He looks like JJ Abrams tried to create a new villain for Star Wars (that serves on the Jedi council) but when he looks in the mirror, he secretly cackles.
Also aged 20 years.
You think it looks 110 years in that photo?
100? He is 80. 80+20=100
Its a dwindling few=
“There are an estimated 101,000 Americans who are 100 years old or older as of 2024”And it gets better!
The percentage of 100-year-olds (centenarians) with dementia varies across studies but generally ranges from approximately 40% to over 60%, with some studies reporting even higher rates.
So 60,600. That’s still a shit ton of old racist assholes. But they did their thing, you know, and probably the majority are not racist assholes or Trump supporters or Trump or all 3! The point is, time is not on his side. Unfortunately there’s probably a good ten thousand racist assholes that are younger. Darn.
He really need to be in prison asap.
I was getting Bond villain vibes off the bat, but I guess I could see that.
I knew I had seen somebody wear that shirt before.
It’s been 9 years since he started politics and I never understood why anyone ever backed him.
Populism. He convinced everyone he was a billionaire outsider not beholden to anyone. The whole thing started from a fake rally to help him gain ratings for The Apprentice.
But like, his credibility is (and always was) total shit. How can there be 75 million people that gullible? To me, it couldn’t have been more obvious he was lying if his pants had literally been on fire.
He matches their hateful energy.
They believe he will hurt the right people (to them); marginalized people.
They are largely happy that he is, and many are completely willing to accept massive sacrifice to get this.
They believe he will hurt the right people (to them); marginalized people.
This is incorrect.
People backed Donald in 2016 because, at that time, they’d had enough of the disappointment and impoverishment brought to them by Obama’s politics and the promise that those politics would continue under Clinton. It was the same under Biden/Harris, where consumers watched their basic needs double and triple in cost and their response was ‘just be joyful about it’.
Donald, in both cases, was the change candidate, and the majority wanted change more than anything else.
There is a smaller contingent that, yes, did back him because of his hateful energy, but not the majority. The majority just want to be able to pay their bills without having to work 100 hours a week.
Nah to any of this. His rhetoric was clear. Birthirism, build a wall, eat the dogs, sending their rapists, black jobs.
Especially for his second term, not a soul could possibly believe he would bring about positive change economically.
Its also extremely dumb for the next to nobody who voted for him for not bigotry to think choosing the worse option would somehow make things better as opposed to participating in primaries more.
Especially for his second term, not a soul could possibly believe he would bring about positive change economically.
Yes they can, just as so many believed Harris would win because their algorithm provided them a reality where that was a certainty.
Its also extremely dumb
What’s dumb is to expect people to vote Democrat when the cost of living rose so sharply under Biden and his handpicked successor said publicly she wouldn’t do anything to change it.
Impoverishment under Obama…how did that work out?
Not well.
Remember when he sat by and did nothing while Occupy was brutalized by the NYPD, and rewarded the banks when they crashed the economy? How many people did his DOJ send to prison for deliberately crashing the economy?
Yes. It was shortsighted and naive of them, but while there are some people who voted for mass deportations because they hate immigrants, far more people voted for mass deportations because he told them that they are the reason for the affordability crisis.
True, and they were lied to.
Not unlike when Democrats promised change in 2020 and then ignored the rising affordability crisis.
The point is the switch to Donald was economically-motivated in both cases.
They were lied to, yes. And I see the correlation you’re making. I don’t think you’re super off-base, but I also don’t think you’re quite right.
The thing is, Trump in particular and the GOP in general are both lying about the problem. They’re saying that the problem with people’s bank accounts being empty is that the “illegals” are “taking stuff” (jobs, aid, low-cost housing) that “real americans deserve.” They then proceed to follow up on the attack against what they (maliciously) claimed the problem was.
On the other hand, Democrats are by-and-large truthful (or simply silent) about the causes of the affordability crisis. They then are stymied by a terrorist majority-GOP congress (or minority GOP wielding the filibuster) into inaction, or make token bipartisan progress without addressing the root of the issue. Then, as re-election rolls around, they spin the tiny gains they’ve made as bigger than they actually are.
We saw this in the Harris campaign. Her plans were almost entirely about encouraging and supporting small businesses–which is, indeed, a valid way to push down prices, and likely to pass muster with Republicans! But it’s not nearly enough, and voters recognized that (and, in fairness, they were also lied to about the fact that she had a plan at all by the conservative media).
In short, I think that while the GOP lies, the Democrats are just lazy. They think it’s still 1998, and they can just figure it all out over drinks if given the chance.
