticizing someone was fair game, not anymore. Musk and trump have shown they can petty and vindictive. So no more commenting in public too. Not sure what this does to the press. Over time people will be trained to think free press is bad too.

Thorrez 2y ago
>Till now, commenting or criticizing someone was fair game, not anymore. Musk and trump have shown they can petty and vindictive. Tons of people criticize both of them. In fact, both Musk and Trump have publicly criticized each other, and have now made up.
- bgun 2y ago
  Republicans have learned to weaponize attention far better than Democrats. Negative attention is still attention, and where Democrats shrink from "gaffes" or criticism, Republicans just recognize that public criticism is still a form of attention. Even among each other. Whoever gets the most eyeballs, top stories, and headlines for longest wins this game. Vicious, vindictive, petty, nonsensical, random, and trolling tactics are all strategically useful in this media landscape.
  - outside1234 2y ago
    Republicans have the benefit of not having guilt around saying things that are patently not true while the Democrats are still trying to act within norms. It is asymmetrical warfare on the truth.
    - cooper_ganglia 2y ago
      It astounds me that anyone is capable of sincerely believing this.
      - varsketiz 2y ago
        Why? I think it's a very reasonable take. Democrats dont go around talking about people eating dogs.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        rayiner 2y ago
        Republicans don't go around saying a President in obvious mental decline is "sharp as a tack." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHE3jnOAR80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHE3jnOAR80 Democrats literally just lost an election because of their tremendous ability to lie to themselves: Biden isn't incapacitated; selecting candidates based on race/gender doesn't compromise on quality; immigration has no drawbacks; etc.
        varsketiz 2y ago
        I take the sharp as a tack comeback, that is fair. Regarding selecting based on gender compromising or not compromising candidate quality is a vastly more compex question. It is sad that a lot of people have a simple answer to themselves. That immigration has no drawbacks I have not heard anywhere, seems like a position you assign to democrats, not one they hold.
        rayiner 2y ago
        > Regarding selecting based on gender compromising or not compromising candidate quality is a vastly more compex question Except Kamala Harris put the correct answer to that question into stark relief. Everyone knew from 2019 that she was a terrible campaigner and manager. But Biden picked her as VP and then Democrats picked her as the nominee because they were able to lie to themselves that she was an accomplished individual rather than someone who had moved up within California uniparty politics because of her race and gender. Selecting people considering race and gender in an effort to “make history” or correct past wrongs is a deeply misguided practice. But I didn’t expect it to blow up in people’s faces quite so quickly and spectacularly.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    It's a response to the fact that democrats can create widespread misperceptions through their control of traditional media. For example, in 2018, 66% of Democrats believed that "Russia tampered with vote tallies to get Donald Trump elected President." https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/20383-russias-impact-election-seen-through-partisan-eyes https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/20383-russias-imp.... Hillary Clinton never went out and said quite that. But the barrage of coverage from all angles in the media created the same impression as if she had said that. In another example: how many people know that, after the 2000 election, the Supreme Court found 7-2 that Al Gore's proposed recount strategy was unconstitutional? Nobody knows that Al Gore had employed a strategy of hand-counting ballots only in counties he had won to find more countable votes that would swing disproportionately in his favor.[1] The media completely blacked that out, and everyone now only remembers the 5-4 part of the decision addressing how to fix that constitutional violation. There's more people under the misimpression that Kathleen Harris or Jeb fixed the election in Bush's favor than understand the sneaky maneuvering by Gore that precipitated the whole mess. [1] E.g. if Gore won a county 2:1, then statistically, every vote rejected by the machine that could be hand counted would be twice as likely to be a Gore vote than a Bush vote. Gore found a loophole in Florida election law that allowed him to use that principle to find more votes in his favor by seeking hand recounts only in two large counties he had won.
    - nuancebydefault 2y ago
      Another example of whataboutism, this time about a guy who ran for presidency many many years ago. He's the one who gave attention to this now obvious unconvenient truth. Back then they criticized the energy use of his house, which still compares very pale against the consequences of this, still swept under the carpet today, inconvenient truth.
      - rayiner 2y ago
        MAGA didn't happen in a vacuum. Two republican presidents have been elected in the 21st century, and after both of their first elections, the media fostered widespread misperception of the legitimacy of their wins through selective reporting of the truth. For people coming into the leadership of the GOP now, folks in their 40s and 50s like Vance and Johnson, remember the 2000 election very well, but not the Walter Cronkite era when the media was more even-handed. That inevitably shapes their own approach to communication.
- roboror 2y ago
  Correct, but now there will be not even a semblance of bipartisanship. It's not even enough to be a member of the same party, you must pledge full unwavering loyalty and never criticize the administration or face the consequences of being ostracized, attacked, power revoked, and prosecuted by a weaponized DOJ. The media, both social and legacy, are fully on board now too, the gloves are off. Also, you can now commit crimes and then pledge loyalty in exchange for a pardon. See Eric Adams.
  - Thorrez 2y ago
    >you must [...] never criticize the administration or face the consequences of being ostracized, attacked, power revoked, and prosecuted by a weaponized DOJ. It's not "never". JD Vance published a book criticizing Trump, and still got picked as VP.
    - rayiner 2y ago
      By contrast, Tulsi Gabbard--who was the vice-chair of the DNC at the time--was run out of the party and tarred as a foreign asset for opposing Hillary Clinton and her desire to start a war in Syria.
ARandomerDude 2y ago
You're very late to the party. https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/ https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-ti...
