• @SnarkoPolo@lemm.ee
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    867 days ago

    Of course, this is going to affect the working class first and worst. But stay with me here.

    My wife and I are what you’d call upper middle class. Thanks to our college education, union jobs in public agencies, and mostly being smart with money, our assets are not meager.

    Are you like me? Don’t think you’re exempt. They’re coming for our assets too. They want all of us living paycheck to paycheck, begging our employers to not fire us.

    What I’m saying is, the class struggle is everyone’s struggle. If you’re not a billionaire, you’re at risk. Act like it.

    • @Dozzi92@lemmy.world
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      207 days ago

      The #1 issue for all of us is Us versus Them. That’s it. There’s 1000 of them and 350 million of us.

      • @TwinTitans@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        It is, but the narrative they want it “us vs immigrants”. Think of how long they’ve been rage baiting people with this, it’s nuts.

        Keep focus, it’s the 1%.

      • fantoozie
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        46 days ago

        But what will you do when the rest of the world’s working poor turns around and suddenly you’re “them”

        • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          Right, we need to be careful about defining class struggle globally when we’re in the 99% locally but most of us may be in the 1% globally

          This is one of the many reason we need to help our fellow humans, it’s our duty to increase support through agencies like USAid, global public health initiatives, global emergency response, global food aid, global development, education, outreach. We’ve never done enough to support our fellow humans, and now that’s the first place they’re cutting. Do we credit them with the intelligence to call it an intentional part of the strategy to divide us from our fellow exploited class?

    • @CatDogL0ver@lemmy.world
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      107 days ago

      Exactly. I don’t think I am poor but in there eyes, I am dirt poor. Anyone can’t afford a seat at their table are at peril.

    • @malin@thelemmy.club
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      6 days ago

      I’m glad they’re coming for your assets.

      You have more than enough and should not receive even more while others have less, just like the billionaires you’re criticizing.

      Edit: All the people getting mad at this reality are the reason why we have to choose between clintons and trumps. As soon as someone threatens the wealth of neo-liberals, they immediately agree with conservatives.

      Greed and consumerism are the worst issues we face as a species. It makes sense most of you will react the way that you do when being forced to acknowledge your contribution to the problem.

      Now, who’s excited for the switch 2 and gta 6?

      • @SnarkoPolo@lemm.ee
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        46 days ago

        And I suppose you live in a yurt off-grid, and don’t own a mobile device?

        Thought so, hypocrite. Fuck Trump.

        • @malin@thelemmy.club
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          6 days ago

          No, just live at or below a standard that is attainable for us all.

          Thought so, hypocrite.

          Sad watching you be so sure of yourself while also being clueless.

      • @conicalscientist@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        Finally someone else who gets it. I kinda hoped lemmy would have a crowd that would at least be able to talk about this calmly but it looks like it’s no less rabid about this topic than reddit.

        They don’t have to agree with conservatives. They just have to go so far as establishment Democrat. The “moderate” who keeps kicking the can down the road. ‘Wait till midterms’. Wait till the next red line so we can move the red line to some time in the future.

        The dream is not to become a billionaire. The dream is to become upper middle class. So you can sit in the middle and expound on virtues of those beneath you while reaping the benefits of those above.

    • @ArtemisimetrA@lemm.ee
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      16 days ago

      Because these two countries are otherwise identical in every way. Good thing you have an easy solution that still works in spite of the existence of assault rifles and wire taps

      • @DicJacobus@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        Not exactly.

        The American political system turned into a gaggle of Mafias some time ago, France isn’t quite there yet.

        • @ArtemisimetrA@lemm.ee
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          14 days ago

          I mean it’s pretty much been that the whole time… Idk I guess I’m just tired of people saying basically “Well here’s an obvious solution that you clearly missed because you’re automatically lazy and/or stupid if you’re from the US, and especially if you don’t have the financial solubility or high-demand skills to easily expatriate or you’re disabled, just get up off your lazy corn-fattened ass and go yell at the people who give the US military their orders. Oh, you say you tried and nothing happened? You must have been an utter and complete failure. You deserve this then.”

          Not that that’s what is being said precisely, but it hits the same notes. And DicJacobus, this isn’t aimed at you, but at the original comment in this thread. Unless you agreed with them and I misread your tone

  • @octopus_ink@slrpnk.net
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    7 days ago

    And let’s not forget. Tens of millions of magas, having witnessed the past few months, would vote him in again tomorrow if we gave them a do-over.

