this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Delete Elon and Trump from existence and nothing will get better.

Why?

Because Americans are dumb as fuck and they'll still be dumb as fuck when and if those two are gone.

I'm old enough to have seen the same pattern multiple times. Republican leadership fails spectacularly, even pissing off many conservatives in the process. But as soon as the next cycle begins, those conservatives are back onboard voting for the absolute shittiest candidates.

Because to them an actual, literal dictator is better than a Democrat as president.

Our society is circling the toilet and it almost certainly won't get better within our lifetimes. Prepare yourselves for that.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I actually don't consider this an issue of being dumb. It IS an issue with being under-educated (often deliberately in R states) and fed a ton of propaganda

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

There's ignorance and there's stupidity. Stupidity will stubbornly resist any attempt to correct its ignorance.

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.

Against stupidity we are defenseless.

Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed — in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable, they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.

For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.

...

If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

That's willful ignorance. While the willfully ignorant can be stupid (lack of intelligence) more often it seems to be due to arrogance and/or just being an asshole in general

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

It took Rome 1000 years to collapse. I expect instability in the us for the rest of my lifetime. I’m struggling to balance that reality and also living my life.

Also- I think COVID is to blame too. More people started living from the survival mindset and actually getting sick impacted their brain. Dictatorships help people feel safe.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

It took Rome 1000 years to collapse.

I mean, if you want to get extra snarky, Rome's still there. Still one of the wealthiest cities on earth, to this day. The infrastructure is what makes the city and that can be repaired or rebuilt, improved even, as generations come to their senses.

More people started living from the survival mindset and actually getting sick impacted their brain. Dictatorships help people feel safe.

I pin this far more on the toxic media atmosphere than COVID, although the pandemic definitely took its toll. That said, the current hysteria around migrants and Woke feels a lot more like the post-9/11 moment than COVID. Democrats rolling over sheepishly while a Republican wields unitary executive power to disappear dissidents and intimidate

What folks on here don't want to accept is that this isn't the first time we've had a President behave like this. Its not even the first time in our lifetimes (for the most part - sorry teenagers). This is more normal than not, in fact. Reagan's War on Drugs, Nixon's War on Crime, Eisenhower's Red Scare, and FDR/Truman's Japanese Internment echoed all the same fascist tendencies.

What's really changed in 2025 is the abysmal long term economic outlook. Liberals in 1984 could duck their heads and glare at the rampant poverty around them and mutter "If those hippie slackers had earned an education rather than smoking dope and fucking around, they wouldn't get picked on by the police". But now... fucking kids at Columbia University are being targeted. Surgeons are getting targeted. Judges are getting targeted.

Literally the only thing you can do to avoid these purges is Be MAGA. And "Just be MAGA, you won't get hurt" isn't something liberals can quite bring themselves to do yet (although keep an eye on Gavin Newsom and Richie Torries and Andrew Cuomo, because its coming).

Dictatorship isn't making people feel safe. It's making them feel terrified and helpless.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The city of Rome still exists but the Roman Empire does not. That is the long term future of the us.

The brain drain is necessary for the dictatorship to fully take over. Just like in Russia, I also expect people to eventually have to play along - or lose their job, house etc.

Dictatorship only scares the non maga. Maga feels safer with it.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 day ago

Why else do Republicans love to defund education? Conservatism requires people to be ignorant about reality in order to have any chance at succeeding.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Even if it were a tax paid by foreign companies, what difference does it make? They would just increase the prices the goods are sold at.

So, lets say, a smartphone that is priced at $1000:

With the 20% tariff in place:

If the Chinese conpanies pay the $200 per device, they just sell each phone at $1200 to the US importer.

If the US importers pay the $200 per device, similarily, they would tack on the $200 (on top of the usual markups), making it $1200 per phone.

There is zero difference, the end consumer always foots the bill.

This is so simple to understand, how are people this stupid

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Not necessarily: the company can choose to absorb part or all the tariff, since the demand would drop at the higher price anyway, and they might make more overall profit at a lower margin per item. But generally yes, most of the cost will be passed on to the consumer and prices will increase on average.