- danlivingston 2y ago
  How is this at all related to what the person was saying? They made no mention of financial corruption. They're explicitly talking about speech and press.
  - cooper_ganglia 2y ago
    Money, speech, press... The mafia has many avenues of control...
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  additionally, wasn't the "whistleblower" who made many claims about Hunter Biden's laptop found to be blatantly fraudulent? dude was later convicted for making false statements. IIRC the Romanian and Kazakstan ones were also heavily thrown into doubt. whole thing reads like whataboutism
  - quickslowdown 2y ago
    That's exactly what it is. The people breathlessly compiling a list of "what abouts" for this type of corruption need to look past their nose. 2 things can be fucked up at the same time, and one of those things being fucked up isn't an excuse for the other thing to continue being fucked up. Also, when one of those "what abouts" is verifiably false, as in the case of the guy who made claims about Hunter's laptop, it's completely meaningless. Those people are comparing to something that doesn't even exist. It's a stupid, losing game that way too many people want to play.
- quickslowdown 2y ago
  At the risk of "what about"-ing, this list is laughably small compared to the Trump's bribe docket. Neither of these are acceptable, a president and their associates should not be able to personally enrich themselves from the office. I know this disclaimer won't matter to someone who just really wants to argue, but this does absolutely nothing to move the needle for me. Pointing to someone else's corruption to excuse Trump's corruption is just a losing battle, you will never convince me to care about one when the other is just allowed to fly.
Dig1t 2y ago
Trump said yesterday in his speech that they want a model where the US owns 50% of Tik Tok and has some oversight. This is pretty much the exact same setup that US companies get in China. This seems like a pretty decent compromise actually. Free speech advocates win because people still get to use the service, but national security folks also get a win because they can monitor its use by a foreign government and shut things down if it’s being used maliciously.
- jayd16 2y ago
  I don't want to live in blue China, especially when the oversight is the Trump administration. I wouldn't call required government control a free speech win.
  - Dig1t 2y ago
    I mean it’s a compromise, usually both sides are unhappy when a compromise is made haha. There are real concerns that the CCP could use it as a tool to manipulate and spy on the American people. There’s a good reason why Tik Tok is being banned in many countries around the world. Also a good reason why China bans and tightly controls American social media companies in their country. But if we agree to compromise, we can ideally find a balance where the average American is best served.
    - jayd16 2y ago
      If the we earnestly believe that why would we need ownership and exclude most other corporations? Why aren't we pushing for FEC like oversight? Seems to me that this strategy is as best not earnest and at worst only serves those in power.
      - Dig1t 2y ago
        Well I think people at the top consider China to be special, same thing happened with the sale of Grindr to a Chinese company. That was stopped by the US government because it could easily be used by the CCP to do bad things like blackmail Americans. I do believe that both sides of the political spectrum agree that there is a special threat posed by Chinese involvement in American social media. This TikTok ban was pushed forward by both sides of the aisle and has had support from people in both administrations. Social media in general is ofc toxic and terrible for all kinds of other reasons, but WRT national security TikTok is so huge now that it’s getting special treatment.
rayiner 2y ago
This is just a publicity stunt to capitalize on his popularity among Gen Z: https://www.newsweek.com/young-people-most-optimisitc-about-donald-trump-presidency-cbs-poll-2017544 https://www.newsweek.com/young-people-most-optimisitc-about-.... Trump is simply picking up the ball Biden fumbled.
jwarden 2y ago
The US president is not all-powerful. If he was, Trump would not have been forced to hand over power to Biden in 2020. Certainly he is petty and vindictive. But there have always been petty and vindictive people in power, and people that were too scared of them to speak their mind. But there have always been those who still dare to criticize people in power.
- thiht 2y ago
  > Trump would not have been forced to hand over power Can you re-read your sentence and ask yourself if this is a normal thing to say in a working democracy? That this is even on the table means Trump IS a dictator. He was just too dumb to know how to make it work in 2020. From a non American lens, it actually looks like you handed power to a dictator because he won "fair and square" this time. I have trouble believing the US will have another genuine vote in my lifetime.
  - blueprint 2y ago
    even if someone wishes they were a dictator of the USA doesn’t mean that they are
    - iamtedd 2y ago
      It does mean he will behave dictatorially, and make dictatorial decisions as president as far as the system will allow. Previous experience (his last presidency) shows he will take every opportunity, and has a lot of leeway in your "democratic" system.
    - thiht 2y ago
      Surprisingly it doesn’t take a lot more when the political opponents don’t do shit (Biden x Garland, anyone?) or when the people either actively supports dictature or decides not to vote for… reasons.
      - mandmandam 2y ago
        > or decides not to vote for… reasons. The main reason being a refusal to stop assisting a genocide [0]. Seems like a legit reason to me. You might want to ask yourself - why was supporting Israel more important to Harris than winning the Presidency and defeating Trump? 0 - https://www.commondreams.org/news/harris-gaza https://www.commondreams.org/news/harris-gaza
JumpinJack_Cash 2y ago
> > Musk and trump have shown they can petty and vindictive This is great. Sociologist tells us that any given person can only have 150 friends maximum, same goes with enemies , it will be very long 4 years for whoever sits in the 150 enemies at any given time, but all things considered they aren't people too dissimilar compared to Musk and Trump. While petty revenge goes on, policy as always gets ignored and problems emerge (inflation, other pandemic etc) and the whole thing will collapse because at the end of the day even a perfect and experienced captain won't be able to steer perfectly a 400M people strong super tanker such as the US, let alone a vindicative one busy lashing out on his enemies aboard. It will end up like the Evergreen in the Suez canal.