I’m not sure if that really makes it better. But I do think it’s different.
…Democrats are by-and-large truthful (or simply silent) about the causes of the affordability crisis.
Wut? the same Democrats that came out and said “The economy is good akshually, you just don’t understand”.
Yes, it was dumb to think that the Republicans were going to fix the economy, but lets stop pretending that the Democrats ever had any intention of fixing it.
In short, I think that while the GOP lies, the Democrats are just lazy.
The Democrats act lazy, but in reality, they want the same thing that the GOP wants: Their donors to be happy. They only pretend to fight, until they can get the votes to keep their seats.
it was very much UNLIKE that actually, he lies like a shark swims.
Both parties do.
That’s how we got to this point.
Buddy, we got to this point thanks to fence sitters making excuses for the people pulling their fence to the right. Don’t be that guy. Democrats might be useless, but Republicans are fuckiing evil, and there’s no both sides to the shit they’ve done since the fence sitters handed them power.
Democrats also ignored the immigration problem for far too long. Not even a policy on max numbers per year.
To say they ignored it is untrue.
They put kids in cages and deported millions too. They just didn’t unleash the Gestapo and kidnap and torture legal immigrants as Donald is doing.
Yep. Anyone not believing you needs to watch Mamdami interview NYC Trump voters.
I’m starting to see shades of a relative I have in trump. Mind you, this person is very nice and I’m not trying to disparage them at all. They’re ADHD and probably in the early stages of dementia. They eat like shit. Using hocus-pocus dietary supplements because they know they eat like shit and think these are a fix. Constantly shifting what the latest great thing is - doesn’t matter what it is, food, clothing, a bit of tech, supplements, a media source… and thanks to their declining mental state it’s like the worst aspects are amplified. Wide emotional swings. Focusing on anything difficult like logical steps to return a purchased item via mail are super difficult.
While my relative’s swings are anti-trump if the subject comes up and the anger is focused on trump’s and the reich wing’s stupidity, it sure mirrors trump’s wild swings on everything, his raging about whatever, and his focus on what the latest interest is. Fixing anything like the Economy is too hard and too many steps, so he relies on whatever clueless mumbo-jumbo others tell him. Even the hocus-pocus health fix by using a snake oil salesman like Kennedy.
Borderline personality disorder is what
Literally this. My dad had all the symptoms of BPD and was almost a clone of Trump, but an alcoholic version.
He was also a flagship example of “Last Person He Talked To” syndrome like Trump, where if he met someone who charmed him, he would fawn all over that person and even start talking like them for days or weeks after. It just betrays a deep sense of insecurity about one’s own identity.
The flip side of this is if Trump meets with someone else with an opposing viewpoint or condemnation for Mamdani even a day later, it will flip back the opposite direction, because in the mind of someone like this, social approval is more valuable than idolizing someone and feelings change like the weather and dictate the entire narrative.
Wait, does borderline personality mean you’re always on the borderline of someone else’s personality? I thought it was similar to Bipolar.
There’s a lot of copying and adapting traits from whoever comes off as confident, successful, etc because they have no confidence in their own identity
Trump always comes out of meetings agreeing with the last person he talked to. He has no mind if his own any more, if he ever had one to begin with.
Why don’t all of the left leaning politicians then make it a point to just continually schedule 1 on 1 meetings with him?
A lot of people really, really don’t know how to read others and how to manage a character like Trump.
For Mamdani it was a fucking dog-walk, because he knows people, he’s emotionally intelligent, he’s very, very crafty too. Don’t let the sometimes goofy charm fool you, he’s extremely focused and sharp and careful about everything he says. He just has it down so it looks natural.
Not saying he’s not a genuine person, but he also knows the game like he was born to it.
For the rest of the Dems? I mean… there are a few people who have a lot of spirit and fire, but that’s not how to make Trump bend the knee, you have to really understand his buttons and you can’t meet his obstinance and stupidity with force.
I think a few who were good at working trump in his first administration did do this too - but as you say, there’s fewer than you’d think; and I think when his handlers figured out this was happening, they started scheduling Republicans to meet him right after to “correct” his mindset.
The stench probably.
Trump was a Democrat back when he was handing out BJ’s. Probably got his anger from a scorned lover situation.
Anyway, I think Republicans all have a carry card that says “Trump meeting rules: 1: kiss his ass. 2: tell him to never meet alone with cheating Democrats”
Over the years he forgot that cheating was about his male lover and thinks it’s about elections.
Bubba told him he was the only one, but then bubba cheated on him with Lewinsky… that made trumpy so angry that he decided to figure out how to run for office.
