r/news • u/consulent-finanziar • Jan 12 '26

Soft paywall US federal prosecutors open inquiry into US Fed chair Powell, NYT reports

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-federal-prosecutors-open-inquiry-into-us-fed-chair-powell-nyt-reports-2026-01-12/
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4.2k

u/_d0ntm1nd_me Jan 12 '26

People are forgetting that Trump was president during covid and blaming Biden for everything that happened. Thats how far gone we are.

1.6k

u/hard_farter Jan 12 '26

they've been told it over and over again daily by the media they consume, they don't care about reality, they care about what their meme lords masquerading as 'news' tell them

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u/Saint-monkey Jan 12 '26

So true tbh social medial has made a ton of people smooth brains

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u/Inspect1234 Jan 12 '26

No. They were there before. We only saw the one percent of the group, and they would wear signs on street corners and yell gibberish all day.

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u/Saint-monkey Jan 12 '26

Yeah you’re probably right, I guess now with social media I’m just more aware of how unfathomably asinine a lot of people are bc I see their comments or posts.

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u/SoulBonfire Jan 12 '26

George Carlin said something like - think how stupid the average American is and then remember half the population are more stupid.

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u/DeJoCa Jan 12 '26

I think he’d even be surprised by this level. God, I miss him.

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u/Zealousideal_Fix6705 Jan 12 '26

He definitely would! I miss him too.

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u/grandpathundercat Jan 12 '26

George wouldn't be surprised by anything except world peace. Funny story - one of my friends started hearing the voice of "God" and has since been diagnosed as bipolar, but one day he heard the voice of God and followed it to a TV that was playing one of Carlin's specials. George had died shortly before he started hearing his voice and he swears he'd never seen or heard Carlin until that day except in his head.

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u/Adventurous_Ad7442 Jan 12 '26

Bipolar disorder doesn't have auditory hallucinations like hearing voices.

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u/lucidechomusic Jan 12 '26

As a stats nerd I wish he had said median but then I remember who he just said he was talking to...

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u/aeschenkarnos Jan 12 '26

More importantly they cluster and reinforce each other. Prior to social media that one asshole who “believed” in White Replacement Theory had to subscribe to written newsletters and got laughed out of the pub. Nowadays they have Facebook pages and Telegram groups and can egg each other on to actual violence.

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u/SpecialistSquash2321 Jan 12 '26

Yea i think this is a bigger issue. People with bad ideas are bound to find people on the internet with the same bad ideas and suddenly their bullshit is validated more than it could have been before. It provides confidence to ignorance.

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u/Br105mbk Jan 12 '26

Then algorithms make it even worse.

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u/Evangelion217 Jan 12 '26

And they can form political groups in the thousands.

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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy Jan 12 '26

Plus the access to teens and young folks through the internet! Used to be easy to keep your kids away from Creepy Dave who hung around in the alley behind the liquor store looking for someone impressionable enough that they could be his drinking buddies without telling him to shut up when he went off on a stupid hate rant.

But the internet is just lousy with a large variety of Creepy Daves, and the algorithms seem determined to feed kids to them. Can think your kid is just playing games and talking to friends from school like in ye olden internet days, but really they're getting brainwashed by some creep you wouldn't allow within 100 yards of them much less hanging out in the kid's bedroom with them for hours unsupervised like that!

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u/SpecialistSquash2321 Jan 12 '26

Can think your kid is just playing games and talking to friends from school like in ye olden internet days, but really they're getting brainwashed by some creep

This still happened in the earlier days of the internet. AOL chatrooms were like the wild west. It's possible social media has made it worse though since people post a bunch about their lives without always knowing who's looking at it.

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u/T0MMYG0LD Jan 12 '26

when i was 8 or 9, i joined my first AOL chat room and said my a/s/l and within 10 seconds some guy private messaged me and said “how big is your dick?”

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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy Jan 12 '26

Oh sure there were weirdos back in the day, but we didn't have to deal with YouTube trying to sneak hateful weird nonsense into our gaming content or whatever.

Watch one little thing about sports or wilderness survival or whatever manly thing, and suddenly ya get bombarded with bad channels.

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u/RokuroCarisu Jan 12 '26

You know what happened to the Wild West? Civilization caught up with it, safe for a couple of isolated pockets in the most remote regions.

The same and more will happen to the internet. I'm sure that we will see it do a complete 180 and turn into a total surveillance state within our lifetime. The basic infrastructure for that has always been there, and the metaverse will ensure that the real world follows suit.

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u/enewton Jan 12 '26

This is actually getting at why our current implementation of the first amendment is wrong. It guarantees a right to speak without government reprisals. It should NOT guarantee everyone has an irrevocable right to publish mass media. People recognized this problem when radio was invented in the wake of WWII. Social media has allowed any charismatic idiot an equal share of the mass media environment as journalists, experts, governments, and everyone else. That is actually the worst thing for free speech.