Thorrez 2y ago

>Till now, commenting or criticizing someone was fair game, not anymore. Musk and trump have shown they can petty and vindictive. Tons of people criticize both of them. In fact, both Musk and Trump have publicly criticized each other, and have now made up.

bgun 2y ago
Republicans have learned to weaponize attention far better than Democrats. Negative attention is still attention, and where Democrats shrink from "gaffes" or criticism, Republicans just recognize that public criticism is still a form of attention. Even among each other. Whoever gets the most eyeballs, top stories, and headlines for longest wins this game. Vicious, vindictive, petty, nonsensical, random, and trolling tactics are all strategically useful in this media landscape.
- outside1234 2y ago
  Republicans have the benefit of not having guilt around saying things that are patently not true while the Democrats are still trying to act within norms. It is asymmetrical warfare on the truth.
  - cooper_ganglia 2y ago
    It astounds me that anyone is capable of sincerely believing this.
    - varsketiz 2y ago
      Why? I think it's a very reasonable take. Democrats dont go around talking about people eating dogs.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - rayiner 2y ago
        Republicans don't go around saying a President in obvious mental decline is "sharp as a tack." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHE3jnOAR80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHE3jnOAR80 Democrats literally just lost an election because of their tremendous ability to lie to themselves: Biden isn't incapacitated; selecting candidates based on race/gender doesn't compromise on quality; immigration has no drawbacks; etc.
        varsketiz 2y ago
        I take the sharp as a tack comeback, that is fair. Regarding selecting based on gender compromising or not compromising candidate quality is a vastly more compex question. It is sad that a lot of people have a simple answer to themselves. That immigration has no drawbacks I have not heard anywhere, seems like a position you assign to democrats, not one they hold.
        rayiner 2y ago
        > Regarding selecting based on gender compromising or not compromising candidate quality is a vastly more compex question Except Kamala Harris put the correct answer to that question into stark relief. Everyone knew from 2019 that she was a terrible campaigner and manager. But Biden picked her as VP and then Democrats picked her as the nominee because they were able to lie to themselves that she was an accomplished individual rather than someone who had moved up within California uniparty politics because of her race and gender. Selecting people considering race and gender in an effort to “make history” or correct past wrongs is a deeply misguided practice. But I didn’t expect it to blow up in people’s faces quite so quickly and spectacularly.
- rayiner 2y ago
  It's a response to the fact that democrats can create widespread misperceptions through their control of traditional media. For example, in 2018, 66% of Democrats believed that "Russia tampered with vote tallies to get Donald Trump elected President." https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/20383-russias-impact-election-seen-through-partisan-eyes https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/20383-russias-imp.... Hillary Clinton never went out and said quite that. But the barrage of coverage from all angles in the media created the same impression as if she had said that. In another example: how many people know that, after the 2000 election, the Supreme Court found 7-2 that Al Gore's proposed recount strategy was unconstitutional? Nobody knows that Al Gore had employed a strategy of hand-counting ballots only in counties he had won to find more countable votes that would swing disproportionately in his favor.[1] The media completely blacked that out, and everyone now only remembers the 5-4 part of the decision addressing how to fix that constitutional violation. There's more people under the misimpression that Kathleen Harris or Jeb fixed the election in Bush's favor than understand the sneaky maneuvering by Gore that precipitated the whole mess. [1] E.g. if Gore won a county 2:1, then statistically, every vote rejected by the machine that could be hand counted would be twice as likely to be a Gore vote than a Bush vote. Gore found a loophole in Florida election law that allowed him to use that principle to find more votes in his favor by seeking hand recounts only in two large counties he had won.
