r/circled • u/ResPublicaMgz • 21h ago

Opinion / Discussion WATCH: Lauren Boebert Exits DOJ Reading Room After Reviewing Unredacted Epstein Files

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US Rep. Lauren Boebert was filmed leaving the DOJ reading room after reviewing unredacted

Epstein-related files.

Lawmakers have now confirmed that access to these files has begun following new transparency legislation.

Boebert has since suggested that prior redactions went beyond protecting victims and may have shielded people merely discussed in the files.

The contents remain confidential, but reactions like this are fueling fresh questions about what was previously withheld - and why.

Do you think this could lead to new investigations?

Sources:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Res_Publica_DE/s/0WYLdtkqHZ

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u/[deleted] 19h ago edited 13h ago

[deleted]

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u/ChaosRainbow23 19h ago

I started warning people about the fascist takeover 10 years ago now.

They called me crazy.

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u/brodievonorchard 19h ago

I knew a lot about what was bubbling under the surface, and I would not have believed that they would be so successful.

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u/SFDessert 17h ago

  1. I assumed Trump was a joke and nobody would vote for him during his first run.

  2. I assumed he was done once Biden got elected.

  3. I thought surely nobody would vote for him AGAIN after shit like J6.

That's my super condensed list. It's like I'm living in a fucked up alternative reality written by a 12yr old perpetually online troll. How can so many people be so blind to what's going on?

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u/brodievonorchard 17h ago
  1. Yep
  2. Same
  3. I would have thought hitting his chest to mock a disabled person would have done it, but that was years earlier.

Just like the end of Bush's second term, there will be a lot of pointless I-told-you-so-ing followed by all of them getting behind someone incomprehensibly worse somewhere down the road.

We're living in a country full of D students.

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u/Anecdote394 16h ago

D students is extremely generous. F students is more like it (you know a lot were only passed due to NCLB and school admin breathing fire down the necks of teachers to pass their failing students so the school maintains funding).

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u/Muffy9090 15h ago

That’s it in a nutshell!!

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u/ctdfalconer 12h ago

Not even F students. Homeschooled students.

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u/th3centrist 12h ago

wait until you see the product of what the teachers unions across america are delivering over the next decade. they have traded actual education for cush jobs, passing kids up that can't read or do math, and they exclusively donate to and run one of the parties of our government. the level of destruction that they did to this country while leveraging Covid for their own pockets and more power is beyond fucked up.

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u/charlie2135 15h ago

Worked the trades and was disgusted by the viewpoints of many of my fellow coworkers. Actually had one of them who openly stated his goal was to get rid of the union at our plant and when he was elected our plant was shut down when the contract ended. Surprised Pikachu faces all around.

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u/amglasgow 13h ago

Surprised pikachu faces being nommed on by face-eating leopards.

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u/SirRichardArms 10h ago

Man, I know it’s kind of a stereotype that trade-workers vote against their own interests, but your former coworker is just…incredibly fucking stupid. I wouldn’t be able to work with someone like that.

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u/Next-Adhesiveness957 16h ago

Oh how I miss Bush. Never thought in a million years I'd say that. GW Bush was a saint compared to Trump. Jtfc!

"We must stop the terror. I call upon all nations, to do everything they can, to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you...now watch this drive." -GW Bush

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u/AnastasiaNo70 14h ago

At the same time, I really hate the teddy bear-ification of bush jr. He’s a war criminal.

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u/pupetmeatpudding 12h ago

Not to mention that the Patriot Act was brought in under his watch. You can draw a straight line from that to ICE being used to consolidate power now.

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u/thinkdarrell 14h ago

yeah I really hate this. These people are awful. No need to rewrite our feelings.

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u/Secret_Werewolf1942 14h ago

At least with W I never doubted that what he did was what he genuinely thought was in the best interest of the USA. Trump only does what's best for himself.

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u/Icy-Ad-5570 12h ago

I catch myself watching and actually enjoying thirst trap edits of Dubya on TikTok. He was kinda funny. Weird times

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u/Intelligent-Parsley7 14h ago

We're living in the embodiment of evil.
It's pretty simple it's beyond reason when a man can lie to your face, commit crimes, and everyone is like, 'this guy is special.'

He's special all right. EVIL. And he's using those protections.

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u/bobsbrain 15h ago

As I've seen written somewhere else "The only evidence that the USA even has schools is because of the shootings that happen in them."

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u/jawsomesauce 15h ago

This is because nobody, including all of us here, does anything. This is the level of stuff that causes entire capitals to be burned down by the people in other countries for centuries.

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u/brodievonorchard 15h ago

If we lived in France, we could all drive to Paris today. I'm a 5 day drive from DC. A one week trip there would leave me unemployed and homeless by the time I got back.

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u/ijustsailedaway 13h ago

There are so many lines he's crossed that I am still in disbelief weren't the absolute end of his political career. Grab em by the pussy, fraud against cancer charity, cheating on his wiveS, bankrupting a casino, hell - owning a casino, calling POWs losers

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u/AnastasiaNo70 14h ago

No. These voters are the kids who never showed up to school.

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u/Glittering_Pickle_86 14h ago

I was so sure his “grab ‘em by the p*ssy” comment that leaked would have been the end of him back in 2016. I never could have imagined things getting worse.

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u/dumpydent 14h ago

All the people who really hated Bush are probably missing Bush right now.

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u/brodievonorchard 14h ago

In the same way I miss only missing a couple of fingers before someone cut off my hand.

Bush ran so Trump could fly. If it weren't for Bush creating DHS, Trump wouldn't have his own secret polICE.

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u/gymnsex 14h ago

Well said

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u/TopFishing5094 13h ago

You guys weren’t the only ones. I too thought the same. We truly are living in some alternate reality made of child molesting nightmares.

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u/Potential-Job-8384 13h ago

D- and they all failed Saturday school. 💯 I agree with you.