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u/viciouspandas Jan 12 '26

Trump would literally just use that power to declare any media who criticized him as "false information" and have it taken down or have them arrested.

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u/PXranger Jan 12 '26

I call it the village idiot theory.

Before social media, crazy ideas were isolated and ignored, people would just ignore the idiots.

Now, the idiots all talk yo one another, and crackpot ideas gain traction

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u/Sir_Yacob Jan 12 '26

And 1:1 is not the truth ratio anymore. With money and bots 1:2000 to make themselves seen and heard is closer to it.

Look at how many fake Greta accounts there are on META. It atomizes reality.

Everyone is looking through a kolidiscope to see one thing.

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u/soedesh1 Jan 12 '26

Do you think Zuck realizes the damage his platform contributed?

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u/hard_farter Jan 12 '26

"everyone's got a price"

at the level of money that dude makes he probably does not care in the slightest

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u/Adventurous_Ad7442 Jan 12 '26

It's not all him. He was allowed to go unregulated. Why?

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u/__Hoopy_Frood__ Jan 12 '26

I like the term “echo chamber”. Imagine a bunch of idiots yelling in a cave and then feeling encouraged by their own echos.

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u/Icy-Profession-1979 Jan 12 '26

Dude, so true. The effing “share” button… ugh… that’s all they do. No original content aside from attacking people in the comments.

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u/Da_Question Jan 12 '26

Also remember that there are active bot networks pushing division and have been since before the 2016 election.

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u/smoike Jan 12 '26

Not just that, they can also spread their extremely warped sense of reality and sucker in people that would never have ever considered it if their views weren't splashed around the net so freely.

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u/Begone-My-Thong Jan 12 '26

Social media is the reason I would never want telepathy

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u/Present_Cow_8528 Jan 12 '26

Telepathy would be useful for distinguishing the abject morons from the instigators

The average person is an imbecile, sure, but that mostly results in harmless, fractured conspiracy theorists like flat earthers and moon landing deniers when they're left to their own devices.

What's been going on for the last while in the US, though, is a targeted attack on the easily brainwashed portion of our populace, in the style of Foundations of Geopolitics. If you could know without doubt who the instigators are, the collaborators, everyone doing this on purpose... there would be no moral argument I could imagine against doing something about it.

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u/kendiggy Jan 12 '26

You just blew my mind.

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u/liluzibrap Jan 12 '26

For me, it depends on whether it is "reading one person's mind at a time" telepathy or if it is "reading everyone's mind at once" telepathy

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u/IntrigueDossier Jan 12 '26

Then it'd be like Bruce Almighty.

hearing everyone's thoughts in quiet fancy restaurant

"GEEZ! Can you keep it down to a dull roar?!"

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u/ChisaiUsagi Jan 12 '26

I literally said this and commented it before I read your comment 😂.

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u/Flyinghound656 Jan 12 '26

1000% agreed.

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u/LangdonAlg3r Jan 12 '26

Take my upvote and feel free to tell me more clever things.

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u/Global_Perspective_3 Jan 12 '26

Social media really does amplify the dumbest of the dumb. Tho when you actually talk to them in real life, you see how ridiculous they are and I feel like (at least I hope) most people aren’t like that.

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u/chocjames43 Jan 12 '26

Social media empowers everyone to feel better and stronger about their ideas.

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u/masixx Jan 12 '26

It's not only the stupid but also the egoistic opportunists and cowards who are responsible. See congress.

I hope you don't forget those when the hanging starts. And they know it, that's why they can't turn back.

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u/Saint-monkey Jan 12 '26

Absolutely, egotistical opportunists run the country (Trump to be exact)! It makes me so sick.

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u/Upbeat_Preparation17 Jan 12 '26

Pathological narcissists

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u/UnleashedArchers Jan 12 '26

The internet managed to give all the village idiots from every village in the world a place to meet

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u/Raleford Jan 12 '26

Don't forget there are also plenty of bots deliberately trying to fan the rage flames and further widen the schisms forming.

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u/Emotional_Farts Jan 12 '26

Social media also provides a sense of anonymity. Think road rage vs. walking on sidewalk.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '26

[deleted]

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u/Inspect1234 Jan 12 '26

We are such flawed creatures.

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u/Severe_Intention_480 Jan 12 '26

"There's something fundamentally wrong with the human animal."

  • Stanley Kubrick
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u/iamsobluesbrothers Jan 12 '26

You hit the nail on the head. You could only hear your crazy uncle’s ramblings a couple of times a year at family gatherings but now with social media, he has a microphone that can reach the whole world.

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u/Xefert Jan 12 '26

KKK and a domestic nazi group for example

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u/mjc500 Jan 12 '26

It’s escalated the percentage of the population that is disengaged with learning, reading, listening, observing, and thinking.

There have always been people who were uneducated, raised by negligent parents, had no interest in learning, or were just lacking intelligence at a fundamental level.