    As furious as I am at the oligarchs taking over every last thing, evil greedy bastards gonna evil greedy bastard.

    That anger pales in comparison to my rage at the tens of millions of my countrymen who dragged the rest of us into this fucking hellscape with them for no reasons beyond:

    -Ignorance

    -Hate

    The ratio of those varies from maga voter to maga voter, but IME those are pretty much the only two reasons I see for why they have condemened not only themselves but also the entire rest of the nation to life in this emerging dystopia. They’ve already killed people in this country with their vote, and the numbers will only go up.

    Yet somehow we all still have to go to work and get along every day, but I truly don’t care if I never see or speak to a single Trump voter ever again, and that includes so-called friends and family members. They are all dead to me, or as dead as familial and work obligations will allow. Every last one can choke on a bag of dicks and razor blades as far as I care.

    Edit - I beg you, random silent downvoter, to explain to me where I’ve gone wrong in the above.

    • Skeezix
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      147 days ago

      You summarize it perfectly. I am so disheartened by my fellow countrymen. So put off that I left the country and have no intention of ever returning there to live. When I see someone like Klepper interview maga, it is always driven home just how absolutely stupid and ignorant maga are. It’s really no wonder he got elected again. trump is indeed the symptom not the disease. I think the Leopards Ate My Face communities do a grave injustice because I see such communities giving people the false impresssion that maga is “realizing” something. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Many of my progressive friends are stuck in the “surely they’re all waking up”, “surely he wouldn’t try to do that”, “surely he wouldn’t get elected again” cycle.

      I believe there is a third reason in addition to ignorance and hate: tribalism. whether it’s their religious tribe, or racial tribe, or sexuality tribe, conservatives tend to embrace tribalism more than anyone else. To them there are in groups and out groups. In groups that the law protects but does not bind, and out groups that the law binds but does not protect.

      Ignorance, tribalism, hate, xenophobia, intolerance have always been able to take root in the minds of the weak. But when the oligarchs realized that the ignoranti could be a powerful tool, they became a product. Those millions of maga people you mention have been and are groomed continually to be tools for enabling the transfer of wealth. They are groomed with fear, misinformation, manipulation, appeals to tribalism, and appeals to uncertainty. They are groomed so effectively that they groom themselves and their own children.

    • @SnarkoPolo@lemm.ee
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      87 days ago

      It’s called false consciousness. The workers are socialized through media, religion, and other social institutions, to identify with and support the ruling class. You see this in the way they adore Elmo Skum. I’ve known IT workers who bragged about the fancy car they basically bought for their manager.

      Yes, it’s a Marxist perspective. But Marx wasn’t wrong.

    • iridebikes
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      67 days ago

      Can’t trust the random public anymore. It’s a real shame. There has been a massive shift in my perception of these people.

    • @UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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      36 days ago

      There is an option in your settings so you don’t see upvotes or downvotes on individual comments.

      None of these imaginary points matter.

      (Lemmy is rad)

    • ...m...
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      6 days ago

      …the sad part is that perhaps half those MAGAs aren’t necessarily bad people, but they’re so profoundly indoctrinated by its disinformation sphere that they legitimately believe their support serves a greater good…

      …the other half are outright evil, though…

  • acargitz
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    357 days ago

    Hey, yanks, until your centre right party (the Democrats) is willing to go all in and run candidates at all levels of government on the slogan of “The Largest Downward Transfer of Wealth in American History”, your far right party (the Republicans) will keep repeating this. But if it makes you feel better, go back to blaming Muslims in Michigan or whatever.

      • acargitz
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        137 days ago

        So make “tax the rich” a culture war thing. Left populism is a winning strategy too.

        • How? The largest campaign that ever occurred for taxing the rich was occuring by AOC and Bernie around the U.S. The media will air something about Trump taking a green shit after drinking a blue slupee far more. It doesn’t matter until they switch the notion to something that threatens the media and their families lives more than likely. They own the media.

          • acargitz
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            57 days ago

            Don’t ask me, a random guy on the internet. Ask your elected representatives, your intellectuals, your think tanks. Your civil society, man, not some random Canadian online.

            • @Soulg@ani.social
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              16 days ago

              You’re the one telling us the obvious, as if it was easy to do and we just weren’t smart enough to think of it first.