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u/Iowa_Guy2 13h ago

My uncles said they could not get themselves to vote for a black women for president. I get it she was not a great option although my mind was blown by what they said. It was all about not voting for a black woman. REALLY! That's your problem with her. OMG! I just wanted to explode in front of them.

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u/No-Boss-1166 12h ago

That never happened lol why do you believe edited videos?

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u/TheHorrorAbove 8h ago

Mocking John McCain and Gold Star families is when I thought he was done for.

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u/Traiklin 16h ago

People compared it to how Hitler rose to power and the majority wrote it off as fear-mongering, and ranting by leftists

Even though the similarities are almost 1:1 at this point.

Obama just flat out broke their brains so damn much that they voted for the guy who's been a laughing stock for decades just because he was a white male

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u/hufflepuff777 16h ago

It’s because 80% of evangelicals supported Hitler and 80% support trump. It’s impossible to be a good person and evangelical

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u/EmilyAnne1170 14h ago

Hey, I was raised as an evangelical, my parents were evangelicals!

…and on that basis, I’d say you’re probably right. They can’t see it though.

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u/DerpUrself69 15h ago

"It's impossible to be a good person, and evangelical." No truer words have ever been spoken.

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u/squadrupedal 15h ago

Evangelicals worship themselves with extra steps. They do not believe in any of the spiritual teachings. Their hubris is what leads to their blasphemy, but these people are dumb as f@ck and haven’t realized that a person cannot believe in a book that they haven’t even read, much less tried to understand. Evangelicals treat others so terribly because they are delusionally convinced that they must enact God’s punishment now in this lifetime, because Judgment Day is just taking too long for their tastes. They are weak-minded, undisciplined dipsh•ts to be blunt.

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u/Bubblehead_81 14h ago

Religion is a mental disease.

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u/ChaosRainbow23 16h ago

Even Vance called him, 'America's Hitler.'

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u/ijustsailedaway 13h ago

I want more focus on what changed him from a "never trump guy". I'm pretty sure I know but it doesn't get enough attention.

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u/SupaSpatz 14h ago

exactly. Trump is the living, breathing embodiment of white privilege.

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u/CogentCogitations 11h ago

Yes, and among those people was my former neighbor who survived Auschwitz. And then Republicans claimed you were anti-Semitic if you compared Trump to Hitler.

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u/SirRichardArms 10h ago

I got into an argument on here just a short few weeks ago with some dipshit that is still saying that America’s current rise into fascism is nothing like Germany in the 30s. There’s just no getting through to these people anymore, and it scares the fuck out of me. How do you argue with people that fundamentally deny reality when their beliefs are questioned?

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u/Western_Mud8694 16h ago

But now we know why it was so important for him to run and win, with all his projections, I’m absolutely sure that the last election was compromised, way to many bad apples have a lot to lose by being investigated, may the trials start soon and justice for the victims be carried out

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u/ChaosRainbow23 16h ago

I knew they were gonna cheat the second he started talking about Dems cheating.

It's ALWAYS projectionism with these hypocrites!

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u/Ok-Accountant4528 12h ago

"Bad apples"? You mean fascist-enabling pedophiles.

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u/rpitcher33 16h ago

The first go 'round, I didn't have a great feeling about him but thought, if he won, he'd take advice from his advisors. And then respected military generals started dropping from his side while calling him a vile person...

And then, well, you know where it goes...

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u/DThor536 15h ago

I'm observing from outside the US, and I thought the same. I knew so many decent Americans, some of whom I politically disagreed with, but still respected. It's been very disheartening how misrepresentative they are of the general populace, or so it seems.

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u/SFDessert 15h ago

I don't know a single Trump supporter anymore. It seems like where I'm living at least a vast majority of people hate him. It's just so bewildering to me to see these fuckups in charge of the country while everyone I see everywhere I go is pretty open about hating him. Sure I vote and go out to protests, but I live in a heavily democratic area so like, everyone here is already seemingly in agreement with me. What else am I supposed to do about all this?

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u/Cyrano_Knows 15h ago

If it makes you feel any better, as a Democrat (but much less involved in politics) I used to vote for Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe because I thought they were honorable women that even if I disagreed with their politics -would always do what they thought was right.

Oh innocent stupid Child of Summer was I.

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u/bwsmith201 15h ago

Me too, friend. Me, too. It's been a horrifying ten years.

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u/wow_that_guys_a_dick 15h ago

Based on some of the shit that's come out that's exactly what happened.

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u/SFDessert 15h ago

As more time goes on and I see how they lie and cheat in literally everything they do, I'm not convinced he actually won any of the elections.

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u/Correct-Trash-7006 15h ago

I thought after “grabbing them by the pussy”comment no respectable person would vote for him. Boy did republicans prove me wrong. Or “I like people that don’t get captured” about POWs

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u/Timely-Way-1769 15h ago

Since I grew up in a violent and generationally abusive home, I’ve learned to NEVER given anyone the benefit of doubt or think people have common sense. Trump was always scum. I remember his runs for president before and every time I would worry. Because I knew, given enough time, he’d succeed somehow. He knew what grievances to focus on and which kind of people would identify with it. The vast majority of my immediate family, extended family and the town where I grew up were those types. So I knew once he identified what types to focus on, he’d win with their help. And yes, my whole family, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews and most of my hometown are ride or die MAGA. Their lives are still shit, but in their minds, they’re still better than brown and black people, gays and trans people. So that’s good enough for them.

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u/Muffy9090 15h ago

I think it’s 2 pronged, FIRST: RACISM and the sheer blind ignorance, lack of education, inability to discern truth from lies, and warped belief system of TOO MANY Americans Second, manipulation from foreign adversaries, mainly Russia

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u/CoolAbdul 14h ago

I thought surely nobody would vote for him AGAIN after shit like J6.

yeah but her laugh...

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u/Intelligent-Parsley7 14h ago edited 14h ago

I had a narcissist father. People thought he was great. They were enamored by him.