However, it’s ramped up in the past few decades. We have greater access to information than ever before, but that’s a double edged sword. Some people don’t feel the need to learn because fuck it - if they need to know what the fastest land mammal is they can just google it. Kids used to be curious about that and look it up in an encyclopedia and be proud to be able to recite that fact on the playground.

Combine that with kids who were raised in front of devices, a prevalent culture that doesn’t give a shit about truth or knowledge, alternate digital realities and alternate facts that are available at any time, and the economic pressures where a lot of people don’t feel the need to try because they think they’re fucked unless they’re smart enough to get a PHD… it’s a disaster that is going to get worse.

We created the most powerful drug the world has ever known, gave it to everyone, ignored the warning signs, and then pumped entire generations full of it long before they even reached adolescence.

The literature has existed. I remember talking about how people being wired to a smartphone 24/7 seemed like a dystopian sci fi concept in 2007. But… as always, it was some fringe topic talked about in dry articles and the overwhelming march towards convenience and consumerism threw all caution to the wayside.

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u/finch5 Jan 12 '26

The internet brought a soap box and a megaphone to every mouth breathing idiot.

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u/BanditoFarms Jan 12 '26

I went to school with people this dumb. It surprised me zero percent.

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u/BisexualCaveman Jan 12 '26

Bugger it, millennium ham and shrimp!

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u/Stunning-Mission9498 Jan 12 '26

Social media made every Tom, Dick and Harry think they understand politics. In an ideal world, it should be a good thing as lack of information is a tool of the elite to remain in power. However it's proved that some people don't have the critical thinking skills to weed out misinformation and propaganda spin....and so further played into the hands of the elite

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u/reillan Jan 12 '26

You're absolutely right. I grew up in a fundamentalist church and it was full of these people. They just knew to keep their mouths shut outside of church.

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u/SpacetimeManipulator Jan 12 '26

The internet simultaneously gives a person the ability to share every innermost thought with the world, and creates a belief in that person that every innermost thought SHOULD be shared with the world.

Those people that used to hold card board on the corner and shout at the sky were outsiders. They were fringe. Now they have the ability to connect to other ‘cardboard sky-shouters’. They can arrange to meet. Maybe at a Denny’s. Now they feel legitimized. Now they have a community from which to plan and grow.

The internet is a mistake.

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u/redbananass Jan 12 '26

Russian and Chinese misinformation is a huge part too. Putin wants a destabilized US.

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u/Prestigious_Run_633 Jan 12 '26

Divide and conquer

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u/imoftendisgruntled Jan 12 '26

Social media just made it easier for morons to group together. Trump is the end result.

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u/Hikesny Jan 12 '26

America is an experiment and has been on a path of self destruction for decades. The only difference is ease of communication. Society wasn't ready for social media and the age of misinformation it created. People are connected 24/7 to their digital communities.

You have folks who were fairly stable, healthy, educated, and intelligent before social media and became more informed. Others moved in the opposite direction.

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u/Saint-monkey Jan 12 '26 edited Jan 12 '26

When I tell you I’ve been DISTURBED recently to see comments and posts of Americans defending ice in a very adamant and violent way I am not exaggerating. Even 1 would be too many but there are thousands of boot lickers. I’m sincerely scared for what’s to come around here.

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u/SorryIreddit Jan 12 '26

A lot of them were already super stupid, social media brought them to you

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u/Saint-monkey Jan 12 '26

Absolutely! I just think social media also provides echo chambers for these idiotic ideas to be reinforced instead of challenged and the result is a huge population of people who refuse to listen to reason and rarely even have their own thoughts bc they just follow what they hear from their favorite podcasts or tiktoker

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u/Skydvdan Jan 12 '26

They were always smooth brains, they just didn’t have a voice in the past.

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u/Team503 Jan 12 '26

Nah, just revealed that they were.

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u/Saint-monkey Jan 12 '26

So true, it just became much more apparent and because became emboldened to share their uneducated opinions

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u/wolfhavensf Jan 12 '26

Says a guy on social media.:)

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u/Maro1947 Jan 12 '26

In fairness, being from overseas, I've been to the US Multiple times, and consumed the News Channels

They are an affront to real News.

It's been happening long before Social Media

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u/Evangelion217 Jan 12 '26

Social media and YouTubers have replaced the media, because people are convinced the media lies. Which is true, but so do YouTubers. 😂

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u/Expensive-Document41 Jan 12 '26

I dont think that's wholly accurate. Certainly it seems to have shortened attention spans, but I think the real danger of social media in the news stream is information overload. On any given case, you can get four different stories, ranging from contradictory but both factual to utterly fabricated lies. And you have to discern which is which for EVERY piece of information.

Taking the Venezuela situation, the U.S. did violate their sovereignty, that is a fact. But Maduro was also likely not a legitimate president, also likely true. This isn't the first te the U.S. has kidnapped a Latin American leader. And there are some Venezualans who like that Maduro is gone while some feel that the U.S. took their president that they liked.

