#united states of shame

[learningfromlosing]

can't tell you how embarrassed I am to be american

[ravioliraz]

Really good article contextualizing how the republican administration is able to weaponize existing institutions to undermine democracy leading to an “competitive autocracy.”

Give it a read, we need to understand their playbook in order to resist effectively.

[filosofablogger]

NOT A Cause For Celebration Or Shootings!!!

Well, we survived another Fourth of July holiday … barely.  Frankly, I am determined to move before the next one, if I’m even still alive then, for the Fire Department was called to our apartment complex at least three times on the night of the fourth, one of the fires billowing smoke right at the edge of our backyard … way too close for comfort.  And the fireworks … not just sparklers and such,…

[humanconditionpoetry]

Recently Inaugurate:

T.W/Tags - This poem deals with the recent inauguration in US Politics 2025. If this is still a sensitive topic for you, please do not read. You have been warned! The poem also deals with some death themes(not overt), please also consider this warning!

Also it would be helpful if you guys let me know what you think of the poem as I just got feedback that this was bad poetry( I didn’t think it was that bad), but as you know not all writing is perfect. Thanks and have nice day or night wherever you are!

Recently Inaugurate:

Each day keeps getting worst

Each day feels like nightmare rehearsed

In November, it felt like there was still time

Time slips on by and now it is here with painful derives

Democracy has fallen…

But through the ashes, fires are starting to spring up like pollen

The government wants to remove humanity

But humanity will remain despite their calamity and vanity

They rhetoric screams Anti-Christ

Empathy and peace with anger becomes the entice

May mobs will come, civil war and revolution within sight

The rich dying with guns priced.

In the end, -

There will be a winner…

Many may not be there for the celebratory dinner

Through this ideology may forevermore plague…

History always finds a way.

People always find a say.

Once passed, people would no longer call it vague.

They will know who did it.

Who put us through it.

Not the president, but us.

It is one things to learn about it, another to experience it.

May this never come up again…

Hopefully two will be enough…

But who am I kidding, it will be many before the idea hits the dust.

Seal it in a coffin, learn about it through shifts, cracks and rocking.

Inaugurated - Donald J. Trump and JD Vance 2025, When American Politics took a Turn for the Worst.

Mark those words and watch as the history books unfurled.

[nikkalick]

I have chronic back pain, have for a while. It’s not so bad now that I had surgery, but I lived with it for years. I tried to go to a doctor for it, but they just said to lose weight, so I learned to live with the pain until one morning I couldn’t get up from bed. Couldn’t move without feeling like electricity was running up and down my back, burning my spine and leg from the inside.

This had me back in front of a doctor who (thankfully) listened and then for an entire year my insurance jerked me around requiring that I try different methods to manage the pain before finally agreeing to cover surgery.

In that year leading up to surgery something inside me broke. I couldn’t do the most basic tasks. Having to learn how to move my body in just the right way so that I wouldn’t lock up trying to wipe my own ass is one of my least favorite memories. Next to it is a tie between falling at my sister’s wedding because my leg gave out and being in so much pain I couldn’t sleep for days on end. I couldn’t sit, couldn’t drive, couldn’t bend or twist or even lay down without feeling like my nerves were on fire.

Work accommodated but I felt useless. I couldn’t lift inventory anymore. Couldn’t do a key part of my job that I (oddly) enjoyed doing. Commuting the hour to school twice a week was excruciating, but it was my first year of grad school. I had to push through. My professors were kind, they accommodated so that I could be as comfortable as possible in class. But I felt like a distraction, a nuisance, a bother. It was so hard to focus on lectures and homework when 90% of the input my brain was receiving was that of pain.

I grit my teeth and bore it, my mental health hit a new all time low, and I broke down in front my my mother more times than I can count. And I did this for a year because insurance refused to cover surgery unless I proved to them I needed it. I had to jump through their hoops and play by their rules to get the procedure I needed and that my care team knew I needed. I lost feeling in my leg and foot because they made me wait.

I will forever be grateful for the doctors who listened, for the physical therapist who advocated for me, for my mom who surprisingly became my rock during the whole ordeal. But my insurance company? They can go fuck themselves.

My pain before that year was bad, but not excruciating. My pain now? It’s minimal. Sometimes I still lock up and I’ll likely never have all of the sensation return to my left foot, but I’ll take the constant pins and needles over that year of pain any day. That said, had it gone on much longer I genuinely don’t know if I’d be here typing this.

Anyways…I guess what I’m saying is IF he did it, I get it. I really really get it.

[noaluvs]

The UN only benefits terrorists and terrorists supporters .

They don't give a 💩 about actual victims of terror !