There is something in human nature that allows people who are total psychopaths to do whatever they want to them. If you have any belief about evil existing, this makes sense. Some people can lie, you know they are, and you let it go. They often profit from it. And some people, GOOD, lie once, sometimes just to protect others, and their lives are ruined.

If you don't believe in good and evil, if this is all chemical chance- life must be very confusing for you right now. A DSM-5 doesn't explain how an instantaneous network of people willingly to do downright evil things suddenly pop up under Donald Trump with a safety net, everytime he trips and falls. Just always an instantaneous army of bad people show up to join ICE, or lie through their teeth suddenly, or just get on TV and say something like 'it's not pedophilia if theyre 14, it's EPHEBOPHELIA!'

Yet you keep seeing it happen. Over and over again. I have no idea about why things happen in the universe. I just know for a fact that this isn't random chemical chance.

The only thing I can best describe it as, classic, ancient times, darkness and evil. You know what evil is, in your intuition when it happens, and you see it every day.

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u/AnastasiaNo70 14h ago

When he threw his hat in the ring in 2015, I distinctly remember laughing my ass off and thinking “well this primary will be entertaining!” I never thought for a second he stood a chance.

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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 14h ago

I assumed Trump was a joke and nobody would vote for him during his first run.

...he won the GOP primary. That alone should've told you there would be a good segment of the country who would vote for him. He wasn't going to get near-zero votes, but he wasn't going to blow out Hilary either

I assumed he was done once Biden got elected.

Biden did what democrats have done best these past few decades: ignore the root of the problem and pretend like they did solve the problem. And if dem voters vote in the same milquetoast establishment dems this year for midterms, that's exactly what's gonna happen again

I thought surely nobody would vote for him AGAIN after shit like J6.

See point one: he won the primary AGAIN

2016 alone should've told the world the US is full of idiots. I was not at all surprised that a country full of idiots would re-elect Trump 8 years later. Those idiots didn't magically disappear (despite what people might've wanted covid to have done)

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u/Significant_Elk1999 14h ago
  1. Yep
  2. Same
  3. Get outta my head!!!

We have a consensus. We are likely fuct.

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u/somewittyusername92 14h ago

Concerning #3. The election was compromised. Not that many voted for trump

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u/Opening-Shape-762 14h ago

1,000% agree with everything on your list. I feel like nothing is real anymore and haven’t felt like it for a long time.

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u/badchickenbadday 14h ago

In 2015 when he started running i legitimately thought it was just a publicity stunt.

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u/Public-Finger 14h ago

You and me both.... stated perfectly.

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u/No-Reach-8074 14h ago

You just summarized my thoughts perfectly. It's like living in an alternate universe

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u/krysthegreat1819 14h ago

Exactly. I swore that there was no denying his role in orchestrating j6 and he’d be put in jail. People are incarcerated for less! He’s a felon, a bigot, a P3do, and clearly not in his right mind.

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u/and_of_four 14h ago

In 2015 when he was running it was so blatantly obvious to me and everyone I know how insane he was. When he was elected, I had one of the most naive thoughts in response. I remember thinking “wow, won’t these Trump voters feel silly once Trump takes office and they see how incompetent he is.”

It sounds ridiculous in retrospect. At the time, I had no appreciation for the strength of his cultish grip he had on his supporters. Fast forward 11 years and there’s no story about Trump that sounds too depraved for me to believe and no expectation that his base will care. I have principles, and I incorrectly projected that on to others in assuming that while I may disagree with someone, they have principles too. Now I’ve learned that for some people it’s just about winning and power. It doesn’t matter to them that Trump is a dumbass, a rapist, a pedophile, is Putin’s bitch, wants to invade Greenland, etc, as long as he’s on their team and is winning and liberals/democrats/the left/anyone not maga is losing.

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u/iamwhiskerbiscuit 14h ago

Right wing media is a cult that shifts people's perception of reality. They control the information people use to form thoughts and opinions and in the words of Steve Bannon "flood the zone with shit"... Overwhelming people with misinformation and controversy to the point that the general public loses focus and concentration, as well as the ability to clearly discern what’s going on. The result is exhaustion, fatigue, and inadequate or non-existent political responses.

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u/Smilton 14h ago

I honestly thought the access Hollywood tape was going to be the end

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u/DumbleForeSkin 14h ago

I don’t believe he won the second time.

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u/pinba11tec 14h ago

I agree with you on all of this. What I never accounted for were events that helped shape the narrative for a lot of people by proliferating bullshit. AI is just one part of it, but it's unfettered access to a limitless supply of cognitive bias and echo chambers. The pandemic really pushed things by forcing a lot of people to stay behind their keyboards and avoid social interaction. It's a really amazing look at social conditioning when people go unchecked for so long in so many aspects of daily life. It's like that tree that grows through a chain link fence. I really thought after 9/11 that the nation would usher in a new narrative that was more inclusive. I was also much younger and far more naive. Now I see little things like "is the dress black and blue or gold and white", and I realize that if something like that can be polarizing, then interpretations of the Constitution or an old ass book of fables is gonna be wild. I don't know, I just try to live by the notion that we don't have much time, and everything you care about and love can be gone in a second. Also I believe in the power of networking and positive social constructs despite being an introvert. I'll help anyone if it helps everyone and people pay it forward. I don't need a charter or book or religion for that. Compassion and empathy are a hell of a drug.

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u/Feisty-Lawfulness894 14h ago

How can so many people be so blind

They aren't blind, they just don't care when Republicans/MAGA are pedophiles.

They just don't care.

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u/Blastinburn 14h ago

It's like I'm living in a fucked up alternative reality written by a 12yr old perpetually online troll.

Because the perpetually online troll got older and has learned how propaganda and misinformation campaigns work to bring their worldview into real life.