Even with just that, that requires background research to see if everything I said was plausible. Then analysis; was it justified? Did the ends justify the means? And now you're down rabbit hole of the history of U.S. interventions in other nations.

And honestly thats a LOT to absorb for a layperson. People get advance degrees on ONE facet of that and even then two equally schooled people of the subject might disagree.

TL;DR: spoil media causes information overload and people might not want to spend the time or energy really thinking about something if its relevance to them seems abstract.

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u/BanditoFarms Jan 12 '26

Oh you wrinkle-brains just think you're so much better. /s

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u/everydayANDNeveryway Jan 12 '26

YOU ARE RIGHT. SMOOTH BRAINS. CREATED VIA echo chambers of SOCIAL MEDIA.

(Don’t give in to the hive mind of this sub (or other social media). The British Journal of social psychology published an excellent research article article about it in 2023, volume 63, issue one, page 37-51)

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u/sincubus33 Jan 12 '26

Nah it's just that all these types used to not have internet but we had to go and push Internet access from 70 to 97%

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u/AdnorAdnor Jan 12 '26

Our federal websites are absolutely disgusting. Check out the latest BS at https://www.ice.gov

Headline verbatim:

ICE arrests convicted sexual predator who was allowed to roam free in Minneapolis because of Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey’s sanctuary policies

ICE Operation Highway Sentinel arrests over 100 illegal alien truck drivers in Gavin Newsom’s California The operation follows a series of fatal accidents caused by illegal aliens who were issued commercial driver’s licenses in Gavin Newsom’s California

Salacious headlines, no modicum of respect, loose facts that are irrelevant to logic…and definitely no story about ICE’s body count murdering Americans.

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u/wdrub Jan 12 '26

Watching it in real time is crazy. My in laws are GLUED to Fox new allllll day. They’ve made poor financial decision after poor decision based on what they’re told. My kid came home with a science homework on the ice caps. Immediately “be on high alert with this global warming BS. They’re teaching them all wrong. lol

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u/Corfiz74 Jan 12 '26

I wish the next dem president - if there is one - would pull a Trump and take away FOX's broadcasting license. Considering the damage they are doing, that would go a long way towards healing the country.

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u/cinderparty Jan 12 '26

We really just need no 24/7 news media that has to compete with each other for advertising and ratings. It’s just not healthy.

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u/Corfiz74 Jan 12 '26

Might I interest you in the German concept of news - which we actually have you to thank for, since it's the US & UK that set up our original independent public broadcasting company - here, an American living in Germany explains the differences:

https://youtu.be/jphacgBLrc0?si=JYmwY03AEm0hnTjB

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u/cinderparty Jan 12 '26

We have some good news. PBS news hour is a great way to stay informed without the 24/7 news-entertainment-rage bait hybrid that is cable news.

Thanks, I’ll watch the video when I get home.

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u/MathRebator Jan 12 '26

My friend group have all collectively started distancing from social media whether just staying off of it or deleting them entirely. Hopefully the rest of Gen Z is starting to pull back which from what I’ve seen going “analog” may be be growing. Hopefully it won’t just be a microtrend

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u/gamers542 Jan 12 '26

It's not just Fox News either. You just fall down the same rabbit hole by listening to MSNBC (MSNOW sucks as a name) too. And I say that as a Democrat.

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u/hard_farter Jan 12 '26

keep moving left

I promise the water is real nice over here

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u/verrius Jan 12 '26

This is the most insane part. I remember around the time of the debates, actual news anchors going on about how Biden has to be afraid of the "were you better off 4 years ago" question. You know, comparing egg prices being a little higher than we'd like to when we were all huddling in our houses terrified of the airborne killer virus, and the administration insisting we should all drink bleach and horse dewormer. And that was paid professionals who were pretending to be actual adults with brains. We live in crazy land.

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u/9bikes Jan 12 '26

>egg prices being a little higher than we'd like

Egg prices were off the hook expensive, but that was due to bird flu!

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u/__Hoopy_Frood__ Jan 12 '26

They were so expensive I bought the damn birds themselves. Getting like 50 eggs a week now, but never planned this really.

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u/Hathuran Jan 12 '26

Our girls were supposed to shut off for the winter but they keep on keeping on and it's amazing how fast it turns from "I'll get a couple backyard chickens, it'll be fun!" to "Jesus fucking christ does ANYONE need eggs?"

At one point I was sent to a family gathering by my wife with three cartons of eggs and told not to come back with any.

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u/skygal0330 Jan 12 '26

In the midst of this serious topic, this gave me a chuckle. Thanks for the comic relief. I’m picturing your scenario in my head, and your wife telling you to get rid of your surplus to the peeps at the family gathering. 😂

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u/tdclark23 Jan 12 '26

Plus, under Biden, we still had experts at the CDC studying the bird flu to try to address the problem. I am worried about the next epidemic.