  - nuancebydefault 2y ago
    Another example of whataboutism, this time about a guy who ran for presidency many many years ago. He's the one who gave attention to this now obvious unconvenient truth. Back then they criticized the energy use of his house, which still compares very pale against the consequences of this, still swept under the carpet today, inconvenient truth.
    - rayiner 2y ago
      MAGA didn't happen in a vacuum. Two republican presidents have been elected in the 21st century, and after both of their first elections, the media fostered widespread misperception of the legitimacy of their wins through selective reporting of the truth. For people coming into the leadership of the GOP now, folks in their 40s and 50s like Vance and Johnson, remember the 2000 election very well, but not the Walter Cronkite era when the media was more even-handed. That inevitably shapes their own approach to communication.
roboror 2y ago
Correct, but now there will be not even a semblance of bipartisanship. It's not even enough to be a member of the same party, you must pledge full unwavering loyalty and never criticize the administration or face the consequences of being ostracized, attacked, power revoked, and prosecuted by a weaponized DOJ. The media, both social and legacy, are fully on board now too, the gloves are off. Also, you can now commit crimes and then pledge loyalty in exchange for a pardon. See Eric Adams.
- Thorrez 2y ago
  >you must [...] never criticize the administration or face the consequences of being ostracized, attacked, power revoked, and prosecuted by a weaponized DOJ. It's not "never". JD Vance published a book criticizing Trump, and still got picked as VP.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    By contrast, Tulsi Gabbard--who was the vice-chair of the DNC at the time--was run out of the party and tarred as a foreign asset for opposing Hillary Clinton and her desire to start a war in Syria.

ARandomerDude 2y ago

You're very late to the party. https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/ https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-ti...

danlivingston 2y ago
How is this at all related to what the person was saying? They made no mention of financial corruption. They're explicitly talking about speech and press.
- cooper_ganglia 2y ago
  Money, speech, press... The mafia has many avenues of control...
red-iron-pine 2y ago
additionally, wasn't the "whistleblower" who made many claims about Hunter Biden's laptop found to be blatantly fraudulent? dude was later convicted for making false statements. IIRC the Romanian and Kazakstan ones were also heavily thrown into doubt. whole thing reads like whataboutism
- quickslowdown 2y ago
  That's exactly what it is. The people breathlessly compiling a list of "what abouts" for this type of corruption need to look past their nose. 2 things can be fucked up at the same time, and one of those things being fucked up isn't an excuse for the other thing to continue being fucked up. Also, when one of those "what abouts" is verifiably false, as in the case of the guy who made claims about Hunter's laptop, it's completely meaningless. Those people are comparing to something that doesn't even exist. It's a stupid, losing game that way too many people want to play.
quickslowdown 2y ago
At the risk of "what about"-ing, this list is laughably small compared to the Trump's bribe docket. Neither of these are acceptable, a president and their associates should not be able to personally enrich themselves from the office. I know this disclaimer won't matter to someone who just really wants to argue, but this does absolutely nothing to move the needle for me. Pointing to someone else's corruption to excuse Trump's corruption is just a losing battle, you will never convince me to care about one when the other is just allowed to fly.