They disgust me 🤬

[everswanafter]

me when i stubbed my toe on a chair leg earlier: “TABARNAK, TABARNAK!”

my lovely bestie amélie on ft w/me: …tu dis?

and then i had to explain to her how quebec french uses the names of holy items as swear words (sacres) due to the social control and influence of the catholic clergy in the 19th century being a source of frustration (which eventually led to the secularisation of our government a century later but i won’t go into that now) and how we’re never beating the passive aggressive/condescending allegations…(although i suppose i cheated the system by being canadian american)

[forthoseinterested]

The Trump appeal

What does anybody like about Donald Trump? It’s a question many people ask theirselves, and no answer comes to mind. But it’s something that for me has long seemed obvious. Either I’m wrong or everybody else just doesn’t get it. Let’s compare answers.

To be sure, Trump is somebody with almost no positive qualities. He’s not strong or intelligent, he’s not resilient or brave, he’s not inventive or aspiring. He has no respect for the law, for his country, for his oath of office. He looks and dresses like a clown. He barely won the presidency and was never popular with the American people. His administration was awash with crime and corruption and incompetence. His presidency was by all means a failure. The greatest myth about Donald Trump is that he’s wealthy and successful. He’s only wealthy. People don’t realize how much he inherited, nor how little he’s done with any of it, aside from every now and then trying to do his own thing and failing. If not for his rich father, none of us would have any idea who this person is, because by every measure but his bank account, he’s worthless.

And he lies. My goodness, he lies constantly, shamelessly. He doesn’t even care that we can tell he’s lying. If you prove he’s lying, he’ll just lie some more. He barely even tries. He’s not a clever manipulator. He’s not a mastermind. He just has no respect for the truth, so he lies brazenly to your face and expects that nobody is ever going to do anything about it. That probably gives us a small insight into the kind of sad, privileged upbringing he came from.

If all of this is true, then how could such a person have a cult of personality around him? How could such a person maintain a loyal following, such devotion from his followers, through thick and thin? Trump’s supporters don’t just think he’s a competent executive. They downright love the man. It’s almost sickening.

The only honest man in Washington

In the Danish folktale, The Emperor's New Clothes, a king is tricked by men who claim to be selling magical robes invisible only to those who are incompetent or stupid. Eventually everybody is playing along, pretending to see robes that aren’t there, each person believing they’re the only one who can’t see them. It takes the innocence of a child to blurt out that the king has no clothes for everybody to realize they’ve been had.

If you’re a politician or public figure, you’re expected to be polite and uncontroversial. It’s called being politically correct or something. For example, a politician might say “rural folks with little economic and education opportunities”, instead of “stupid hick fucks”. We try to phrase things sensitively, delicately, to avoid offending your own constituents. There are various notions of things that one should and shouldn’t say, if you’re trying to have broad appeal and be a uniting leader.

That’s what many people are sick of. They see it as a dishonest game that politicians all play together on stage, akin to the people who go along with the lie of the emperor’s robes. Trump, then, is the lone truth-teller, somebody who blurts out the truth that we all know, but nobody else is brave enough to say. So often when Trump is criticized for saying something that Mitt Romney would never, it’s actually an example of what his supporters consider his best quality.

Trump is, in short, the guy who says what we’re all thinking. That’s his power. That’s what people love about him.

Think about his various controversies. Early in his first campaign, people said John McCain was a war hero. Trump challenges this, saying he’s just called a war hero because he got captured. If you look into it, that’s sort of true. McCain was captured and tortured. He didn’t get called a hero because he ran bravely into battle and saved a bunch of people or something. He flew a plane in the Vietnam war, and his plane got shot down at some point and he was taken prisoner for 6 years.

Many people saw this as Trump being a disrespectful jackass. Others viewed it as Trump being defiant, irreverent, not playing into the politically correct game the media wanted him to play. Why does he need to give McCain some kind of deference or respect just because his plane got shot down? A lot of people watching thought to theirselves “hmm, good point actually”. They were happy to go along with that war hero narrative in the past, but Trump snapped them out of it by challenging the orthodoxy.

I remember when Trump made headlines by referring to a bunch of poor countries like Haiti as ‘shithole countries’. Polite society hissed, but people throughout the rest of society thought “well yeah, I mean, they are shithole countries”. Trump isn’t wrong—he’s just saying the thing you’re not supposed to say. How brave! And oh how honest of him!

In recent memory, during the 2024 race, Trump said he didn’t know Harris was black. He mispronounced her name. It turns out lots of people in the country also thought she was Indian or something, or weren’t sure what her ethnicity was, and despite her being vice president for the last four years, a lot of people were also mispronouncing her name. Trump tapped into the stupid zeitgeist. The crowd thinks it, Trump says it. The other politicians and newscaster know-it-alls are drinking their lattes, meanwhile Trump is on stage going “wait, muh-malla’s a black? .. person?”

Trump said he doesn’t like paying overtime. Years ago, he said he tries to get out of paying contractors. And he tries to get out of paying taxes as much as possible. For a lot of people, this is stuff all rich people think. Trump is the only one honest enough to say it out loud. So it’s actually to his credit that he does. Of course he’d like to pay people less, and pay less taxes. What’s the problem, news media? Don’t like someone who tells the truth?

