Another descriptive term is wagging the dog (referring to the tail having disproportionate leverage over the beast) which is a (not uncommon) presidential tactic of taking a serious military action in order to distract from other scandals.
News media, including classic liberal media will allow other stories to die to report on attacks or invasions (or when you can get it, attacks on the US by foreign units).
George W.Bush used this method, but also blitzing the public with countless scandals. (George H. W. Bush did too) So Trump’s kitchen cabinet was likely informed by history when considering becoming Bibi’s personal B.
Honestly, I feel like Trump and the GOP’s strategy for a while now has been to do so much illegal, evil and heinous shit that the media and public just move onto the next thing.
Any other administration would have been brought to its knees by Signalgate. A few months later and the fucking Secretary of Defense is getting congratulated for not leaking military plans ahead of time.
It’s literally called “flooding the zone” and they’ve talked openly about the fact they’re doing it
Just like when tRump became the oldest candidate and suddenly no one was talking about age anymore.
For full explanation please read: Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine.
Texas quietly defunded the border wall. 8% has been built and it’s not even connected sections.
But Mexico was going to pay for the wall…
8% is honestly impressive. The Mexico / Texas border is 2000 km. If they actually built 160 km of wall that’s a real achievement.
But, it shows how unrealistic the project is. 160,000 metres of wall is a massive undertaking. There aren’t many other human projects that involve building something that big. And it was only a tiny fraction of the distance they needed to cover. They would have left the hard parts for the end. The hard parts are both hard to construct and hard to legally acquire.
Some sections of the wall would have been hard to construct because of the type of soil/rock, and because of how remote they are from everything. The costs there would probably have easily been 10x the costs to construct in easier places. Good thing Mexico was going to pay for the project… right?
Then, there’s the issue of expropriating private land to build the wall. A lot of the land along the border is privately owned, and even when the owners are die-hard Texan republicans, they’re not want to give the government their land so the government can build a huge wall. The stuff that was easy legally would have been the first to get done. The stuff where they needed to claim eminent domain and defend lawsuits in court is another matter. The really tricky stuff would have have been put off as long as possible.
So, it’s 8%, but it’s not the hard 8%, it’s the easiest 8% of what was frankly an impossible project.
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/06/17/texas-border-wall-funding-ends-abbott-trump/
It’s a decent article explaining where money didn’t go, how much of the wall isn’t really connected l.
Oh yes we are. The news has a short memory but we don’t. F that guy.
The US hasn’t been a country anyone should treat seriously since 2024-11-05, and won’t be again until they can prove their ability to hold another legitimate election.
It’s a coin flip as to whether I’ll see that within my lifetime right now.
Peak lib delusions. That’s why y’all lost. Quiet down and go back to brunch.
so which elements in the list are you ok with ignoring? political assassination, corrupt elections, insane spending that isnt supported by budget/taxes?
none of these impact your life?
ALL MAGAs are traitors and Nazi scum. No exceptions.
The 2024 election was rigged.
Have you ever worked on a campaign before? Im not talking about phone banking for a few hours, I am actually asking if you have worked at a campaign for a stretch if time?
People’s minds are growing numb to the madness. This is very similar to what happened in Soviet Russia in the five years leading up to the collapse of the government.
It does seem rather similar to the collapse of Soviet Russia. Increasingly little confidence in the government by citizens all across the country. States that increasingly aren’t seeing any benefit in existing as part of the union. Its quite uncanny actually.
There are differences of course bcz there isn’t as big of different ethnic groups concentrated throughout the country ready to start their own countries bcz they never wanted to be part of the country in the first place.
I really dont want to find out whats on the other side of that scenario for us, but it doesn’t seem completely unlikely.
Some voted to destroy the United States. Others were failed by the educational system and the media. Irrespective of cause, there’s no going back. We’re now in a place where “fuck you I’ve got mine” and “make me” is the basis of our formal society that only recognizes power in all its forms. I do not know what the future holds. I can only say that if this year were a taro card, it’s Death, as what was changes into something new an unrecognizable.
