Oh ok I didn't follow it that closely of course but that part didn't make it into the news here. He did complain about the trade imbalance but not specifically tariffs.
Ps: there isn't really a trade imbalance if you take services into accounts but Trump calculated them only on goods as if that makes sense
I don't think that would have resonated with his followers at all though.
This kind of thing is not new. In 1998 I worked for a large corporation (I think they were an F100 at the time) that built machines with a feature that could only be enabled if the customer paid an extra fee and had a field technician come out to "install" it.
Unknown to the customer was that all machines were identical. The technician's "installation procedure" was to enter the Service Mode password, select the feature enable option, and exit Service Mode then run a test to make sure it worked.
This is pretty common in commercial/industrial manufacturing. The exception cost to omit certain hardware subsystems when building a product is often higher than the cost of the hardware itself, so it makes more sense to build everything identically and enable/disable features in software.
I think what op is getting at is that "no politics" rule is what allowed the frog to boil. So banning political discussion is political in and of itself.
I'd agree with your no politics preference if we were in a functioning society that wasn't actively spiralling towards fascism. I recognize that this line is blurry, and that's exactly the reason why no politics zones exist, there is always someone yelling about fascism. He might be a crazy guy on the corner who yells about everything.
I think the difference here is that there is a big critical mass of people who have recognized that the pillars on which our country sit are being actively sabotaged. It's not that everyone wants to be talking about politics all of a sudden, it's that the frog is finally boiling.
> I think what op is getting at is that "no politics" rule is what allowed the frog to boil.
But this simply isn't the case. The fact that "no politics" zones exist is a response to the fact that politics is everywhere else.
People here aren't blissfully unaware, they're just tired of it and many realize that arguing about it on the internet won't accomplish anything other than wasting time. As I sit here writing this, I'm thinking that I'm probably wasting my time.
We all have this idea in our head that if people are confronted with enough evidence, they'll change their minds. But that doesn't happen. People rationalize.
My goodness, people attack RFK Jr non-stop simply because he's part of the Trump administration and all he's done for his entire life is try to help the country be healthier. Every point he's made, every plan he's had and every policy he has advocated for have been totally logically sound. There's been nothing extreme in any of it. Every young parent I know is so relieved with what he's doing and frustrated that it took so long to do what seemed obvious.
But it's not that. It's inflammatory headline after inflammatory headline. It's putting words in his mouth, saying things he didn't say, making statements he didn't make, berating him in front of Congress for click bait video nonsense reading from a script.
It's exhausting. We're all tired of it. If you show me something that you think will convince me of something, I will look at it. And then I will look deeper. I will look to see if any information has been left out. I will look to see if editing has happened.
Because almost every time I invest the time to look into something, I find that it's exaggerated internet nonsense that only plays well in echo chambers. When you do that enough times, your skepticism meter goes to 11.
>people attack RFK Jr non-stop simply because he's part of the Trump administration and all he's done for his entire life is try to help the country be healthier.
My man, the dude is a former heroin addict that has admitted to eating roadkill. He's pushed the vaccines cause Autism narrative.
Trying to make the country healthier while taking huge gifts from lobbyists who work for industrial scale meat producers? Come on.
Correct, Iran shouldn't fund Hamas. I don't pay taxes in Iran, I am not a member of their society.
I'm American. I pay taxes in the US. I could do some math and figure out how many deaths of innocent kids I've directly funded, how many Palestinian families I've helped displace. I get to live with that knowledge.
I'm not funding Hamas terrorist attacks, but I am funding a genocide.
People around the world don't pay taxes to the United States yet protest its actions even when their country isn’t involved. There's no reason you can't do the same.
You're taking the easy way out here instead of engaging with the world head on. You don't want to criticize Iran because you don't live there, yet their actions helped Hamas kill like around 2,000 other innocent people. But you're silent because you don't live there? Are you also silent on Russia invading Ukraine since you don't live in either country? Give me a break. What you and others who have made similar claims have presented are really bad, isolationist-style arguments.
Iran's government is rogue and I don't support them in any sense. They are committing crimes against their own people and funding terrorism elsewhere. The world would be better off if there was a different regime. Therefore, the US should stop selling them weapons, sharing intelligence, and sending them aid. Oh wait...
> Iran's government is rogue and I don't support them in any sense. They are committing crimes against their own people and funding terrorism elsewhere. The world would be better off if there was a different regime.
Yes you got that right.
It's interesting how you just can't leave it at that. Any criticism of a country besides Israel or the United States has to be couched in sarcasm or outright refusal to criticize other belligerents. It's tribalism. And so you can't get mad at other tribes for being tribal too.
It's crazy to me that "no politics" arguments are still getting flung around. This is so far beyond political at this point. Citizens being murdered by masked men with total immunity? What the fuck has our country come to.
He already has talked about cancelling the election. What happens when he declares a state of emergency to cancel the 2026 midterms - is that political? Are we allowed to discuss it? The effective end of the United States, but whatever, get back to the code mines, the VCs need those returns.
Just an absolutely crazy situation we are in right now.
People are fleeing to gold.
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