I don't disagree that they're locusts, but 'American' has been leaning heavily in the same direction as locusts for a long while. That's why they currently hold US Passports, the most fertile breeding ground.

From Network (1976):

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West.

There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE!

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

Absolutely not. The only thing saving us from these people and their senility is the knowledge that they will eventually die.

(Obama is so far the only US president born after 1946)

That’s why we need to tax billionaires into oblivion. The solution isn’t to make them immortal in the hopes that this somehow makes them benevolent, it’s to ensure nobody has that kind of power in the first place.

The winners of WWII basked in their own glory for far too long, constantly looking back at a grand victory instead of looking forward to ensure a grand future.

The march of technology papered over a lot of cracks, but the cracks keep on growing.

Yep, they were the vanguard of "fuck you I need to get mine at all costs."

> But he carried a buffet of them

You could argue that the buffet was so large that combined with confirmation bias people often didn't see or believe the statements at the other side of the buffet. Allowing the convincing of opposite groups to both offer support.

This is very different from "traditional" politics where often one group is supported and the other fought.

> It's not that they "didn't mind", but many probably were happy that he was those things.

I think many of them were determined not to vote for a Clinton, or a woman, or that particular female Clinton, and they casually brushed off the very evident problems with his character to vote for him.

There are also moderate, supposedly principled Republicans who you would think would vote for a hawkish conservative Democrat over a revolting malignant narcissist philandering racist bigot and crook, but no.

So no, I think "didn't mind" is the right phrasing for the people with selective morality who pushed him over the edge to elected. They are negligent, immoral people who don't really have a problem with any bigotry not directed at them. They didn't pay it any attention. Not their problem, don't mind it.

All the evidence is "didn't mind" won it for him again, right? He wasn't going to come for the law-obiding immigrants, just the bad ones, etc. etc.

> And then along came Donald Trump, and, "OMG look how awful he is! Vote Blue No Matter Who!"

And that would have been the correct choice. Because he's not just the worst person to be president, he was very clearly, even in 2015, among a small handful of the worst people with any kind of following to ever run for the job (maybe not as bad as David Duke, at least as bad as Lyndon LaRouche).

It's really simple: if there are two candidates with a chance of running for the job and only one of them is very evidently a malignant narcissist, you pick the other one. Regardless of their policies!

Trump was easily identifiable as erratic, self-centred and profoundly dangerous and that has been borne out.

(You'll get no argument from me that Mitt Romney got a raw deal both from timing and from the old school of political rough-and-tumble, especially seeing as he's often to the left of Gavin Newsom)

Nothing is happening because you aren't doing anything and are even spreading hopelessness! Imagine someone at work or on a team who acted that way. It's psyops for the opposition. It is the behavior of losers (sorry).

The main obstacle for the opposition is itself.

When a debt crisis occurs, there is only one good option and many bad ones. The good option is the debt holders realize they need to compromise and are willing to forgive part of the debt for proper governance. ie. forgive part of the debt as long as the US adheres to a strict budget which involves raising taxes and cutting services. And no more giving out tax breaks and tax holidays as if they were free.

All the other options are infinitely worse. The problem is that such a deal is political suicide. MAGA will run on repealing the deal like they ran on dismantling Obama care. They are the party of financial self immolation.

The window is still pretty large. Raising taxes at low to moderate levels would be sufficient to close the gap and restore confidence in debt without slowing the economy.

The problem is that every time democrats make progress republicans pass massive tax cuts. Four successive republican administrations have passed massive tax cuts. Trump alone is responsible for 30% of all debt.

The problem is that voters punish anyone who raise taxes. The first bush lost reelection because he broke his “read my lips no new taxes promise” when he was actually trying to behave responsibly.

I'm not a psychopath but how are we supposed to fix the deficit without something like DOGE that can cut programs.

Are you saying that the federal government in the US is no longer an institution? This is news to me. Is there some reporting on this which specifies the exact constitutional obligations that the federal government must adhere to that it no longer adhering to? As far as I am aware the US federal government is still operational and is still carrying out all its constitutional duties. I guess I was severely misinformed. Thank you for clarifying and for the sources you will provide which specifies the exact constitutional functions it must provide that it's no longer providing.