    • @nthavoc@lemmy.today
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      127 days ago

      The democrats are in on it too and it doesn’t matter how many candidates they have politically aligned with the public’s best interest. I keep saying this but the only way to break out of this loop is for both parties to split and take a large chunk of resources with them with they do. They also need to eliminate the “CEO” position for any party and all vote for the primary candidates instead of making arbitrary decisions. I get it, you need a leadership for housekeeping reasons, but the current RNC and DNC CEO’s are not at all about housekeeping for the greater good. All of it is lip service while they take tax-free “political contributions” from all those shady “SuperPACS” . This is all wishful thinking and I’m just hear along for the ride in the billionaire made hand basket to hell.

  • @RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    For republicans, “wealth transfer” is a dirty phrase if used in any shape or form that leans towards fairness, a level playing field, and equality. However, handing money to the already wealthy and fuck everyone else is perfectly acceptable wealth transfer.

    • @IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Well they have all been promised since the Reagan era that it would all trickle back down. I’m sure it will start doing that any day now.

    • @takeda@lemm.ee
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      1138 days ago

      The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History

      House Republicans voted to advance a bill that would offer lavish tax cuts for the rich while slashing benefits for the poor. By Jonathan Chait House Speaker Mike Johnson Kevin Dietsch / Getty May 22, 2025, 9:21 AM ET

      House Republicans worked through the night to advance a massive piece of legislation that might, if enacted, carry out the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history.

      That is not a side effect of the legislation, but its central purpose. The “big, beautiful bill” would pair huge cuts to food assistance and health insurance for low-income Americans with even larger tax cuts for affluent ones.

      Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, warned that the bill’s passage, by a 215–214 margin, would mark the moment the Republicans ensured the loss of their majority in the midterm elections. That may be so. But the Republicans have not pursued this bill for political reasons. They are employing a majority that they suspect is temporary to enact deep changes to the social compact.

      The minority party always complains that the majority is “jamming through” major legislation, however deliberate the process may be. (During the year-long debate over the Affordable Care Act, Republicans farcically bemoaned the “rushed” process that consumed months of public hearings.) In this case, however, the indictment is undeniable. The House cemented the bill’s majority support with a series of last-minute changes whose effects have not been digested. The Congressional Budget Office has not even had time to calculate how many millions of Americans would lose health insurance, nor by how many trillions of dollars the deficit would increase.

      The heedlessness of the process is an indication of its underlying fanaticism. The members of the Republican majority are behaving not like traditional conservatives but like revolutionaries who, having seized power, believe they must smash up the old order as quickly as possible before the country recognizes what is happening.

      House Republicans are fully aware of the political and economic risks of this endeavor. Cutting taxes for the affluent is unpopular, and cutting Medicaid is even more so. That is why, instead of proudly proclaiming what the bill will accomplish, they are pretending it will do neither. House Republicans spent months warning of the political dangers of cutting Medicaid, a program that many of their own constituents rely on. The party’s response is to fall back on wordplay, pretending that their scheme of imposing complex work requirements, which are designed to cull eligible recipients who cannot navigate the paperwork burden, will not throw people off the program—when that is precisely the effect they are counting on to produce the necessary savings.

      The less predictable dangers of their plan are macroeconomic. The bill spikes the deficit, largely because it devotes more money to lining the pockets of lawyers and CEOs than it saves by immiserating fast-food employees and ride-share drivers. Massive deficit spending is not always bad, and in some circumstances (emergencies, or recessions) it can be smart and responsible. In the middle of an economic expansion, with a large structural deficit already built into the budget, it is deeply irresponsible.

      In recent years, deficit spending has been a political free ride. With interest rates high and rising, the situation has changed. Higher deficits oblige Washington to borrow more money, which can force it to pay investors higher interest rates to take on its debt, which in turn increases the deficit even more, as interest payments (now approaching $1 trillion a year) swell. The market could absorb a new equilibrium with a higher deficit, but that resolution is hardly assured. The compounding effect of higher debt leading to higher interest rates leading to higher debt can spin out of control.

      House Republicans have made clear they are aware of both the political and the economic dangers of their plan, because in the recent past, they have repeatedly warned about both. Their willingness to take them on is a measure of their profound commitment.

      And while the content of their beliefs can be questioned, the seriousness of their purpose cannot. Congressional Republicans are willing to endanger their hold on power to enact policy changes they believe in. And what they believe—what has been the party’s core moral foundation for decades—is that the government takes too much from the rich, and gives too much to the poor.