U.S. Politics General Thread (Formerly 2024 Election Thread)

Hara

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As an American, our current situation is utter insanity.

Tariffs and deportation has already been discussed a little here. Our entire treasury is currently in the hands of an unelected billionaire, who also happens to be downloading files containing all personal data on federal employees, and is directly involved in killing USAID. Our first free and public tax-filing service that debuted last year to 75% approval among Americas has suddenly and permanently been deleted - as tax season is ramping up. Our president is allegedly preparing to do away with our DoE, has ordered the CDC to purge any data that could be "DEI," including surveillance statistics on diseases like HIV, Tuberculosis, and STDs, and halting the release of studies into the bird flu.

I don't blame people overseas for not being able to follow this shit. Every day is a torrent of information. I know a lot of public school teachers who love their kids, and many of those kids are in low-income areas where federal money offers them their only education. Of course that education should be better and our school system needs reform, but taking away all federal support is not the way to do it. Talks of cancelling all federal grants in general makes me nervous as I am only able to go to college because of those grants. Maybe some people don't think all this is that bad, but everything I see gives me the impression that our nation's wealth is about to be emptied into the pockets of billionaires.
 
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alCannium27

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Question to Americans. Why do you think a 3rd of your country did not vote?
Well the U.S. does not have mandentory voting like some countries do so voter turn out has never been very high in the first place.
Not the best place for information admittinlgy, but wikipedia puts the 2024 election turn out at 59% for voting age population and 63.9% for voting elligible population, being the second highest since 1968 -- the highest being the 2020 election
So as an outsider? This look good to me
 
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Andy Kaufman

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I've tried keeping up with it and i'm in a similar boat. First and foremost, this kind of political energy cannot last long. Every single day we see some bizzare, mouth breathing scheme from america that looks straight out of a looney toons skit.
Thousands of felons pardoned in a single day, troops called out to forcibly detain migrants, withdrawing from very serious global treaties on a dime, threatening an enormous trade war with his closest allies one after another and then letting in a human-tapeworm to delete entire government departments and steal all the data. Sometimes all in the same day.
As another Brit, this genuinely makes america look like an utter, shameful clownshow. The most powerful country the world has even known is now looting and tearing itself to bits from the inside out, by foreign oligarchs no less. If there's one thing to come of this it's how crystal clear it is that the world at large cannot trust america to handle it's own responsibility and we especially can't rely on it to keep to its word on any agreement, trade or otherwise.
Also, as a side note, i'm amazed how many people here both defend and endorse it all, fully knowing how fucking dumb they look from the outside-In. This website has worsened drastically since 2022.
bro the libs will be so mad about this thoughbeit and that's what matters in life
 
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Midwest

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The Conservative party is such a joke, I'm so glad I didn't vote for Drumpf this election. He could spread his ass open and fart and you would still have Qtards believe it's a sign he's about to drain the swamp. Because that's all we're being sold - a cult of personality that says: "We're not like the Democrats!" Sure, I don't want kids getting "transgender" surgeries nor do I want more illegal immigration, but what else comes in that package? We get Drumpf giving millions to Bill Gates and other billionaires like Zuckerberg and Musk who will only make it harder for you in this country. Trump already has Pete Hegseth in his department, a radical Zionist who wants to go to war with Iran and North Korea as well as fund the building of the Third Temple in Israel. Gaza is going through an ethnic cleansing as we speak as they're being forced to move to Egypt and Jordan. Trump supports Musk on H1B visas - so any idea of bringing back "American jobs" can be thrown out the window. The Federal Debt will only worsen with this administration, meaning what little I have will be reduced even further, and no amount of working at Panda Express will fix this.

So I ask, MAGAtards - am I winning?
 

Waninem

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About Musk deleting IRS Direct File...

As a retard who's done their own taxes for years, it should be noted that Direct File was a pilot program that was only available in 25 states, not including my own. The way I did it for years via the free fillable forms is still available; it's more complicated to use since you have to know how to fill the forms out manually, but people can still file their taxes for free electronically. Still bad and inopportune (really Musk, if it needs fixing that bad then wait until after April 15 or so!) but all is not completely lost.

...That said, the dire tax reform system we need is probably not gonna happen under Trump. Trump supports big businesses, including the ones that lobby and help write the tax code to be more complex every year. And as for the federal debt, I'm not gonna lie I think that was hopeless no matter who got in. I guarantee you Harris would've run it up just as much as Biden did (i.e. a lot.) And it's at such a high amount now that I have no clue how it could feasibly be paid, even if a lot of it is to America itself. How do you pay back 30 trillion dollars? It's such a high amount that a regular person can't even comprehend it.
 