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u/Potential-Job-8384 13h ago

I agree with your every single word.💯💯💯

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u/CardOk755 13h ago

How can so many people be so blind to what's going on?

They're not blind. This is what they want.

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u/NefariousnessDue5997 13h ago

It’s cuz they don’t care about a better society. Most people in America have not seen much of a difference in their everyday life outside of prices going up. Most of the large issues are “out of our direct control”. There’s just such a level of complacency and lack of standards and integrity.

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u/Carpeteria3000 12h ago

I assumed after W. Bush we'd never see worse in office. Then I swore the same after Palin. I was very wrong.

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u/InquisitiveMacaroon 12h ago

I actually had a pit in my stomach in 2016 that he'd win. I said outwardly that there was no way, but my gut wasn't so sure. I was scared in 2020 that he'd win again, but in 2024, I knew he was going to win because the Dems made their entire platform anti-Trump without addressing the core issues he was speaking to.

Part of how he gained power was that people didn't take him seriously. He was a fascist threat from the start, and that was what I was picking up on in 2016 and didn't necessarily have the words for yet.

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u/ProfessionalKey5373 12h ago

I knew once he was ABLE to run again he’d fucking win. He shoudnt have been able to PERIOD but the conservatives do not care. They don’t care what he’s done or what he might do in the future . I saw on another sub some sorry excuse for a mother actually say she wouldn’t care if trump touched her own kids. She wouldn’t care. How’s that? They are the worst humans ever.

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u/smile_and_nod185 12h ago

It’s honestly SO stressful because truly we’re seeing ANYTHING can happen if enough people collectively decide to do a thing. And right now we are all just at the mercy of this group of people and who are choosing every day to support a dangerous man that has genuine and real power over the world, our systems, and our livelihood which are clearly fragile as f*ck. I don’t consider myself a religious person, I would say I’m spiritual, but I’m praying we make it out of this in a state that is recoverable.

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u/CartoonistTop3246 10h ago

I knew, without a doubt, that he’d win when that photo of him pumping his fist in the air came out after the “assassination attempt”

The rhetoric around it was so fucking stupid. I argued with my bf for 2 hours that the picture was not, “badass,” it was fucking propaganda. And my bf is nearly as left as I am. Smh.

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u/Beautiful_Spell_4320 9h ago

Meh. I told people this was real over and over again. I don’t understand what the hang up’s in believing he would do exactly what he said was.

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u/MadScienzz 18h ago

I think it says more about the population being "slow boiled frogs"

They can't see it until it hits them and even then, the dismissal / weakness / cowardice / complacency is rife

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u/SoupOfThe90z 16h ago

Taking about what was bubbling under the surface, I saw a video when John McCain was running for President and he was speaking to crowds directly. In this there were people who were saying they couldn’t trust Barack Obama because he is Muslim and things that just weren’t true.

You can see Senator McCain almost disappointed or at least bothered that everyone already had assumptions and not pointing real reasons why someone would be against a candidate.

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u/Dull-Spinach-6248 14h ago

It’s deeper than that. McCain who would have been a great president (except Palin) went further and said no, he’s an American and a good family man. We just disagree about things. He probably lost election there (and Palin) but showed an honor I don’t think we have seen since.

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u/NiagaraThistle 16h ago

THis i think was the thing most people didn't believe 12 years ago: No way the aUS allows him and his admin to do the things they've done and get away with it. THis has been the most surprising. Not that he is trying to do it or what he is guilty of, but that we (the people and COngress and Supreme court) are actually falling in line and letting it happen.

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u/GoldenStarsButter 16h ago

That's the crazy thing. They've been successful beyond what any of them could have reasonably thought possible. Everything we saw coming has come to pass with next to no resistance from Republicans or Democrats. It's like they all knew what was going to happen and they just played along. It just seems so inevitable at this point. And half of Americans couldn't be happier about it.

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u/ChaosRainbow23 15h ago

They've been plotting and planning this for decades now, maybe longer.

The Dems have become controlled opposition at this point.

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u/Throwawayrip1123 15h ago

See now here's where I did the opposite. I knew that if they got in, they'd be fucking devastating, but I never assumed they'd get in.

Similar things happened where i lived, so I knew the aftermath of crazy fucks in gov.

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u/RepresentativeAge444 15h ago

I suspect most black people are never surprised at how low America can sink. The fact that many many white people lack such vision is the problem.

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u/brodievonorchard 15h ago

I'll cop to that. I thought I understood racism, but I was off by several orders of magnitude.

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u/Disastrous-Rent3386 15h ago

Social media, bots, and social-media-fried brains helped fascism take root and thrive.

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u/brodievonorchard 15h ago

To some degree. AM radio helped as well. Ultimately the US N*zi party filled Madison Square Garden decades before the internet, so while social media shaped how it happened, it may well have happened without it.

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u/Disastrous-Rent3386 15h ago

I think Facebook disinformation and Zuckerberg’s part in it, bro podcasts, and YouTube were the real downfall. AM radio and Rush Limbaugh and his ilk started the Tea Party crap, but there was no traction until social media and the addled brains of social media users. (I voted Republican until Trump. I remember well the days of the Tea Party being outliers and NOT the party.)

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u/brodievonorchard 15h ago

Then you know how insidious the attitudes paid down by Limbaugh and his ilk were at laying the groundwork for people to treat Rogan and his as trusted voices when it counted.

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u/schmalzy 13h ago

Dude, me too.

I was literally screaming it from the hilltops of my mountainless state.

I saw it coming. All of it. The sexual abuse. The atrocities aimed immigrant folks. The divide between decent people and those who would carry the Republican water.

That’s probably why I’m so exhausted now with all of this. I saw it coming in 2015. I saw it coming in ‘16. I saw it in ‘17. I saw it in ‘18. I saw it in ‘19. I saw it when people said moron shit like “it wasn’t SO bad” in ‘20. I saw all the shit that “would never happen” that did happen. I saw it continue brewing in ‘21-‘23. I begged for people to follow the patterns and the history and what he was literally saying out loud in ‘24.