Their constituents would slaughter them for appearing to cooperate with Trump.
Trump is doing a bit, he knows the fix is in to destroy Mamdani, but doesn’t want to take the heat for it. He’s making it look like he really likes Zohran, but he knows Zohran’s life is about to become a living hell. Trump and his millionaire and billionaire allies in New York are planning to discredit socialism as an ideology, by making it look publicly like he had no hand in meddling with Mamdani’s administration.
I don’t doubt that there’s going to be a big effort to discredit Mamdani, but why would Trump care if he looks clean? He’s never cared before about that kind of thing.
Because it has to look like socialism failed completely on its own, because of policy, or else it will create some sort of backlash. If socialism is seen to fail without public meddling from his admin then they can say, “well that’s socialism, it always fails,” the implication being on its own.
It also makes Mamdani look bad to certain crank liberals and certain crank radical leftists if Trump is seen approving of Mamdani. As a member of DSA I can’t overstate the effect of his win, we went from 80k to 85k members in one day.
Making socialism look bad to all those people in the middle to whose opinion of socialism and social democratic policies is starting to trend much more positive, has always been a top priority for the ruling capitalist class. If you’re seen fighting something that people think is good and practical, you look like a villain, which angers people into wanting to act.
Unfortunately a lot of those people in the middle are under the influence of illusions about capitalism. Maintaining those illusions is a multi-trillion dollar industry. Even when middle class people have positive opinions, they aren’t doing practical organizing. Basically they are more split on these issues than a lot of polling suggests. Keeping those people in a state where they will believe that the status quo is still better for them than the struggle for democratic socialism and liberation, is the ur-policy of the ruling class, and has been since FDR.
He’s not playing 5D chess.
Maybe not. He doesnt have to, he has people doing it for him.
Also, theres no guarantee he will succeed. Lots of these social strategies deployed by his admin, like the reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, have backfired bigly.
But if we think about Trump as an individual divorced from like all of the backing of all the billionaires who openly or secretly back his agenda, then we are participating in exactly the kind of myopia that Trump elicits as the avatar and firebrand of much bigger interests. Just the example of project 2025, an agenda his admin has stuck pretty closely too, was developed by the Heritage foundation, a think tank that receives funding from wealthy super donors, mega corporations, christian conservative foundations, and on and on.
He doesnt have to play 5d chess, he just has to react to circumstances and varied interests, listen to people who advise him, and stay true to the actual basis of his power. Its not that hard to believe that a confirmed liar and manipulator to be a lying manipulator. If it has a certain theatrical flair, it just does that much more to confuse and mislead people.
Regular people play 5d chess all the time. It leads to mistakes, but Trump is accustomed to being immune to consequences. Don’t underestimate an enemy that presents a historic, urgent and deadly threat to like billions of people all over the world. You can believe he is personally dumb. That doesnt contradict the fact that this is a stunt, and that the stunt has an objective that it is working toward.
You are giving this slavering demented moron far too much credit.
Nothing has to look like anything. They just make up facts about whatever reality they want
I’m not giving him credit. I’m accounting for the fact that people backing his admin this time are educated, serious, strategic, and tactical. This tactic probably got cooked up long before he even won. Trump initiated this meeting, and he behaved a certain way. If anything he over sold his position.
Even if Trump is a colossal moron, which I won’t deny out of hand, he is a populist, so it makes sense for him to try and blur the line between himself, a right-populist, and Mamdani, a left-populist. Trump will destroy Zohran’s admin and keep dressing like him for the bit.
You think hes writing out all of their detailed plans, legislation or agendas?
My money’s on this. But: tldr; if city workers know he’s trying to do good, and find out old money is fucking with him, his support will strengthen in a way we’ve not seen in a long time.
So, having worked for the city years ago, I also know it’s a system full of people he was directly talking to with affordability. They’re on-board with him, if he starts delivering the goods in a public way. Ways to get good food for cheap for everyone, raising wages, getting a cap on crime and helping the homeless. That’s all people want.
With that in mind, if it is revealed that even a couple of billionaires is working to trash those efforts in a coordinated manner, suddenly the people of NYC have both a guy trying to do right by them, and a powerful enemy to rally against. There aren’t enough cops to deal with people dropping bricks off rooftops, every street becomes a potential ‘interaction’… think a version of “the warriors”, but it’s regular folks vs the recognized billionaires. Heh, one can dream, anyway.
What’ll happen, ultimately? I dunno. But the ingredients for something special are in place.
You’ve eloquently captured why I, a random chick who is on the other side of the world, is super excited by Mamdani’s win. It might not end up amounting to much, but there’s real cause for hope.