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if Trump does abolish the income tax somehow I absolutely welcome it on an individual level. it's been a pain in my side for years; but to be honest I don't see this change actually coming into fruition, maybe we will see a huge modification to how taxes are performed making them less convoluted and punishing though. I'm not in with the crowd who thinks Trump supports big businesses, at least not anymore than other presidents have. And I know that would mean tariffs and more expensive foreign goods, but on the other hand america can take that L, the country is big enough to produce most of what it requires in house.
 

Orlando Smooth

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And as for the federal debt, I'm not gonna lie I think that was hopeless no matter who got in. I guarantee you Harris would've run it up just as much as Biden did (i.e. a lot.) And it's at such a high amount now that I have no clue how it could feasibly be paid, even if a lot of it is to America itself. How do you pay back 30 trillion dollars?
My conspiratorial side believes this is why there haven't been any strong measures to stop inflation: they'll never be able to pay off the debt, so instead they're trying to inflate away its value. Not sure I actually believe this though, since it would imply that the boomers in charge are actually thinking in a strategic way about the problem instead of acting selfishly and kicking the can down the road for another generation to deal with after they're dead. Guess which of those two options they've chosen in every other circumstance.
 
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sleepwalker

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We're going to get stabbed in the back 2 years into the presidency by our corporate overlords and India joining BRICs if either of those factions are smart.

But hey, our allies will be jumping at the opportunity to catch our fall economically and militarily! Right? :LaughHard:
 
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SparkyWilson

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You think this is Empire? Lmao we haven't even gotten to Empire yet. Has everyone forgotten the Roman Republic conquered a shitload of territory before entering into Empire?

If/When Trump takes Canada/Greenland, that will be the Rubicon event that throws us into Empire.
US controlled a lot more territory in the past, espally after WW2. People forget that the US controlled Cuba and the Philippines at one point and was still a republic.

I love how Brits, Europeans and Canadians bash America and Americans all the time, but when the US threatens to pull out of NATO and close down military bases or push back in anyway, they loose their shit and beg for the US to stay.
If this was a Relationship, it would be an abusive one, and Europe\Canada is the abuser with NPD. If someone treated me like that, I would be tossing them to the curb, and watch some homeless crack head rob them.
 

浜田英良さん

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You know when autism makes you hire 7 dudes from India to hack into the US federal government registry to freeze payments you don't deem necessary.
thevirus.jpeg

I guess thats what programmers do! the narwhals bacon at midnight ....
 
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SparkyWilson

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You know when autism makes you hire 7 dudes from India to hack into the US federal government registry to freeze payments you don't deem necessary.

I guess thats what programmers do! the narwhals bacon at midnight ....

he should be using the shred command... and
 

Waninem

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Heck if Elon's gonna hack into government registries (which is haphazard but... eh,) can we get some hacks into the NSA network as well? Not the stash of personal phone calls and DMs (which shouldn't legally be there,) but possible uploads to sites like YouTube and things like that. Just imagine the lost media that could be on there.

but seriously death to the NSA, burn it all down, it's unconstitutional anyway
 
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Andy Kaufman

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Lonely_Ghost

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I love how Brits, Europeans and Canadians bash America and Americans all the time, but when the US threatens to pull out of NATO and close down military bases or push back in anyway, they loose their shit and beg for the US to stay.
Iirc, Trump has already promised to withdraw from NATO and if Trump is great at anything it's pulling out of global treaties. It won't be long before he does this imo.
Also, I and most Europeans i've spoken to about this really don't give a shit if America actually does withdraw it's entire millitary back to the USA. It's involvement has done nothing but, at best, make the world complacent and, at worst, greatly interfere with domestic millitary engineering (As British and Canadian aviation can attest to). Couple this with Trump being just a total dick, nobody i know really trusts america to actually "keep the peace".
 
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It's involvement has done nothing but, at best, make the world complacent and, at worst, greatly interfere with domestic millitary engineering (As British and Canadian aviation can attest to).
I'm hoping the US pulls out of NATO just so we can finally see what Europe is capable of doing in miltech. Modern aerospace engineering is such a shitshow. Nobody can do a clean sheet design anymore, too much management bloat. Airbus is spanking Boeing but it doesn't matter because they can still get defense contracts.

And then, I am looking forward to what US miltech can do once we have an actual competitor and the big contractors need to get their shit together to make something good instead of farting out an embarrassment like the F-35 and still having it sell like hotcakes. (Pentagon Wars may as well have been written about the F-35)
 
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