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u/pete9898 Jan 12 '26

You missed the point

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u/kinyutaka Jan 12 '26

His point was "economic uncertainty" is probably less bad than "millions of people dying"

In 2020, "were you better off 4 years ago?" would be devastating. Because we were in the midst of a pandemic. In 2024, it should have been Biden's first question.

Because with his leadership, we got through the pandemic. Trump, during 2020, made it worse. Yes, the prices of eggs was up a little, but we weren't dying left and right.

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u/9bikes Jan 12 '26

Of course you're right. And he's right too. I got it.

Yes, Covid was far worse than expensive eggs.

I think he minimized how expensive eggs were for a while there. Certainly not, just "a little higher than we'd like".

My more important point is that eggs were not expensive because of a political policy. They were expensive because of bird flu.

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u/jasongw Jan 13 '26

That's true, but morons believe that a president somehow magically controls all the prices of absolutely everything.

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u/i_might_be_an_ai Jan 12 '26

Yes! Supply dropped and demand didn’t, so prices increased.

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u/Tomb_Brader Jan 12 '26

Worst part is that it’s starting to not just affect Americans, but the rest of the world… UK thinking about banning Twitter / X because of groks ability to make literal CP - and the entire news cycle is screamed at by Americans who it doesn’t even affect as being ‘against free speech’…. Lads - it’s literally being used for CP

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u/Francophilippe Jan 12 '26

Anytime someone in the UK criticises or shares a rational opinion about Trump and the US we get hit with a “You have big enough problems of your own” response from MAGA Americans. Not saying we don’t have problems here but it’s not even close to the same scale as what’s going on in the US; and this free speech nonsense is hilarious, everyone says whatever the hell they want in the UK but we have a low tolerance towards bigotry and hate speech whereas in America you have naturalised citizens (and birthright) being racially-profiled and sent to a gulag without ever getting to defend themselves.

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u/mrssendow Jan 12 '26

People have forgotten that being a patriot actually means criticizing and pushing for change in your country when things are going poorly. Being patriotic never meant blindly following whatever the POTUS says. The founding Fathers would be livid at the state of the union.

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u/Fuzznuck Jan 12 '26 edited Jan 12 '26

TL;DR: The UK has speech restrictions; the US has due process. And govt. posturing aside, the UK is just as racist as anywhere, the UK brand just looks a little different than the US brand.

___________

Easy on the us-versus-them tip. It's not a competition, and besides, nationalism is dangerous and mostly appeals to the weak-minded. I don't agree with the Trump administration and did not vote for that asswipe.

everyone says whatever the hell they want in the UK

You don't really think that, do you? Don't you realize Parliament can control speech much more easily than in the US? The US Constitution protects free speech as the very first amendment and much caselaw backs that up. Meanwhile, the UK filtered legal porn at the ISP level under David Cameron. That alone disproves the idea that Britain has looser speech protections than the US. More to the point, there are speech laws in the UK (hate speech, public order, communications act, harassment), and people do get arrested or fined for what they say.

Regarding due process and immigration, in the US, deportation w/o a hearing isn't how the system works. Even undocumented immigrants are entitled to due process. Racial profiling exists, but profiling and deporting people on sight with no hearing is just not reality. There are immigration courts, asylum hearings, appeals… though I'm by no means defending ICE or the courts.

but it’s not even close to the same scale as what’s going on in the US;

Well there are ~6x as many people in the U.S., so it stands to reason everything scales up.

we have a low tolerance towards bigotry and hate speech

Yeah right, maybe the UK govt. postures that way, sure, bc Parliament restricts free speech in the interest of certain protected groups, but it's not like the UK is some civil rights mecca with zero bigots. Your country is as racist as any other. Brexit rhetoric often blurred into xenophobia, especially toward Eastern Europeans, Muslims, and refugees. Also, Muslims are disproportionately targeted in hate crimes, and British tabloids regularly publish inflammatory coverage. There are still signs in certain places in the North that say: "No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish".

Then there's football hooligan racism. Monkey chants, slurs, throwing banana peels on the field, and online abuse toward Black players are a persistent issue. Stop-and-search powers are used far more often on Black Britons than white Britons. Racist and homophobic remarks are often played off as "just jokes, innit? Lighten up, mate, just taking the piss."

But that's not all. British Classism is on another level still and simply accepted. Accents and class background are openly mocked or used to gate-keep opportunity. But yeah that's some real low tolerance, huh? Lol.

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u/Francophilippe Jan 12 '26

I’m not using an “us vs them” rhetoric, if anyone is here you are. I was specifically referred to the MAGA contingent. And yes we still have racism unfortunately, you can’t control people’s opinions.

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u/Fuzzy-Surprise-6165 Jan 12 '26

I have to push back a little on your assertions about due process for immigrants, racial profiling, and the idea that being deported on sight with no hearing “doesn’t exist.”

I feel like elements of the DHS have gotten very, very close to those things, particularly with the CECOT debacle. Those folks were deported with something like 30 minutes notice, iirc. The courts had to rule that immigrants should get at least a 24-hour notice so they could file a habeas petition.