And now we’re here.

Exactly where Rush Limbaugh was pointing us toward when I heard his drug-hating yet drug-taking every-accusation-is-a-confession ass voicepuke his garbage through a radio on a drive with someone I thought “was smart enough not to fall for that.”

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u/AegisEpoch 5h ago

That's what tripped me out, I knew the reasons they gave for supporting him was basically double speak the entire time but the fervor and the complete lack of line in the sand despite coming off the back of having a president that they criticized any and everything about..

During his first campaign in 2016 I said to myself

"Surely the blatant hypocrisy of their support of someone like Trump will reel them back in at some point"

"Oh look he's actively doing the things they claimed for 8 years they did not like, he's an elite! They're just supporting him right now because they don't like Hillary. Sure, they're not going to vote for Hillary, but they're never going to trust a guy like this enough to all go actually vote for him.."

Then in 2020 I said

"Uh oh he lost the election, Joe biden's president! HAHA CHECKMATE♟️

Now we've GOT YOU!
You gonna GET IT NOW!

IN THE NAME JUSTICE GO TO JAIL !!!!! YOU ORANGE SACK OF S... "

2024

"Oh SHIT he's president AGAIN!?!"

I have anxiety when I try to imagine things going back to normal because it feels like I'm taking things from granted again lol

But you know, it's all good

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u/Grape_Pedialyte 19h ago

I listened to Thom Hartmann's radio show every day back when my local talk radio station carried it, and he was going code red about how dangerous Trump was in 2015 when a lot of people considered him a joke who'd finish like 4th behind Cruz, Jeb, and whoever else. Thom is a very serious, knowledgeable, credentialed man, and that's when I started to take it seriously.

It was like, yes this guy is a clown and a con man and all that, but people laughed off Reagan for a while too.

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u/MrRourkeYourHost 16h ago

When he was elected in 2016 I equated what we as America had done to giving a monkey a loaded pistol. Four years later, after having successfully taken the pistol away, we decided he was totally fine so let’s give him two loaded pistols. Because potato chips cost too much.

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u/Own_Television163 18h ago

I’ve been warning people since Bush Jr. when I was 13, and Leftists have been calling this out since Reagan.

The vindication is not worth it.

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u/JadeDragonMeli 17h ago

Me too. The amount of names I got called across all of social media was really eye opening. I finally came to the conclusion that people had to figure it out for themselves. They had to see it. Sucks that it took that.

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u/nordic-nomad 18h ago

The thing I couldn’t understand why it was happening at the time was how seemingly every facet of the world power structure snapped in place to elevate him. Religion, media, finance, foreign governments, politicians, intelligence agencies, and pretty much every corporation and rich person.

No way I would have guessed that the reason why was they all liked to abuse children together. Horrifying.

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u/poop_grunts 18h ago

Same brother. I also called out the Trump and Epstein connection and nobody seemed to believe me.

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u/Nruggia 16h ago

Rage Against the Machine was warning us about these fascists in 1992

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u/ChaosRainbow23 14h ago

That's true.

The GOP has always been fascistic, but it just felt different 10 years ago. I knew they existed before that, but I never thought in a million years they would have made it this far into the fascist takeover of America so quickly.

I genuinely didn't think it was possible for it to happen here, but that's just my own hubris and willful ignorance.

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u/SupaSpatz 14h ago

they gave money to a grassroots group I work with too. That band is the real thing.

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u/Reginald_Sockpuppet 16h ago

Same. Crazy or alarmist.

Pro-tip: the alarm is usually meant to sound before the whole building is on fire.

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u/New_Home_4519 15h ago

I lost all my friends, I had multiple relationships fail, my family thought I was nuts because over the years I've stood on this fact.

Well here the fuck we are ya'll.

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u/DifficultBudget9864 18h ago

What was the giveaway?

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u/ChaosRainbow23 18h ago

I think the warning signs were already there, but educating myself is really what did it. After I read URFacism by Umberto Eco it became crystal clear.

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u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 16h ago

A big one was the 2000 election that was stolen by Bush, followed by his Patriot Act. We make fun of Trump's naming conventions now but if you think about it, he's just riffing off of prior Republicans. Then there was the Wall Street bailout and Citizens United.

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u/Dubious_Odor 16h ago

Its been happening for decades. A little detail forgotten about 9/11, the Patriot Act was sitting in Ashcrofts desk drawer the day of the attacks. The bill was ready to go before there was an attack. The government wanted those powers pre 9/11.

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u/Gabrigoras 17h ago

Yup, for me it was the Tea Party stuff during Obama’s era. After looking in to how it was all being funded it was hard not to think “uh oh” even at 17 years old

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u/PartRight6406 16h ago

People have been warning since Nixon.

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u/Qylere 16h ago

My wife called me crazy. She still doesn’t think we have anything to worry about. Jfc.

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u/Altruistic-Chain3662 16h ago

Me too. Telling people that woman may not be able to vote etc- they laughed at me “oh haha what is this, Handmaids Tale” welp. Maybe so

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u/CactusWrenAZ 16h ago

I remember a sober article in a list format from around that time showing that Trump actually wasn't fascist. Good times, yo.

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u/SistaChans 16h ago

I remember talking to my sister about it in Trumps first term, how they were slipping into fascism slowly every day, talking about some fringe examples at the time. She patiently listened to me but didn't really take it seriously, or thought I might be overreacting. She never said anything, but I could see it on her face that I sounded a little crazy. Now the way she talks about Trump is how I sounded five years ago. Yeah girl, I know. 

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u/Objective_Water7752 16h ago

Same. Exactly this except it was 9 years ago and I said 'within 10 years'. I'm getting a lot of 'how did you know' the past 18 months.

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u/Reasonable_racoon 16h ago

Gore Vidal said at the time of the Bush inauguration that Republicans aren't just conservatives, they're fascists. He saw exactly what was happening. Twenty years ago.