In my country (the UK), Labour (the largest party by far) keep pandering to the right in a manner that is just yielding more of the discursive battleground to the right wing bigotry of the Reform party, and it drives me mad to see them shoot themselves in the foot like this. It reminds me of how in the 2010 election, Labour presented themselves as pro-austerity, but not as severely as the Tories. By accepting the Tories’ premise that austerity was good and necessary for reducing the deficit (and that eliminating the deficit was necessary for the UK’s economic wellness), Labour simultaneously disappointed people who wanted an alternative to austerity, and weren’t appealing to people who were pro austerity (why vote for Tory-lite, when you can just vote Tory instead?). Now they’re doing the same with immigration rhetoric instead of investing in our systems. Most people aren’t actually pissed off at immigrants, but at the fact that it’s increasingly difficult for normal people to afford basic living costs. The best antidote to fascism are policies that speak to the way that people are suffering.
Mamdani’s campaign (and his subsequent victory) showed that he understands this, and it could set a precedent for places far beyond the US. I’m tentatively hopeful.
Bingo
You would think Trump would want to take credit for that.
He will, with the people in the know, the only people he might actually care about: rich assholes of the capitalist ruling class. The rest of us are all just rubes and fools to be manipulated and dispensed with.
It is a strategic calculation, and whether it will work or not has yet to be seen. But Trump has enough power that negative consequences don’t quite stick to him, especially when negative perception is drawn to him. The fact that this is so out of character for him should be a sign of how serious this is.
Our job as socialists and progressives is to wipe that fucking smile off his stupid orange face
Mamdani doesn’t have one policy that is socialist. His policies are center right at best if you evaluate them on a non americanoid political scale.
Socialism isn’t a set of static policies, it is the real struggle for the liberation of all people from the oppression of a few. That struggle has taken many different forms and character throughout history. It isn’t a set of policy goals we suddenly reach and then we are socialist. The struggle never ends, even when we reach that point, we will still struggle to make sure the liberation we win doesn’t harden into some soulless bureaucracy that develops and sustains power for itself.
It is possible to look at Mamdani’s history as an organizer, his historic win for mayor and say that he is someone who is struggling for socialism. We can be critically supportive of him, and unfortunately there already is much to be critical about. But there is also much to support.
But categorical objectivism, which you are espousing, is not socialist either. Identity is not static, socialism defies categorization since it represents a historically contingent dynamic relation between the masses of people, the means of production, political power, cultural development, and much more. Anything that delivers verifiable, material, sustained improvement in the lives of the growing mass of people is socialist.
Zohran isnt even mayor yet and he has grown our movement by a considerable amount.
If Mamdani is able to deliver on any of his promises that will be a kind of socialism. But in order to be successful he will need support from not just New Yorkers but from all of us in the struggle, all over the country and the world.
Distilling socialism into a set of policies rather than an active practical movement of the working class organizing for our best interests commits the same dehumanizing contextualizing as any soulless neoliberal. Stop thinking statically and start thinking dynamically so you can join our movement rather than sitting on the sidelines poo-pooing actual progress.
Thanks ai for the generic answer
I’d ask you what in this gives you the impression that it’s an AI answer, but I don’t see there as being any point because the comment you’re replying to is patently obviously writing that themselves — you’re just not willing to meaningfully engage in a conversation.
I would really encourage you to go back and reread the comment you replied to, because I think that person wrote something that was quite thoughtful and insightful. If you disagree with their points, then that’s your prerogative, but maybe that could lead to some productive discussion.
I get why your instinct was to disregard the comment — there’s so much AI slop around nowadays clamouring for our attention that it’s easy to become guarded against the potential of wasting our time reading something that no-one even bothered to write. It’s an inevitable (and unfortunately often necessary) defense mechanism in our current information ecosystem. In this case though, I am confident that this is a false positive, and that the comment you’re replying to isn’t AI. I’m writing this because I would find it a shame if someone spent the time to write a thoughtful reply to you and you didn’t spend the time to actually try to hear what they’re saying.
It will always be a mystery to me why US citizens always place so much importance on appearances instead of focusing on the important things.
Here’s an example from the last election campaign: the Democrats were somehow more successful in portraying Trump as “old and strange” than in portraying him as how he really is: corrupt and criminal.
Well, now organized crime rules the US – but somehow it’s still all about how Trump dresses, how he is old and weird. Yes, that’s true, I mean, the guy has been orange since the 90s, but it’s by no means the biggest problem with this administration — not even close.