Example:

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

found the economics student

[–] [email protected] -1 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Wouldn't refunding the amount of the tariff to the customer fix this? Ignoring the very important diplomatic and retaliation tariffs which makes the whole post unusable for real life

  • Canada sells a product A $100.
  • Tariffs makes it $120 when you buy it
  • so Canada gets $100, USA gets $20, USA customer pays $120.
  • USA has now $20, they can directly refund the customer for $20 via a policy to reduce the price of the category of A.
  • So customer gets $20 reduction of the product A via tax something, so USA now has $0 and USA customer actually paid only $100.
  • Except now if USA company make the product A they can sell it for like $100 and customer pays $80.
  • There is a slight increase of imported goods price here because tariffs cannot actually refund $20, it will be a % of the local vs imported production.
  • Over time you can expect to get a local advantage because of this price inequality, so local companies will be subsidized by imports until imports are no longer significant.

Where am I wrong here ?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

the end consumer always foots the bill.

Or the consumer can't/won't take on the extra burden of cost, and the business loses enough sales to go under.

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

didn't understand why he was told the other countries pay the tariffs

that's easy: you were willing to vote for a guy who lied over 30 thousand times in his first term so he realized you're a fucking idiot and he could say anything without you thinking even half a second about it.

WHAT'S THE POINT OF EXPORTING SHIT YOU IDIOT WHY WOULD A COUNTRY DO IT IF THEY HAD TO PAY FOR IT

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The real Russian plot we've all missed completely has far, far less to do with paying Trump to sell them documents. That's the 2-dimensional public face of a cold-war that never ended and has been devastatingly effective against the USA.

The real Russian attack that we may never fully comprehend is exactly what they've done in other countries that they've subsequently annexed, which is making the general population stop caring about what's true or not. It's frighteningly easy to poison the well of public knowledge. You simply pour funding into efforts to boost BOTH SIDES of every social issue. When social debates and your nation's interests are ramped up and the rhetoric gets more and more extreme on both sides of an issue, when every story on both sides becomes suspect, people simply tune out or stop caring about what's true or not, and this is exactly where we are. Most people are more willing to just throw their arms up and go find a distraction than try to sift through what's real or not.

It was even easier to pull off in the USA than anywhere else because we have a built-in policy of fierce independence and individuality. We don't have communities around us, we don't have social circles that will make us want to step up our game, we don't have groups of people we care about telling us we're wrong, we don't have help from anywhere but inside our own heads. And if you've never been taught how your own thoughts can be wrong, if you've been fed the "special birthday boy" narrative for so long that you think highly of yourself, truth will seem toxic and poison because it will tell you things about yourself that will hurt. We don't seek out pain as a species, we use pain a signal to avoid a thing.

You can google "KGB tactics for destabilizing nations" and spend weeks reading about what's being done to us right now. But most people who read my message here will immediately feel that sneaking doubt or words of caution because "how do we even know what's real anymore."

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Especially when tariffs go above 100%!

Like, do you believe French companies would be paying the shipping costs to give you free Champagne?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago

They willing pay the extra funbucks tariff monies for the privilege and honor of shipping it to America (at cost) on a chance some red-hatted half-wit will waste it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

WHAT’S THE POINT OF EXPORTING SHIT YOU IDIOT WHY WOULD A COUNTRY DO IT IF THEY HAD TO PAY FOR IT

Yeah this is grade school level reasoning telling you that it obviously doesn't work that way.

A country's aluminum exports for example aren't extra aluminum they want to get rid of because it's junking up their basements and America is 1800-got-junk taking it off their hands at cost. It's a fucking series of material production companies in a different country. They too are based on capitalism and they too require profits in order to function.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

If you're Republican it's simple:

  1. A tariff is Trump's special magic that saves you from foreigners and wokeness, and MexiCanada pays for it.
  2. Stuff costs more at the store because the Biden Crime Family hurt the economy so bad, not even Trump can fix it right away. In fact it might even take more than 4 years, so we better keep him in office forever.
[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I don't think he'll live more than 4 years anyway. Hopefully the movement collapses when he does

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

I'm really looking forward to the turmoil in the Trumpublican Party after he's had his final Big Mac Attack. All the opportunists who've been using MAGA to advance themselves will be vying for position and clawing each other to pieces like the rats they are.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

The r’s are going to replace one clown with another. Approval isn’t necessary if you’re a dictator.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

He's a sucker. And his news media knows it.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 day ago

I would like to ask them what happens when taffis are increased to 100%? Does that mean producers are giving stuff for free?

