Yeah, the whole system is meant to work by assuming the president has the country’s best interests in mind and is willing to do what it takes to uphold them. Even when corruption inevitably wormed its way into every level of government, they still like they should pretend to have the country’s best interests in mind just to appease the population, so a lot of good happened even while a lot of bad was going on beneath the surface.

Now we’ve got a president who openly commits crimes and exploits the fact that the people meant to stop him are his subordinates now, and people still support him. It’s essentially proved to all corrupt politicians that they don’t need to hide it anymore, and no longer need to even halfheartedly care about the country’s best interests.

Our whole system that assumes the guy on top will at least feel compelled to “do the right thing” is instead being led by someone who ruins everything seemingly for fun, and he’s setting that example for a bunch of people who are eagerly waiting to be next in line when he finally dies.

Basically, people do what the law enforcement - like police and judges - say because they go to jail for a long time if they don’t. There are plenty of other punishments that aren’t jail, but those are really only enforced with the threat of jail time if you don’t comply, so it all comes back to jail in the end. Nobody’s going to come after Trump to put him in jail because he’s the president, and even before then, he had enough money to make sure nobody came after him anyway.

Nobody but the wealthy know exactly how they get away with their crimes, but I’d imagine some high-ranking members of the police force and probably several other people from other government agencies are willing to look the other way for a bit of cash, which allows the people who have that cash to essentially treat every crime like nothing more than a fine.

I’m not sure, but I’d be surprised if he didn’t use his power as president to dodge it somehow. Or he just ignored it - who’s going to actually come after him over it anyway?

Yeah, in spite of Trump literally being a felon while also being president, people still can’t shake the idea that he’s somehow forced to follow the law. He’s actively ignoring a bunch of judicial orders, but people keep celebrating whenever another is added to the pile. We’re simply unable to understand that when Trump - or any rich person for that matter - gets a sentence that “makes them” do something, they can just… not. And nothing bad will happen to them.

It never left. We just used to be confident that nobody in power was stupid or suicidal enough to use one given the mutually assured destruction, and that confidence has since gone up in smoke.

It’s America. One of the most common reasons for something to exist here is because it makes money, and this is making a lot of money.

I sure hope so, but I don’t see much changing. I guess we’ll see by looking at where Reddit is at business-wise by next year. People were saying it was doomed last summer after the 3rd party app fiasco, and their daily traffic has only gone up since then. I’ve long since lost all faith in the masses making the best choices for themselves.

They’re better than the OLD alternative, which was total boycotting at best, and torches and pitchforks at worst. The NEW alternative is complaining about it for a week or two, then continuing on without making any changes at all. They don’t mind the new alternative.

As someone who works with door hardware, this would be a pretty easy interview.

If it comes down to it, I’ll split the cost with you. If we can’t get socialized medicine the way it’s meant to be, we’ll make it ourselves!

This is like how American schools are authorizing unqualified people to be teachers to “resolve” the teacher shortage. It’s not “empowering,” it’s a dangerous short-term solution that they’re choosing over fixing the actual issue because that would require making actual positive change.

I never said anything about Elon being directly responsible for this, nor did anyone else within the replies to the conspiracy theory comment that I was referring to. The fact of the matter is that conspiracy theorists touted Elon’s acquisition of Twitter as being the return of free speech, but immediately after the death of Putin’s largest opposition figure, who’s wife said that she would carry his torch, she’s removed from the platform. Whether due to Elon or anyone else, Twitter is not a platform of free speech, and that should outrage anyone, whether they Like Elon or not, and whether they agree with Navalny and his wife or not.

Believe me, it got sadder and sadder watching it happen in person, too.

Conspiracy theorists are people who believe wild, baseless information, whose only sources are other people who believe wild, baseless information. My mom thinks that the US is owned by some guy in Montana because she saw a youtube video that said so. She believes that any time someone spells her name in all caps they’re literally trying to enslave her. She believes that Donald Trump is literally the second coming of Jesus Christ, and that Elon Musk is one of his new disciples because he allowed him back onto Twitter. She believes that sitting in a chair that vibrates at a specific frequency is more likely to cure her stage 4 breast cancer than an oncologist. My mom is a conspiracy theorist, and she’ll be dead soon from cancer that she found while it was still easily treatable with surgery, but decided then that oregano oil would be a more effective treatment.