Hey, remember when John Dingall died and Trump joked about how he’s in hell now? Funny, speaking his mind even when it might be shocking. Do you remember that time he made fun of a disabled reporter? That’s right, he doesn’t give a shit. Remember all those times he referred to the press as the enemy of the people and called CNN fake news? That’s right, he stands up for himself, even when the media doesn’t like it. Remember that time he made fun of Chris Christie for being fat (even though he’s also fat) and called Ted Cruz’s wife ugly? He’s not afraid of the establishment politicians. Hey, remember when the Access Hollywood tape came out and Trump says he just walks up to women and grabs them because they’ll let him if they know you’re a big star? That’s our Trump—tellin’ it like it is.

As soon as you start thinking about it this way, everything clicks into place.

High class, but low class

Who first said Trump is a poor man’s idea of a rich man? No, wait, was it a dumb person’s idea of a smart person? No, that can’t be right. ... I just looked it up, and apparently the origin is disputed, so whatever. The point is that Trump is, indeed, a special kind of rich person. He’s not like those other rich people. He’s not refined or highly educated, he has no appreciation for art, or really anything deep, meaningful, or challenging. He’s tacky, classless, he has no taste. He covers things in gold because he thinks gold is what rich people are supposed to like. His favourite food is McDonalds. He orders his steak well-done and puts ketchup on it. He doesn’t use big words. He talks like an idiot. Hell, he even types like an idiot (or gets other people to type like an idiot for him). Bill Burr once said he likes George Bush because he makes him feel like he could be president too. In the same way, Donald Trump makes people feel like they could be billionaires. Because why not? If this fucking imbecile ended up rich, why not you?

In a twisted way, I think Trump has a mind closer to the working poor than the mind of other billionaires. Think about it like this: if you gave some random truck driver billions of dollars out of the blue, what would they do with it? They might immediately go grocery shopping. Buy a house, a car? Go to the doctor? But after all of those immediate things come to mind, how would their life end up like, if they didn’t run out of money? I’m sure some poor people would end up pursuing something spiritually enriching and meaningful, giving to charity, travelling the world, surfing, trying new things, playing with cheetahs or something.

But people who are particularly shallow, with closed minds and no curiosity about the world? They would probably end up a lot like Trump. He basically just lives in hotels and eats fast food and plays golf. His biggest goal for a long time was trying to get himself on television because he wanted attention and fame and recognition. He kept throwing some of his money at business ventures that would fail and were just an excuse to plaster his name on stuff because he wants to feel like he did something. He goes around perving on little girls and married some random trophy-wife model and paid to have sex with porn stars. Every so often he would go on TV and self-importantly ramble about topics he knows nothing about, but some reporter would talk to him like he’s important because they know he’s rich.

Trump and a lot of random guys in society are on the same wavelength. Trump thinks the way they do. That’s why all the stupid, ugly things he blurts out are appealing to them, and they think of him as ‘their guy’ despite the fact they know he’s a billionaire. Because he’s kind of like how they’d be if they were billionaires too. He’s high class, but he’s low class.

I wonder, is the future of politicians just going to be simple-minded people blurting out every dumb thought that comes to mind, hoping to channel the spirit of the masses like how Trump did? Let’s pray.

[hey-heigo]

was talking about this earlier but i really do wish that like. character plush and toy culture for adults wasn't just limited exclusively to niche stuff made by smaller creators or fanmerch that is usually only shipped from overseas and then upmarked. i want a build-a-bear for ocs...like a shop you go in and pick out a base and eyes and hair etc picrew style or whatever and then bam you get your special guy. pick out an outfit and accessories or sew one yourself. this isn't even a revolutionary idea they already have these in china and japan and such. western adult plush culture is falling behind

[happynowblog]

[arctic-hands]

I want

Spaghetti and garlic bread

I have

celiac ☹️

[schlock-luster-video]

On September 24, 2004, A Dirty Shame debuted in the United States.

Here's some new Johnny Knoxville art!

[reyalvr]

it just irks me the way ppl write some of the avatar characters ... in what universe is neteyam calling u a whore LIKE BE SERIOUS ?!@#$%

[bloodycoolfrye]

The Muslim Ummah shouldn't help genocide be carried out by the Zionists😡

لَّا يَتَّخِذِ ٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ ٱلْكَـٰفِرِينَ أَوْلِيَآءَ مِن دُونِ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ ۖ وَمَن يَفْعَلْ ذَٰلِكَ فَلَيْسَ مِنَ ٱللَّهِ فِى شَىْءٍ إِلَّآ أَن تَتَّقُوا۟ مِنْهُمْ تُقَاةً ۗ وَيُحَذِّرُكُمُ ٱللَّهُ نَفْسَهُۥ ۗ وَإِلَى ٱللَّهِ ٱلْمَصِيرُ ٢٨

The believers may not take the unbelievers for their allies in preference to those who believe. Whoever does this has nothing to do with Allah unless he does so in order to protect himself from their wrong-doing. Allah warns you to beware of Him for it is to Allah that you will return. (3:28)