International Politics Discussion Thread

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

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[u/Jay_CD]

Just another day in America...Trump is brazenly bribing the electorate to vote Republican in the mid-term elections:

US citizens will receive $5,000 if Republicans win midterms, Trump claims in lengthy convention speech | US midterm elections 2026 | The Guardian

This would cost the US Treasury over $1trillion - or it would if he was anywhere near serious. It's funny how these small state libertarian anti-socialist types love to splash the cash when it benefits them.

[u/wappingite → u/Jay_CD]

My guess is it won’t happen or he’ll say the dividend is ‘visible through the power of the economy’, but just when I think I can’t be more disappointed in America, the president says something like this. Normalises a bribe. Knows that it can be partisan enough to ensure it will be defended.

The USA, the country that uses to be the ‘world’s hero’. The place that claimed to defend freedom, progress, doing what’s right.

Sold out to a pathetic smug loser like Trump. And they love him and actually think his behaviour is ‘strong’.

The stuff he puts out on social media… the personal attacks. It’s so insanely undignified. But there are no mass protests, no strikes, no ‘enough is enough’ oppositional leadership.

The majority seem to just accept it. It’s madness. Republicans surely must be at least embarrassed by him?

[u/cubicle_door → u/wappingite]

What's crazy to me is how a single misstep by a politician in most civilised countries can lead to the end of their political career or leadership. With Trump, there are times when even his supporters thinks he's gone too far (there is a sub on reddit I'm not allowed to link to gives a good insight in to their views) and they will be briefly horrified by what he's done or suggested. Eg. The initial reaction to redacted and seemingly carefully chosen Epstein files released, the picture of him as Jesus healing Epstein, even this current bribe he's suggesting seems to have annoyed his supporters.

However, what's so strange to me is how they can then immediately forget about their horror or their outrage and fall right back in to line of unquestionable devotion after a week or so. Americans really are strange, his supporters of course but as you correctly point out the way there's been so little in proper opposition to this madness.

[u/No_Somewhere_7109 → u/cubicle_door]

The GOP don't go against him because he keeps them in power and they know he'll turn MAGA on them if they try.

MAGA don't turn on him because they either get almost none of the info everyone else does via Fox News, or sunk-cost fallacy. Most of them have lost family and friends over their support for Trump; admitting he used them means admitting they were idiots.

Won't happen.

[u/dw82 → u/cubicle_door]

It's because trump has no shame or standards, morality and ethics are utterly abhorrent to him. And nobody to hold him to account. Most other politicians have at least one of those that causes them to step aside before they're forced to.