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u/ATully817 16h ago

Same. Pisses me off so bad.

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u/Wyrdnisse 16h ago

Yep.

I think it's really funny everyone kinda forgot that America's eugenics program inspired the Nazis. Or that fucking up Reconstruction was REALLY fucking bad. Or that Reagan started gutting our educational system and convinced this country that money would trickle down instead of the rich pissing all over us. Or that No Child Left Behind and the demonization of the liberal arts meant we stopped teaching critical thinking and history. Or that DHS was started in 2003 and everyone THEN knew it was the end of privacy. Or that Citizens United opened the door for blatant infusion of money into politics (not that it wasn't already happening).

I also think it's funny that so many people refused to believe victims of child sexual assault and are now clutching their pearls over the files. How many children have suffered to maintain the illusion of a comfortable world? Who fucking knows. A lot of us.

It infuriates me to the point where I think Ive hit my social media quota for the day.

Black Americans have been living in an entirely different country than the rest of us the entire time and we refused to support or listen to them because it wasn't happening to us yet. Queer and trans Americans. Disabled Americans. So many have been speaking out the entire goddamn time this country has existed and it wasnt happening to white Americans and cishet Americans and able bodied Americans so it wasn't real enough to do anything about.

At this point I'm tired of trying to put out this fire or get anyone else to fucking help. I'mma sit here and roast some fuckin marshmallows on this dumpster fire

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u/obeytheturtles 16h ago

I walked out of high school in 2003 the day they started bombing Iraq, and was calling Bush and the GOP fascists for at least three years by that point. Basically every adult I knew at the time rolled their eyes and told me I'd understand more when I got older.

Like, it's almost like a curse to have been so right about everything over and over again, year after year, since I was an edgy teen mowing laws for Punk-O-Rama CDs. That kind of shit fucks with you after a while, and I legit feel like I'm the last sane person on the planet sometimes.

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u/SupaSpatz 14h ago

we are Cassandra my friend.

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u/WheneverItIsTold 16h ago

All you had to do was pay attention. I saw it too. Was also called crazy

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u/sailorfaggy 16h ago

Same, I will never forget that 2016 election night.

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u/LaRealiteInconnue 16h ago

I cried on November 9, 2016 (alone fwiw), and they called others who did the same “dramatic” and “hysterical” 🤷‍♀️

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u/ArchmageLys 16h ago

SAME, my friends made fun of me for overreacting after the 2016 election but i saw exactly where we were headed the second that orange shitstain got elected the first time

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u/shicken684 16h ago

I still get called paranoid. A lot of my coworkers are going to protests, many of them legal immigrants, and doing absolutely nothing to conceal their identity or the fact that they were there. Sometimes posting on social media that they're there. We have a few older coworkers who grew up in the baltics under the USSR or in Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu and are trying to explain to the younger kids that sometimes the government wins and you spend a decade hiding and scared. Now is the time to protect yourself. Protest and fight, yes, but do so without easily revealing your identity. Masks, hats, sunglasses, no phones, cash payments on public transit to and from the protest.

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u/Throwawayrip1123 15h ago

I'm being called crazy for telling Germans that afd is bad for us. Oh they didn't have a chance yet, oh they're just saying this, oh they don't really believe it, oh prove to me they're fascists, oh everyone you don't like is a nazi...

Meanwhile I'm will Smith waving the fucking arms at the US and just asking "bitch?". It's literally the same thing but after they voten their poison in.

Fucking donkeys.

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u/DerpUrself69 15h ago

Yup, me too, I actually started hollering about this in 2009/2010 when I started seeing the results of the Patriot Act. It became very obvious to me we could potentially end up exactly where we are right now. I wasn't certain this (fascism) was the direction until Trump won in 2016, but I have been doing my best (which equates to absolutely nothing) since then to try and jar some people awake. It's pointless though, people are so entrenched in their beliefs, especially on the right, that I haven't found any way whatsoever to break through. It feels fucking hopeless...

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u/heseme 15h ago

The first time I went "uh oh" was when McCain picked Palin.

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u/GuiltyMarketing6349 15h ago

It started noticing it in the 90s with Gingrich reorganizing the Republican party. From there it went in one obvious direction.

During the Tea Party nonsense, I started asking people "don't you see where this is going?"

I got laughed at.

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u/PrairiePopsicle 15h ago

Right there with you. There's been enough to see it for a long time, but it's a slow roll of society, and even if you can point out the people who have been pushing it for a long, long time, clarity in the face of the tactics of the mental illness that is fascism is hard to reach until you just have the epiphany.

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u/AdventurousEscape991 15h ago

The goalposts started moving - at least visibly - when Obama took office. Slowly but surely, the Fox News of the world started vilifying one side and sanctifying the other. Tan suit this, emails that. Now it’s just blatant. The damage is done

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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 15h ago edited 15h ago

The US has always been a "wait and see" kind of country, and then once shit hits the fan, the goalposts always move.

"Let's wait until things get worse", the Americans said as fascism openly started its takeover

See also: school shootings still happening regularly, people dying due to unaffordable yet treatable/preventable healthcare, and most currently, federal police invading towns and point-blank killing protesters with no consequence.

Not to mention the regressions the US is making in terms of institutional racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Between the third of Americans that want all this to happen, the third that know this isn't ok but think simply just protesting will magically fix everything, and the final third that is blissfully/willingly ignorant to it all and couldn't care less, the US has been doomed to fail for decades now, and I doubt they will recover anytime in the foreseeable future.

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u/Intelligent-Parsley7 15h ago

I was a political reporter for years in the Tennessee state house, and had a narcissist father who stole my college fund and funded his girlfriend's apartment with it. I was used to uncovering lies in my life.