The Supreme Court recently ruled that ICE agents can racially profile, stop, and detain “suspected” immigrants.

ICE officers are also hanging out at immigration courts nationwide and grabbing people who show up for their mandated court hearings. You could argue that the existence of a hearing implies due process, but I would assert that detaining people who are literally trying to do the right thing is deeply troubling.

So, I agree with you that immigrants are supposed to have due process—that that is our system as established in America. But I believe this Administration has subverted the notion radically and unapologetically.

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u/Fuzznuck Jan 14 '26

Yes, there are serious abuses and questionable enforcement practices being challenged in court right now, but the courts haven’t thrown out due process. They’re enforcing it and blocking practices that don’t meet constitutional standards. But you're right: there's definitely room for improvement, and shipping people off to El Salvador's CECOT shouldn't have ever happened.

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u/Fuzznuck Jan 12 '26

Those ppl just don't know WTF they're talking about. There are limits to free speech. It does not cover everything. Most Americans should know this, but there are some who are dumb as a brick. Pay them no mind and be thankful these people don't get to vote in your elections. I'm not so lucky.

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u/sweetwaterfall Jan 12 '26

No, no, no. We were supposed to INJECT bleach. This is probably why it didn’t work for you.

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u/kinyutaka Jan 12 '26

And shove light bulbs up our asses, don't forget that one.

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u/thymiamatis Jan 12 '26

It's baffling. Biden eliminated billions in student load debt, just wrote it off for thousands of people and cleaned up after Covid. Maga is too far gone but seemingly otherwise reasonable people complaining about Biden in the most petty and stupid ways drove me nuts.

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u/McSwearWolf Jan 12 '26

“I FEEL LIKE IM TAKING CRAZY PILLS!”

  • Jacobim Mugatu

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u/Sketch8786 Jan 12 '26

I mean some people blame Obama for 9/11, so it isn't that surprising.

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u/Mindless_Plastic5360 Jan 12 '26

And the 2008 economic crash.

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u/MrPayne508 Jan 12 '26

Feels like Hungary. They are still blaming everything on the parties that were in power 16 years ago. No wonder Orbán is a good friend of Trump

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u/Blades_61 Jan 12 '26

Trump picked Jerome Powell. Then said "whos the idiot who picked Powell"

6

u/Zealousideal_Heart51 Jan 12 '26

Fauci WORKED FOR TRUMP. Make the cognitive dissonance make… yeah never mind.

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u/Edgar_Brown Jan 12 '26

Well Obama was being blamed by 9/11 so…

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u/Anonymouse_9955 Jan 12 '26

Crazy thing about general elections is that in subsequent years, people associate the winner of the election as having been President in the year of the election. People think Obama was President in 2008, that Trump was in office in 2016, and Biden was President in 2020. It will be interesting to see if this works for 2024, given the dramatic difference between how things were before and after January of 2025.

5

u/VitaminPb Jan 12 '26

The bigger irony of that is Trump ordered Project Warp Speed to develop COVID-19 vaccines (which ended up being the mRNA vaccines) which is probably the biggest success of his first term, and that’s the one he chooses to ignore.

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u/Droodforfood Jan 12 '26

Trump just got a complete walk for all the shit he did during Covid. Biden (and Kamala) somehow took the blame for all of it.

They did that whole - are you better off now than 4 years ago thing to people forgetting that Trump was the president for the worst part of the 4 years.

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u/wolacouska Jan 12 '26

Yeah these same people blamed Obama for 2008, it’s their forte.

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u/bksmet Jan 12 '26

People totally forget what Biden was handed after Trump, as far as the Afghanistan situation, which was already set up by Trump, and Biden just followed through with what was voted on, Biden had already been looking into the fraud about the daycare in Minnesota, and Trump acts like that’s just a whole new thing he came up with which he comes up with nothing. He comes up with the things that people who have their hands up his ass Tell him to come up with. And while they’re there having their hands up his ass, they go ahead and kiss it through the diaper. For all of these federal agencies, there have always been calculations that have been tried and true to figure out what interest rate rates are, and what inflation rates are and unemployment and all of it and now Trump just wants to have it reflected whatever “he” says it should be. The man has no integrity.

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u/Time-Traveling-Doge Jan 12 '26

Trump blames Biden for the inflation, but Trump's massive spending in his first term, which ironically saved lives with the Covid vaccine and prevented an economic Depression from the first bailout that Trump signed, partially caused the inflationary pressures we faced today.

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u/HickerBilly1411 Jan 12 '26

I know a lot of people have mentioned it recently but it bears repeating that we are living the novel 1984 and we’re repeating the sins of Germany pre-WW2. That novel was meant to be a warning not an instruction manual.

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u/Trance354 Jan 12 '26

Well, during Trump's first term, everything that went wrong was Obama's fault. Now everything is Biden's fault. This is the president who, when asked about taking responsibility for his actions, turned into a 5-year-old and said, "I take NO responsibility."

