> US customs are now _worse_ than they were a month after 9/11

You mean that time when millions of American citizens were placed on the No Fly List with no recourse essentially at random? You can't be serious. After 9/11 was far worse.

I've been in and out of the US several times this year through several ports of entry and it has been hassle-free so far. They don't even ask me questions, they just wave me through.

> This _did not_ happen during his first term.

He and his enablers played that argument during his 2024 campaign as well, but everyone is missing a crucial aspect of it. During his first term, he was surrounded by a large number of career administration staff, who put guardrails around him. This time it's all 'Yes men' and his well-wishers. Notably, no one from the previous admin staff had endorsed him for 2024. That should have given a clue to people. But, nope.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/former-trump-officials...

> US customs are now _worse_ than they were a month after 9/11 and this time it's not just the ones at airports

Apologies, but "citation needed"?

(As a non-US citizen) I flew into JFK earlier this year and did my (first) Global Entry interview. It was the shortest and most polite immigration interview I've ever had anywhere, and I've had a few.

The country may have fundamentally changed, but I suspect that comment was about Trump. Everyone knew they were planning to destroy the place if he got a second term, they wrote a book explaining it.

Yes, I was referring to Trump, not the state of the country. Republicans have full control this time around, but the goals and rhetoric have not changed. Trump was not "radicalized."

Oh come on, he was talking about 'I am your justice...I am your retribution' back in 2023. https://www.c-span.org/clip/campaign-2024/former-pres-trump-...

His entire schtick, since the day he announced his campaign in 2015, has been based around grievance politics.

The differences we’re seeing were all planned years in advance. This time around Trump had the time and experience to build his own team instead of taking the team the Republican establishment handed him. As for policies, it’s all in Agenda 47, his manifesto, including universal and reciprocal tariffs, ending birthright citizenship, immigration crackdowns, he laid out exactly what he was going to do back in 2023.

Has nothing to do with trump being shot as project2025 has been planned for many years.

PA has closed primaries though, so he likely would have fixed it if it was a mistake. In any case, if you're looking for nuance, there's not a lot of it in political violence in the US.

Ruby Ridge, Waco, Timothy McVeigh, Jim Adkisson, Dylan Roof, the Tree of Life shooting, J6, the 2022 Buffalo shooter, Jacksonville 2023, Allen, TX 2023, etc.

Nearly all political violence in the US is committed by people espousing right wing ideology, so if it walks and talks like a duck, is telling you it's a duck...

Trump has spent decades in practical training to be media savvy.

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I don't give a single fuck about the wellbeing of Crookes, which might be immoral, but I can tell you from the perspective of usefulness of the photo op, it doesn't appear your concern reached a position of influence.

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