I figure we’ll see smaller inter-state alliances forming into regional powers. Most likely all of the states that have larger populations will gain a lot of power relative to those with smaller populations. In all likelihood the stratification of wealth will accelerate even further into an absolutely obscene spectacle. The oligarchs will win, in the short term at least, if the federal government falls.
California, Oregon, and Washington kinda do already. All three states often tie legislation to the other two states also passing it. Like locking daylight savings in place if Washington hadn’t dropped the ball.
dropped the ball
Saved the ball you mean. Daylight-saving time is a curse which should be abolished not set in stone.
At this point I’m down for either daylight time or standard time as long as we stop changing back and forth!
I’ll grudgingly accept that as less awful than our current arrangement.
Those are called interstate compacts, and they tend to be specific to individual laws. I was thinking more along the lines of military alliances, so kind of a more advanced form of this type of political alliance-making
There was the Western States pact from the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_States_Pact
Balkanization comes to mind
There are differences of course bcz there isn’t as big of different ethnic groups concentrated throughout the country ready to start their own countries bcz they never wanted to be part of the country in the first place.
You sure? Black separatism was big in the 60s and 70s, and once the dissolution of the Union filters into the wider public consciousness, you’ll probably see Latinos want to do their own thing.
Yes, yes I am sure. We are not the Soviet Union. Our countries collapse may rhyme with history, but it is not exactly the same. We are a country founded by immigrants. Russia was not founded by immigrants in the same way. It has existed in some form for at least a thousand years longer than the U.S., maybe more
The documentary, HyperNormalisation, was made nearly a decade ago, in 2016.
Just a fun tid bit I thought I’d share.
Edit: spelling. Thanks, u/A_norny_mousse
Yep. It’s been a while. Already contained Trump.
If you (anybody) haven’t watched it yet, please do.
BTW - and I don’t say this to nitpick, just to make it easier to find - the documentary is named Hypernormalisation.
I experience the opposite, at least here on Lemmy. It all leads me to conserve my attention for the things that are actually happening.
I mean sure, it’s still draining and hard to keep up with, but I think we all learned to filter out some of the nonsense, and see behind the clown show. Except for those who thrive on the outrage, and not actual concern.
I know this narrative is wide spread, and I have no chance to fight it, but it’s not fucking not.
USSR has collapsed because of a lot of factors, but the most important of them was that the political elite was willing to change (not to be mistaken with to go away). USSR had an infinite space for doubling down deeper and deeper
Here’s hoping it’s leading up to a collapse this time too.
I have a prediction:
Iran will send agents to America, who will act as ICE members. Through this guise, they will antagonize the Trump Regime - blackbagging supporters, assassinating politicians, and generally performing domestic terrorism on the ‘behalf’ of the Regime in a very showy and flashy way. They don’t need ID, license plates, nor uniforms, can mask, and bear weapons. Any time they need plausible deniability or to cause some form of riot, they can also attack the general populous, and earn a $1,500 paycheck for each colored head they bring to the Regime.
The Trump Regime has destroyed America’s intelligence apparatus, too. Iran has a blank check for destabilizing America, and Trump signed the fucker.
Probably many sleeper agents in the US already
President Krasnov is one.
American concept of law enforcement at the hands of the Executive resulted in this lawlessness
🤔 is this accurate? I don’t even follow political stuff and I’ve heard about everything in that list. Seems like people have been talking about these things
“People” meaning major news stations which are controlled by billionaires and are the only source of news for the boomer generation. This has lead to the brainwashing that allowed our current president to get into office.
It’s hardly better for the Facebook generation, or the Twitter generation, or the TikTok generation, or the Roblox generation. Everybody is living in their information silos in the US.
We are used having a crisis per quarter not crazy Orange Chicken spamming the controls and creating 4 crises per day
I already see way to much news from the USA while the war in Ukrain is a day driving away. We see almost nothing from that.
USA would much rather support genocide in palestine than resist genocide in ukraine.
Mario’s Brother also. Although he might resurface in the news in a month or so.
“Flood the zone with shit” is working as intended. It‘s chilling to see how quickly push comes to shove and we‘re in a world war once again.
The news has been captured by monied interests for decades now. Stop expecting it to televise the revolution.