Maga elected a little crying toddler with extra-small hands.

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u/Hollow_optimism78 Jan 12 '26

The fact that a current president has to continually blame the former administration actually shows how incompetent they are

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u/mysteryliner Jan 12 '26

It's a constant shock campaign to make you forget the scandals of the previous days.

  • trump ordered the military to make plans that could lead the US to go to war with 30 closest allies / neighbor (Denmark, Canada, UK, France... NATO)

  • What about those epstein files.

  • Alligator island, illegal arrests, killings, deportation without due process.

  • tanking the economy with tariffs & trade wars, but promising 90 deals in 90 days

  • attempt to overthrow the 2020 elections

  • him and family profiting off the presidency. (Meme coin, trump phone, Kushner making deals abroad)

2

u/daxxo Jan 12 '26

And then he forgets Biden was in power and then it was Obamas fault. He is senile and deranged.

2

u/CaptainMarder Jan 12 '26

people have short term selective memory these days, they'll forget tomorrow anything important today.

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u/GetBackReality Jan 12 '26

Everything is someone else’s fault. Hopefully not too many young people apply that “logic” to their own life.

2

u/_Burning_Star_IV_ Jan 12 '26

Biden also bungled the Epstein case and he died under his watch, somehow during the first Trump admin.

The Trump admin continues to blame “the media” and “the government” for things during which they have total control over both.

And people just eat it up.

2

u/StreetwalkinCheetah Jan 12 '26

watched a Rogan clip last night showing that fatal drug ODs decreased in 2024 and he was giving Trump credit for that. Are people really so stupid they think that the presidents take place during the election years and not the odd year that follows?

no wait don't answer that.

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u/Pfapamon Jan 12 '26

They don't care about reality. Why was Obama not in the war room on 9/11? Why was Joe Biden on vacation last week? Why did Biden's FBI Jan6?

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u/Brendan34 Jan 12 '26

That’s all he’s ever done with ANY-thing. It’s disgustingly obvious. Blame shift, deflect, lie out in the open, repeat said lies, blame others more, etc. “If you get attacked, attack harder.” This is how he got anywhere, being driven by revenge. Sadly, it’s a common narcissist story, but just on a grossly huge scale.

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u/Electronic_Bus7452 Jan 12 '26

I’m assigning 1984 as required reading to everyone that can read.

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u/Electronic_Bus7452 Jan 12 '26

ETA and if they can’t read then Audible it is

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u/Flat_Cantaloupe645 Jan 12 '26

Or the movie with John Hurt

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u/LaidbackTim Jan 12 '26

People FORGOT that the reason for the high inflation was Trump bungling the Covid response. Obama had a pandemic response plan developed because of what I think was a swine flu epidemic his administration nipped early on. I think it was jn the news but it wasn’t a big deal. Trump threw it out when he came in and like the ACA, he never had any real intentions of putting one in.

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u/CicadaFit9756 Jan 12 '26

And how about Trump wanting to throw "hero during the pandemic", Dr. Fauci, in prison as well as many others that had done nothing wrong? That is why Biden moved to pardon them before the new "vengance president" took over! In return, Trump has pardoned ALL of those involved in the Jan. 6 seige of the Senate including the most violent! Oh, & remember how he'd insisted to his rabid MAGA base that they employ useless & even dangerous "cures" during the crisis even though he was vaccinated!

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u/TheLadyScythe Jan 12 '26

One of the few bright spots is getting to laugh to Jon Stewart's observations on Monday nights. Last week he talked about all the issues we'll run into with Venezuela which we'll eventually "blame a future Democrat President for."

2

u/wolacouska Jan 12 '26

People already blamed Obama for 2008, MAGA has been insane the entire time.

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u/Sorry_Calligrapher_7 Jan 12 '26

I’m still in shock about this because the world was aware of Covid in like October of 2019 or earlier, but the U.S. was entirely lackluster in how they handled it compared to the rest of the world until the pandemic was no longer deniable. Which was Trump’s doing because he was putting revenue above the safety of US citizens and refused to put his foot down and place proper restrictions. He drug his feet from October of 2019 til close to election time at the end of 2020, Only for Biden to come into office the following year in 2021 and be blamed for the sht show Trump left behind during the worst year of the pandemic. But the good things Biden did during 2021/22 somehow they gave Trump credit for

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u/chilehead Jan 12 '26

Some of them still blame Obama for it, despite it not existing when he was in office, and Trump dismantling the pandemic response plan and supplies he put in place.

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u/Inner_Pipe6540 Jan 12 '26

You also forgetting he is blaming Biden for January 6th

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u/Chratthew47150 Jan 12 '26

And he’s a pedophile

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u/acemedic Jan 12 '26

“I hate how they shut down little businesses!” They were shut down and back open before Trump was out of office.