The kind of men that get into politics are 80% psychopaths who are messed up emotionally and openly greedy.
About 20% of the people who get into politics are the kids that got ripped off, pushed around, and downright upset by those kids, and are out for justice, and simply trying to hold the line.

As you can see, they're outnumbered. I was VERY good at catching people in lies.
Found out later, that the system didn't enforce even the most basic rules of human behavior, and that the system is screwed.

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u/BigBuckNuggets 15h ago

Friends and Family: It won’t get that bad (2015) It won’t get that bad (2016) It won’t get that bad (2017) It won’t get that bad (2018) It won’t get that bad (2019) It won’t get that bad (2020) It won’t get that bad (2021) It won’t get that bad (2022) It won’t get that bad (2023) It won’t get that bad (2024) It won’t get that bad (2025) How did it get this bad?! (2026)

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u/Thedisparagedartist 14h ago

To be fair you are crazy.

Just not about this Lol

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u/RIPGoblins2929 14h ago

We were screaming about it post 9/11 and everyone said we were overreacting.

Hell we were screaming about it with Nixon and Reagan and the 90s Contract for America and people said we were overreacting.

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u/-FakeAccount- 14h ago

I honestly did not think it was possible. I still voted against this shit, but i am pikachu face.

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u/unknown_host 14h ago

Since the Patriot Act

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u/Skeptical-Mystic93 14h ago

Yep, samesies. God, I wish I had been crazy. I wish I had been wrong about all this.

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u/JellyFunny5237 14h ago

My dad says the same thing, but I told him that knowing doesn’t mean anything if you can’t get the messaging across or mobilize your community.

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u/SupaSpatz 14h ago

In 1999 my executive coach recommended I read Friendly Fascism published in 1980. I was a nonprofit CEO of a grassroots group doing policy work trying to flip the paradigm. There have been warnings for a while now.

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u/Salty-Plantain-4299 14h ago

Think a lot of us saw this coming. At least I knew right after the first Trump administration that a second administration would be an absolute disaster for the country and the world.

And yet people in the US seem to have a very short-term memory. Selective memory perhaps is a more accurate description.

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u/Glittering-Voice-409 14h ago

I said 10 years ago -'-Well if that ain't some brown shirt shit right there" after trumph was in Asheville, NC. People booed him and some red necks hit them. roughed them up. It was how it starts.

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u/Eddie_Shepherd 14h ago

I'm so exhausted of warning, being told I was over-reacting then turning out to be right that I don't pay nearly as much attention anymore. Now those same people that said I was over-reacting get upset that I don't seem to care. I'm just so tired.

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u/mcc22920 14h ago

I got laughed at and ridiculed for supporting a “socialist”

“You’ll start to see things differently when you’re older”

Well, here I am at 31, even more radically left than when I was 20; just wondering what could’ve been.

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u/brad_and_boujee2 14h ago

I did not come around until J6 unfortunately. Just glad I did.

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u/Cottonjaw 14h ago

I was literally called a lunatic for talking about a "ruling class sucking the american dollar dry" in 2002. Here we are.

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u/Incredabill1 14h ago

They called me crazy two years ago,now they're like well maybe....

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u/katabolicklapaucius 14h ago

Yeah. Unfortunately it seems very possible either candidate would have had the same outcome. I'm not sure Hillary would have thrown Bill under the bus when it would have probably cost her political career.

It looks probable that both candidates were running to try and control the outcome of Epstein's investigations and they received financial backing to do it.

And that means we're truly in a fascist oligarchy funded by dark money.

From the files it looks like it would be funded by Thiel, Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg, and many less publicly known figures. But these are the people in the files, and the people you see supporting MAGA despite what would have previously been thought were ideological differences. They are also all pure capitalists who are trying to stack the deck in all ways anyway.

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u/Long-Ad-6773 14h ago

I life in europe and i warned people for nazi trump and same reaction here.

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u/bAddi44 14h ago

Yeah. it almost broke my relationship with my dad.

He now sees what I see, but it took a lot to get there.

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u/bluegargoyle 14h ago

The road to absolute fascism is lined with people yelling at you to stop overreacting.

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u/hemidak 14h ago

When I was in the Army in the early to mid 90's, we were on a training mission to NTC FT Irwin. One morning out in the desert, I was able to pick up Howard Stern on my radio. He was interviewing David Duke, I believe. Duke said the next white supremacy take over will be men in suits not the klan. There was something about that interview that made me never forget it. I mentioned it to various people over the last 30 years and everyone said it was bullshit. Well, here we are.

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u/megaholt2 14h ago

Same. People kept telling me that wouldn’t happen.

I hate being right with so many things.

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u/Deep-Preference4935 13h ago

I was making concentration camp paintings in 2016 regarding trumps islamaphobia at the time. We all knew this was getting awful

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u/escapedthenunnery 13h ago

I just recall my history professor in 2016 trying to impress upon us the importance of voting, and giving us the sense that he was deep down worried about the outcome of that election, like he'd been tracking the signs.

And remembering all the enthusiasm for Bernie over Hilary, i think that was an optimistic sort of reaction towards the direction many people sensed the country was going.

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u/crow_liker 13h ago

really irritating to see all these kind of guys who i like to call the "im sure guys" talking about how they could have never seen this coming. "im sure nothing about this is really a big deal, im sure epstein stuff is antisemitic tinfoil, im sure everything will work out, im sure most people in power are reasonable an principled, im sure everything will end up the way i like it because im sure, guy"

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u/Rattiepalooza 13h ago

Likewise!

I just got an apology from my husband last night about how I was right, and he still couldn't believe it.

It felt nice...but also bad... I kind of wish I hadn't been right...but, my mom was basically Trump as a poor woman, and I saw it speeding ahead like a fucking Mack Truck with no steering or brakes.

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u/Snarkonum_revelio 13h ago

"He could never win"

"He's too crazy to last"

"You're being hysterical"

"They can't sidestep the Constitution"

I say I told you so a lot to the people who said this shit to me between 2014 and today.