Dig1t 2y ago

Trump said yesterday in his speech that they want a model where the US owns 50% of Tik Tok and has some oversight. This is pretty much the exact same setup that US companies get in China. This seems like a pretty decent compromise actually. Free speech advocates win because people still get to use the service, but national security folks also get a win because they can monitor its use by a foreign government and shut things down if it’s being used maliciously.

jayd16 2y ago
I don't want to live in blue China, especially when the oversight is the Trump administration. I wouldn't call required government control a free speech win.
- Dig1t 2y ago
  I mean it’s a compromise, usually both sides are unhappy when a compromise is made haha. There are real concerns that the CCP could use it as a tool to manipulate and spy on the American people. There’s a good reason why Tik Tok is being banned in many countries around the world. Also a good reason why China bans and tightly controls American social media companies in their country. But if we agree to compromise, we can ideally find a balance where the average American is best served.
  - jayd16 2y ago
    If the we earnestly believe that why would we need ownership and exclude most other corporations? Why aren't we pushing for FEC like oversight? Seems to me that this strategy is as best not earnest and at worst only serves those in power.
    - Dig1t 2y ago
      Well I think people at the top consider China to be special, same thing happened with the sale of Grindr to a Chinese company. That was stopped by the US government because it could easily be used by the CCP to do bad things like blackmail Americans. I do believe that both sides of the political spectrum agree that there is a special threat posed by Chinese involvement in American social media. This TikTok ban was pushed forward by both sides of the aisle and has had support from people in both administrations. Social media in general is ofc toxic and terrible for all kinds of other reasons, but WRT national security TikTok is so huge now that it’s getting special treatment.

rayiner 2y ago

This is just a publicity stunt to capitalize on his popularity among Gen Z: https://www.newsweek.com/young-people-most-optimisitc-about-donald-trump-presidency-cbs-poll-2017544 https://www.newsweek.com/young-people-most-optimisitc-about-.... Trump is simply picking up the ball Biden fumbled.

jwarden 2y ago

The US president is not all-powerful. If he was, Trump would not have been forced to hand over power to Biden in 2020. Certainly he is petty and vindictive. But there have always been petty and vindictive people in power, and people that were too scared of them to speak their mind. But there have always been those who still dare to criticize people in power.

thiht 2y ago
> Trump would not have been forced to hand over power Can you re-read your sentence and ask yourself if this is a normal thing to say in a working democracy? That this is even on the table means Trump IS a dictator. He was just too dumb to know how to make it work in 2020. From a non American lens, it actually looks like you handed power to a dictator because he won "fair and square" this time. I have trouble believing the US will have another genuine vote in my lifetime.
- blueprint 2y ago
  even if someone wishes they were a dictator of the USA doesn’t mean that they are
  - iamtedd 2y ago
    It does mean he will behave dictatorially, and make dictatorial decisions as president as far as the system will allow. Previous experience (his last presidency) shows he will take every opportunity, and has a lot of leeway in your "democratic" system.
  - thiht 2y ago
    Surprisingly it doesn’t take a lot more when the political opponents don’t do shit (Biden x Garland, anyone?) or when the people either actively supports dictature or decides not to vote for… reasons.
    - mandmandam 2y ago
      > or decides not to vote for… reasons. The main reason being a refusal to stop assisting a genocide [0]. Seems like a legit reason to me. You might want to ask yourself - why was supporting Israel more important to Harris than winning the Presidency and defeating Trump? 0 - https://www.commondreams.org/news/harris-gaza https://www.commondreams.org/news/harris-gaza

JumpinJack_Cash 2y ago

> > Musk and trump have shown they can petty and vindictive This is great. Sociologist tells us that any given person can only have 150 friends maximum, same goes with enemies , it will be very long 4 years for whoever sits in the 150 enemies at any given time, but all things considered they aren't people too dissimilar compared to Musk and Trump. While petty revenge goes on, policy as always gets ignored and problems emerge (inflation, other pandemic etc) and the whole thing will collapse because at the end of the day even a perfect and experienced captain won't be able to steer perfectly a 400M people strong super tanker such as the US, let alone a vindicative one busy lashing out on his enemies aboard. It will end up like the Evergreen in the Suez canal.