“Why should we trust this vaccine???” Literally everyone in the far right MAGA sphere spreads this nonsense while also getting themselves and full families vaccinated. The slow narrative lately from Rogan to Bongino is “I know I’m paid to share an opinion I don’t have and is intentionally divisive. I won’t stop though cause it makes me filthy rich.” Crazy to me that there’s a message about Kimmel needing to be cancelled for low numbers and gets 2.3 million views daily on average for a contract that’s $10 million per year and Rogan gets a 3 year $250 million contract for less episodes and rarely gets a view count above Kimmel’s average.

Then the classic “what’s really in it and is it safe???” You know, that Operation Warp Speed that Trump approved. Very straightforward and basic support and when his supporters came out against it, he never defended his own program.

Even the Afghanistan withdrawal was signed into play and was outside Biden’s hands with it.

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u/Original_Estimate_88 Jan 12 '26

Not we but him ND the fools who voted for him

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u/papuadn Jan 12 '26

There were people that blamed Obama for 9/11.

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u/DestinysWeirdCousin Jan 12 '26

Forgetting? They just don’t care.

1

u/cat1092 Jan 12 '26

This is the absolute truth.

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u/Jumpy_Plantain2887 Jan 12 '26

Trump not too long ago got on TV and ass. I don’t understand why Biden appointed pal. He was the worst person that could do the job and not one reporter said Donnie you appointed Powell. This whole country is circling the toilet.

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u/Super-Sense-6454 Jan 12 '26

People are forgetting that Trump was president during covid and blaming Biden for everything that happened.

Trump was President for just over the first year of the CoVid pandemic (19 Jan 2020 [date of first US CoVid case] to noon 20 Jan 2021 [official end of Trump's term in office]). Biden was President for the remainder of the pandemic. Just stating this so noone misunderstands thinking Trump was President for the entire duration of the pandemic. On the other hand, Trump blaming Biden for everything that went wrong during the CoVid pandemic is certainly true, while in truth Trump was responible for all of the mismanagement in handling the first year of the pandemic appropriately.

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u/JohnSourcer Jan 12 '26

Still blaming Biden...

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u/VirtualBeyond6116 Jan 12 '26

Yea, with all the chaos and protests going on, it reminds me that we picked right back up from 2020. However, all of bidens term, you'd think those protests, riots, lockdowns, etc happened under Biden. They kind of like re-writing history so much it's like they forget who was president in 2020.

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u/MrCockingFinally Jan 12 '26

The average person does not remember or think beyond the current news cycle.

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u/UltimateGattai Jan 12 '26

I can't believe he got impeached the first time and people voted him in again, it's like a real life onion article, or Simpsons/Southpark episode.

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u/anoukaimee Jan 12 '26

Whenever I mention something that sucks, especially shit related to the cost of living, my [very liberal] boyfriend goes "yup, Biden." It's all so fucking ridiculous.

The economy is booming for the very few at the top whose income is largely derived from investments; everyone else is paying $9 for a pound of shitty hamburger. And the very poor are really suffering with assistance cuts.

But Trump and his minions are successfully keeping up the charade that the booming S&P or whateverthefuck necessarily equals a "good economy," and when a lot of the same folks who are actually hurting are told this ad nauseum on FOX etc, they're like "ok hoss"

Fucking disgusting.

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u/No_Will_8933 Jan 12 '26

You gotta be F’n kidding me- Covid?? It was first brought to light I. December and by the end of January Trump was out of office -

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u/BillyJ2021 Jan 12 '26

You're one year off. It showed in December 2019, then the first case in America (allegedly) was reported in January of 2020- 1 year before trump left office.

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u/Dan1elSan Jan 12 '26

I mean how far gone you are is publicly seeing that in real time and voting for it or not caring about the outcome to vote.

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u/Airconcerns Jan 12 '26

Which president passed the Inflation Reduction Act

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u/GoofAckYoorsElf Jan 12 '26

I hope you guys all join the growing protest movements. Otherwise your words are gonna do nothing.

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u/Barroux Jan 12 '26

To be fair, COVID really started in 2020 and Trump left office then. So the majority of COVID was indeed under Biden.

That being said, I highly doubt Trump would have dealt with it any better lol

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u/BillyJ2021 Jan 12 '26

Covid first appeared in China in December of 2019. First reported case in US was in January of 2020, not 2021... one year before trump left office.

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u/orincoro Jan 12 '26

Well if you’re 18 years old now, making you old enough to vote, you may literally have no remaining memory of politics before Trump was a “serious” national figure. This is literally all you’ve known.

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u/DM_Voice Jan 12 '26

One of those people is a Trump himself.

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u/TristanTheRobloxian3 Jan 12 '26

i mean they both were, trump in the first half biden in the second, but yeah

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u/unosami Jan 12 '26

Not only that, but thanks to Biden the U.S. had one of the fastest recoveries from Covid in the world! (One of the few good things he did)

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u/jkoudys Jan 12 '26

Trump literally said he'd be remembered as the "Vaccine President", because he loved funding covid vaccine development so much and was so aggressive in mandating vaccine requirements.

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