I have a family member that liked what Bernie had to say back in 2015 but said they couldn’t get past his teeth. I had no response.
That’s tough. I don’t know what I would have said either. Probably that the family member should vote for Sanders so that dental treatment remains affordable for as many people as possible. But I probably wouldn’t have thought of that in that situation.
Because no one cares that he’s a criminal, for some reason.
Also, this is a single post, it’s ridiculous to pretend like this is some mainstream criticism.
Yes, obviously, but why?
Edit: Can’t you see how little this is in your interest? How you are being distracted from the important things? And so easily: Things really went downhill for US citizens under Reagan—and he was an actor, and not even a good one at that. Instead of this straw man, citizens could have voted for Carter. Then the reality in the US today would most likely be quite different.
So fucking weird to see him not oranged up
The orange make up is bad. His suits are bad. The only things I can think of that he would look good in are a noose, or a guillotine. That’s it.
He’d look amazing in a wood chipper.
Mamdani cast Charm Person, and even though Trump was rolling with advantage, his WIS score was poor even in his best years. Hasn’t worn off yet.
It helps that Mamdani is hella charismatic too. I remember being astounded by this when I first saw him talking about his policies in a campaign video (I had read a lot about him, and already was rooting for him, but not seen him speak up before then).
Mamdani cast Voice of the emperor, he can only use it once a day
Fuck he almost looks human
The sad part is, I actually pity him. I have seen that look, I have seen it on my father’s face. And I pitied him too. Doesn’t excuse their actions. Mine neither, let that be for the record. But this got fucking dark. I’ll go home now.
He’s basically cosplaying as Senator Palpatine. We all know what comes next.
The attempt on his life did leave him scarred and deformed.
Nah, he looked like that before too.
What, no, look at his ear, it’s totally scarred, it’s mangled, barely even anything left of it. /s
So that’s what he’s hiding under all that makeup.
His face gets burned up, which turns out to be an improvement in his case?
The face paint looks a bit lighter also
He’s had an epiphany. He’s going to come out as bi any day now and defect to the Greens and by executive order make the stripes in the US flag rainbow coloured and he’s going to rule as a just, benevolent dictator.
Oh a benevolent dictator? Well, that’s just great! Benevolent dictators get the guillotines with a cushion on them.
Aw :(
They also get thoughts and prayers. It’s a real upgrade!
Yay :D
A benevolent dictator is just what the world needs but power corrupts so it would only last for so long.
I don’t think a benevolent dictator would do the world good.
No one should have that much power. If nothing else, because it tends to drive said person mad. Just look at how paranoid Stalin was.
Also, the entire idea of a dictator involves rule by force. That’s exactly the kind of thing we would prefer to get away from. All laws involve force, yes, but the more we can move away from violence and towards peaceful cooperation the better off humanity will be.
Even if a benevolent dictator was able to somehow be both effective and ethical (doubtful if that’s even possible for the reasons you describe, but let’s pretend it is possible for the moment), things inevitably fall to shit after that dictator dies.
We need only look to the Roman Empire to see how that plays out. Augustus Caesar was far from what I’d call ethical, but he was pretty effective. However, the empire suffered a heckton of instability whenever the emperor was an asshole and/or a nutter. This is most apparent in how Emperor Nero being overthrown in 68AD led to the Year of the Four Emperors
TL;DR: even if a benevolent dictator were possible, it’s still not a sustainable model for running society due to it being a tremendously brittle system that has a single point of failure (the dictator).
Even some of the most celebrated “enlightened” monarchs and dictators are kinda corrupt. Napoleon was a liberal, republican but set up his own dynasty. He was good to the French and those oppressed by the old blood monarchs, and allowed religious tolerance, but he was pretty harsh towards the Germans and made examples on those who questioned the embargo on the British, which hurts continental Europe more than the British.
There’s no such thing as a benevolent dictator.
There hasnt been, that doesnt make it impossible. Improbable for sure, but if someone did take over(aliens) who dont let the power go to their head, then there could definitely be a benevolent dictator.
But short of aliens, no one could take over, as you say, without violent repression of their opponents so that by definition, they’re no longer benevolent.
You speak of absolutely when even without aliens there is a chance. People should have more hope in humanity, which i have little of(but not none!).
Also i never said no violence, its clear there will probably be plenty. But there can be justified violence to aim for the greater good.
No shit?
You can’t consolidate enough power into your own hands to enact meaningful change in a country (positive or negative) without violent oppression, therefore making the idea of a benevolent dictator an oxymoron.
You don’t have to convince me. I think you replied to the wrong comment
The hair us pretty white too