And then what happen when the tarris are at 200%? Do they have to send stuff for free and pay on top of that?

One more thing - don't tell them they are wrong. Tell them they were lied to

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I wrote a comment explaining Tariffs on a Fox News YouTube video a few weeks back, and the entire reply chain was people arguing with eachother about how tariffs work because "Trump said it's a tax on other countries, so that's how they work"

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You’re doing god’s work in the hellish trenches

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It’s the problem that reality is more complicated than the simplified version trump gives his followers.

If you don’t know how something works and someone very confidently tells you how it works and it sorta maps onto familiar concepts, boy is that catnip.

Maybe all the countries are just sitting around like people and Canada is like a guy buying our stuff and we are just making that guy pay a tax. I’m a guy, I pay taxes, sucks to be that guy but probably rules to be the guy getting the tax revenue, and now trump made that us, awesome!!!

Transmitting this wrong idea is fast because it maps onto their lived experiences. It’s easy for them to conceptualize Canada as a single monolithic entity that is buying shit and having to pay a tax. So in one stroke they get a double dopamine hit.

  • I’m not dumb, I get how this all works, and it was pretty easy!
  • we get to collect these taxes instead of having to pay them, awesome!!!

So here you come to explain, “that’s not how any of this works” Canada isn’t one entity, it’s many. Sure the tariff is on their stuff, but it’s paid by the person buying it, us. And you can go on about all the ways they are wrong but you are threatening the fact that they are not dumb and they already understand this and their understanding means they are winning. So you want them to admit they are dumb and getting fucked and that’s a hard sale.

This is the real danger of hypernormalization, it allows people like trump to replace the complexity of reality with a fake but simpler version. And it’s so dangerous because the people that buy in to that fake but simpler version have this weird insane incentive to defend it.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 day ago (9 children)

I recently learned that almost 1 in 5 Americans are illiterate.

How many Americans do you think are reasonably well educated, so that they would understand somewhat complex issues like tariffs? Or could seek out information if they didn't understand?

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago (3 children)

"Doing your own research" means watching one or two YouTube videos or Facebook posts as far as these people are concerned. No thought for themselves, just parrot what you hear.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I don't understand why this even needs to be researched. I'm no economist and I don't know much about tariffs, but: costs more to get product to me for any reason = product costs me more. When has that ever not been the case? What am I missing?

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[–] [email protected] 201 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Or, we can hold the fucking media accountable for telling blatant lies about the impacts of tariffs.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Fox News got around that by claiming they're entertainment, not news.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Per their own arguments in court, no reasonable person would consider Fox News to be factual.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 day ago

Ignorance is not an excuse. Fire all MAGAs for taxifs.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"He was told the other countries pay the tariffs", by a bunch of liars and he believed the liars.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Real answer is in the last line there. If 60% of people we're capable of doing their own research (and arriving at the correct answer) then we wouldn't have anti-vaxers, flat-earthers and non-billionaire/non-bigot/non-christian nationalist republicans.

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[–] [email protected] 127 points 1 day ago (8 children)

The OP is battling against what Faux Newz, Dipshit Donnie, and other right-wing propagandist shitrags are telling his employee, all which the employee takes as indesputable truth. If he can override that much brainwashing he can convince anyone of anything.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Man, this isn't even "doing your research" it's just knowing what very basic words mean.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 day ago (12 children)

I bet a coworker $20 that "tariff" and "tax" were synonyms. Motherfucker refused to pay up, calling merriam-webster.com, thesauraus.com, wikipedia etc. "fake news".

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That’s actually a huge problem I’ve had with a right winger.

Even though he was relatively reasonable, we got stuck because we could not agree on what fascism means.

I was good to use a dictionary or better yet Wikipedia. He said it can only mean what Mussolini meant when he came up with the term.

What was annoying is that all I wanted to do was say, group X does Y things, Y things are fascism and fascism is bad.

It’s just mental gymnastics because it doesn’t matter what we call it, group X is still doing bad things, but instead we got stuck on details.

Imo this is pretty much all right wing’s only play, dismantle the tools of logic so the conversation doesn’t even happen in the first place.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

Omg. We’ve come full circle now that smart people are telling idiots to do your own research…

[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 day ago (3 children)

and every one of the millions who ~~were~~are just as dumb, will forget the lessons learned well before the next election and vote for it all over again.

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