To think that the USA is a dictatorship now?

[spoonbillstretford]

Trump appears to have ultimate power. Who can challenge him? Who controls him? Presidents should not be dictating what drug companies charge for medicines on a whim, or indeed any other goods, at the drop of a hat. He says jump and the US says "How High?" What on earth have you done to yourselves and the world to let this evil, thick, orange toddler clown represent you? What the hell were you thinking?

For me. I'll agree that saying the 2020 election was stolen was completely wrong. He should have accepted he lost and they campaigned for 4 years and then won in 2024

It seems all the MAGA drones have to offer is the same old DARVO whataboutery.

Americans going on about Free Speech when their president is banning news outlets from
the white house for not supporting his “Gulf of America” nonsense, or calling for censure of / penalties against universities that allow free protest shows it’s only “Free Speech” when they agree with what is being said.

@spoonbillstretford OP, when you say what the hell have you done to yourselves and what were you thinking, only about a third of the electorate voted for him. Just one third.

63.9% of the electorate turned out to vote.
Trump got 49.8% of the votes.
Kamala got 48.3%.

It was very close indeed. And to put it another way, two-thirds of the electorate did not vote for Trump.

Source: https://www.cfr.org/article/2024-election-numbers

Personally, I think people were driven crazy by the extreme, radical left, letting men infiltrate women's sports and teaching critical race theory in schools (which basically says that all white people are necessarily racist), and the whole pronouns thing and all the "cancellations." I think the radical left extremists went too far and it pushed people to the right. Just my theory.

Which schools are teaching that all white people are racist?

Which cancellations and what radical left? The main parties are mot remotely left wing.

My theory is that the Dems’ campaign was rubbish and, as part of that, celebrity endorsements turned off far more people than they attracted. Who wants to be told how to vote by rich singers and Hollywood show-offs?

I suspect the number of committed MAGAs is far lower than the noise they make would suggest. Which makes me think that Trump was voted in - for the second and last possible time - by a mass of ordinary people who didn’t like being deceived about Biden’s senility and didn’t like being lectured by pop minstrels and luvvies.

No it is not a dictatorship

the recent visit of Putin and the response from many in the press and the people showing their objection to Putin being there would not happen under a dictatorship

hut Trump certainly tries to rule like a dictator and is damaging the country but the laws and foundations of the country thankfully hold him back to some degree

CRT in schools has been a hot-potato topic for a few years now. Give it a quick Google.

The Democrats failed to stop some of the more out-there craziness, like trans women being allowed to compete in women's sports, and extreme radical-left activists have driven a lot of people crazy in the ways I mentioned. It's my theory that these societal influences have pushed many people to the right, and that they voted for Trump hoping he would put a stop to what he could. JMO.

or calling for censure of / penalties against universities that allow free protest shows it’s only “Free Speech” when they agree with what is being said.

Peaceful protests would have been fine. When they give rise to violence and harassment of Jewish students, it because a violation of Title V of the Civil Rights act and was quite rightly investigated and dealt with. Jewish students have rights too.

www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-probes-cases-of-antisemitism-five-universities

Yeah, that was shocking. I do think academia in the US and in the UK has become very, very unpleasant when it comes to antisemitism. And women’s rights - though in that case, in a relatively narrow way.

Defending the rights of Jewish students is obviously justified; using those incidents to put political pressure on institutions they don't like and impose a sweeping anti-diversity agenda, not so fine.

This administration and the writers of Project 2025 pushing their ideology in the background are most definitely not women's rights advocates.

You don't know how it works. Jury selection is random and done by a computer. The link I posted makes that plain. Which part of that do you not comprehend?

I’m not suggesting they are. I’m saying that women’s rights in many UK, and probably US, universities were assaulted by a tidal wave of aggressive trans nonsense.

Defending the rights of Jewish students is obviously justified; using those incidents to put political pressure on institutions they don't like and impose a sweeping anti-diversity agenda, not so fine.

That's actually a separate issue. The Supreme Court outlawed race based admissions and programs in high education in 2023.

https://law.stanford.edu/2023/12/12/students-for-fair-admissions-v-harvard-faq-navigating-the-evolving-implications-of-the-courts-ruling

Many universities ignored the ruling, so they're being required to comply.

If you want to criticize what happens in the US, try to keep up with the news from here.

All while either trying to work through it or losing your job due to a lack of paid sick leave.

It is important to recognize that the governors of each US state hold an enormous amount of power. Most people feel the impact of their state's laws and regulations more than the federal ones. Covid was a glaring example of this, and Trump was in office for part of that time.

Trump has been very vocal about leaving many big issues up to each state to decide, abortion and covid rules to name a couple.

But what's happening now is going beyond making them comply with an older ruling. It is clearly serving an ideological agenda. The executive order on DEI has also already had a negative impact on academic research. This whole attack on higher education is not 'just' about fair admissions, it's about interfering with academic appointments and curriculums. In fact, it's not about meritocracy at all. Meritocracy is what they're using to excuse a return to the bad old days.

He took over a thriving economy from Obama. His steel tariffs saved a handful of jobs in the steel industry but cost many jobs in manufacturing. His failure to deal promptly with the covid pandemic lead to high inflation that was quickly brought under control by Biden.

Now, never mind about the past, what is he up to in the present? Biden passed on an economy in good shape, with inflation back under control. Now look what he's doing. Rounding up farm labourers has resulted in produce prices shooting up 38.9% (at a time of year when they'd usually drop following the harvest). Core producer inflation is 3.3% (against a target of 2%).

Farms are struggling - they've got no labour, no environmental grant funding, no USAID buying grain for the third world and their export markets are looking elsewhere. Perfect time for the billionaires to buy up all the land at rock-bottom prices though.

The last time that a Republican administration plotted protectionist tariffs on this scale it caused the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression.

Meanwhile said child-rapist is rolling out the red carpet to child-snatcher Vladimir Putin.

Have yet to see a single "evil" thing Trump has done.

@MyLittleNest would you like a list?

Deporting people with no criminal record to CECOT where they get tortured is a start.

And do you think that Hitler started with the Final Solution? No, it took 10 years to build up to that.

It's all being litigated in the courts, which will decide which remedies are appropriate and which aren't.

Academic appointments are relevant if discrimination is built into the process by favoring candidates based on race. Curriculum can be relevant too, if it fosters discrimination or race based bias.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/evidence-backs-trump-on-higher-eds-bias-politics-13d4fec0?st=mXLjqG&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

POTUS trump commited around $4-5 trillion to fight COVID. Operation ward speed helped us to get the vaccine.

Why are you calling him a child rapist?

I am well aware of the claims made about CRT. But social gossips and rumours aren’t facts.
Having details on schools that are teaching all white people are racist would be facts so I was interested to know which schools they are.

Yes I agree the UK is in a sorry state just now.

i don’t understand why do many British people hate the President of the USA

Please stop.

They are not simply opposing “violence and harassment of Jews”.
Their issue is all protests showing support for Gaza which are all labelled “illegal”.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-federal-funding-will-stop-colleges-schools-allowing-illegal-protests-2025-03-04/

Trying to reframe and and every pro-Palestinian protest as necessarily about harassing and violence against Jews is exactly how they attack Free Speech.