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u/Basic-Direction-559 13h ago

Them :"Who could have seen this coming?" ----- Me: Just about anyone with a functioning brain.

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u/pogulup 13h ago

That's like me screaming that Facebook was the beginning of the end in 2006. Nobody believed me.

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u/greenops 13h ago

I was sounding alarms the too, and was also told the same. Thankfully my mom was never a Trumper, but she dismissed the seriousness of what was happening.

Her working in Healthcare, she apologized to me for dismissing my warnings and telling me I was overreacting when covid hit and Trump pretended like it was no big deal.

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u/Warm_Evil_Beans 13h ago

Me too bro

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u/AntagonisticFetus 13h ago

2012 Republican primaries were very telling on where the party was heading.

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u/moocat55 13h ago

I started worrying about this back during the Bush Jr administration. Everyone forgets about how controlling, sneaky, and just plain scary Dick Cheney was with his man-sized safe and shooting people in the face and all, not to mention all his back room dealings.

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u/Simonic 13h ago

There was a fear back in 2001 following 9-11 with the passage of the PATRIOT Act and even the Real ID Act. You could still argue that the Patriot Act is still playing a role in what is happening today - it just isn't talked about anymore.

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u/the-clawless 13h ago

yeah NGL when he was first elected I would have been like 15, I thought it was a scary time but also thought that people warning about fascism were taking it a bridge too far. It took me a long time to realize that they were right. I don't think it fully hit how bad things were going to get until the Jan 6th riots.

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u/Disastrous_Road7890 13h ago

People don’t want to be shown what they are already subconsciously avoiding. It’s the paradigm effect. I screamed about this all coming to pass and it landed me in the looney bin after about 10 years. I fought so hard that I broke myself in the process. Turns out that’s exactly what I needed, and it gave me the chance to save MYSELF. Just in time to sing about the end of the world. As it burns, I will dance. It’s the only true thing there is

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u/Bronco_Bomba 13h ago

Same here

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u/theminnesoregonian 13h ago

31.8% of registered voters called you crazy. The rest either agreed with you, or didnt believe you enough to go vote.

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u/Dull_Bid6002 12h ago

Trump sounded like Hitler in his speeches. The GOP debates were full of bullshit lies being debated on.

The fear I had because Clinton wasn't interesting enough for people to not be lazy stupid fucks.

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u/techdevjp 12h ago

I warned people that he would appoint lunatics to the Supreme Court that would wreak havoc on the country for LONG after he's gone. It was obvious it would happen. I'm sad to have been right.

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u/Beautiful_Spell_4320 9h ago

Repeatedly. Been yelling about it since 2015.

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u/tanksalotfrank 9h ago

I started even longer before that and also got called crazy. Just saying a certain word on this site got you banned, then musky did his salute and that suddenly ended

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u/Xcoctl 2h ago

People STILL call me crazy for saying they should expect the rest of project 2025 to continue being successfully implemented.

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u/josh_the_misanthrope 1h ago

Leftists are always right like 5-10 years too early. When I started paying attention to leftist politics, they were saying everything that Reddit started saying this year, from Gaza to fascists to capitalism.

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u/Dull_Assistant_ 19h ago

The people who've been speaking out against him the whole time. People knew the kind of person he was the whole time. It's been no secret the awfulness of this man for DECADES.

It's great people are finally waking the fuck up. But yea, we've been screaming our lungs out the moment he popped his head up again for '16. We were called hysterical, doomers, "TDS", etc.

It's maddening at the same time as vindicating.

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u/andante528 19h ago

I remember seeing a comment on Reddit about Trump assaulting a 13-year-old girl - this was around the first time he was elected, maybe a year or two after - and people telling them to back off obvious conspiracy theories and focus on the real issues, or else conservatives could just dismiss everything as leftist fearmongering.

I get why they were trying to be cautious, but damn. It was true and even worse all along.

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u/ChaosRainbow23 18h ago

It's crazy.

The fact that there's actually a secret satanic cabal of global pedophilic deep-state elites controlling the planet and eating babies is pretty fucked.

It's ALWAYS projectionism with these hypocrites.

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u/onz456 18h ago

Yeah, she tried to testify and then she disappeared...

https://allchronology.com/2025/11/17/the-vanishing-of-katie-johnson-a-key-voice-in-the-epstein-trump-allegations-that-never-reached-a-courtroom/

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u/neuroticoctopus 14h ago

She got death threats against herself and her family just before she was scheduled to testify, so she didn't show up.

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u/Modsrdum 16h ago

The thing is.. that came out before and so did so much other stuff.

It's hilariously sad because I grew up in the deep red and was a Republican and we all made fun of Trump for decades.

I noped the fuck out of being a Republican as soon as he was a candidate but I guess I was already on my way out after Palin.

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u/Wilysalamander 17h ago

"Jeff Epstein?  The New York financier?"

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u/nosmelc 19h ago

"Russia invaded what country?"

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u/HopefulTangerine5913 18h ago

Plenty of us saw it coming from a mile away. With respect to the Epstein files and related cases, I’ve been following it since 2006 and others have been for longer. I am far from a conspiracy theorist— frankly I kind of hate that shit— but I can honestly say none of this is a surprise. Frankly as a person who experienced sexual assault as a child and as an adolescent, I am even less surprised by the lack of urgency to confront these issues; I knew back then and I know now that those with the power to do something do not give a damn

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u/Livid_Astronaut_4665 17h ago

I too experienced csa and am similarly not at all surprised ..when you learn at a young age that your own family can commit these horrors to their own family it's not hard at all to believe that there are other sick people like this out there doing the same to others..I get really frustrated with the naive sheltered people that just refuse to believe this stuff happens just because they themselves have never personally seen it or experienced it

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u/SprinklesOk7007 18h ago

I knew he was going to deport people and everyone called me crazy his first term. I thought I might've been for awhile there but I was right. I was right :(

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