Deservedly or not, Harvard is the premiere research institution in the US, internationally renowned, magnificently endowed, so it’s shocking that Trump is demolishing our research capabilities nationwide.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences slashed the number of Ph.D. student admissions slots for the Science division by more than 75 percent and for the Arts & Humanities division by about 60 percent for the next two years.
The scale of reductions in the Social Science division was not immediately clear, though several departments in the division experienced decreases over the coming two years ranging from 50 percent to 70 percent.
We’re used to thinking that STEM departments are safe…but no more.
The Organismic and Evolutionary Biology department will shrink its class size by roughly 75 percent to three new Ph.D. students, according to two professors. Molecular and Cellular Biology will reduce its figure to four new students, and Chemistry and Chemical Biology will go down to four or five admits, one of the professors added.
The reduction in admissions slots puts a figure to FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra’s announcement in late September that the school would be admitting Ph.D. students at “significantly reduced levels.” Hoekstra cited uncertainty around research funding and an increase to the endowment tax — which could cost Harvard $300 million per year — as sources of financial pressure.
This isn’t just Harvard — universities across the country are tightening their belts to the point that whole disciplines are getting chopped. How do we recover from this?
All Trump knows how to do is destroy, just like he’s demolishing the east wing of the White House.
That’s symbolic of how this administration will be seen by history: a flag waving over a wrecking crew.
Trump has made “America”* .. a dictatorship. Not great. Backwards, broken in so many ways.
I fear it is now too late and the USA as we used to know it is gone.
With all that implies for the rest of our planet.
Those who didn’t vote for Kamala have done far more damage than I think most of them yet realise. Musk too maybe.
I don’t want to give in to defeatism but coming out of this and stopping and removing Trump and the Project2025 fascist crew now.. well, how and with what damage already done?
.* United States thereof.
At least Nero had the good grace to wait for one of Rome’s many great fires before building his domus aureus slap bang in the centre of the city.
Flee! Flee to Canada, Americans – the whole city is becoming a single house!
@2 cartomancer
That’d be “domus aurea”, or more correctly within your sentence the accusative “domum auream”. Now paint that on the walls 100 times!
Trump has that simple minded dictator thought pattern of wanting Harvard to be a top level research institute and only produce answers that he wants to hear. It’s very much a doublethink situation, where he offers them big funding but only if they promise the research will produce the answers he approves.
I’ve posted this half a dozen times but it is still true.
If you’ve read it before, good and skip it. There is a link to the original source which is written for a general audience.
Importance of science to the USA
Once again, it is time to point out that science is the leading driver of our civilization and responsible for the USA’s leading (don’t laugh, it was true up until January) position in the world.
Attacking science is like attacking your own feet and hands. It is national self harm.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.342.6160.817
If we stopped spending public money on science, in the short term nothing would happen.
The payoffs from science can be short term but most are long term.
In the long term, we would just fall further and further behind the rest of the world.
Another repeated comment.
Why Nations Fail Book Review
The USA is also now on the road to failure.
Just getting started.
With 346 million people and the world’s largest economy, we have a lot of momentum. It will take years and decades to show up.
It took Bush 8 years to wreck the US economy and it took Obama 4 years to fix it.
And here is why.
In 2012, this book, Why Nations Fail, came out.
It 2014 the authors won the Nobel prize in economics.
You need three conditions to succeed rather than fail.
.1. A strong central government.
.2. Taxes at least 10% of GDP.
.3. Rule of Law. A level playing field.
We in the USA have lost Rule of Law and Due Process.
Without that, societies end up being ruled by monopolies and oligarchies.
They get stagnant and go nowhere because the ruling class is more interested in keeping their power and money than the well being of the masses.
This is a key reason why the Third World is…The Third World.
Wikipedia: Why Nations Fail
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, first published in 2012, is a book by economists Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, who jointly received the 2024 Nobel Economics Prize (alongside Simon Johnson) for their contribution in comparative studies of prosperity between nations.[1][2] The book applies insights from institutional economics, development economics, and economic history to understand why nations develop differently, with some succeeding in the accumulation of power and prosperity and others failing, according to a wide range of historical case studies.
While I fully accept that I misgendered the noun domus (for which I shall decimate myself later as punishment), the general protocol for translating is to use the orthographic and grammar rules of the target language, and English does not (for the most part) have an accusative case. Otherwise we’d be going round saying “hail Caesarem” and other such awkwardness.
On the other hand, a concerted effort to paint what remains of the White House with “Romani ite domum” might work wonders…
I’m going to amplify that last point in comment #9, Why Nations Fail.
What the USA has lost since Trump became president in January is Rule of Law and the associated Due Process.
This isn’t optional if you want to have a successful society.
Rule of Law protects innovators and allows for upward mobility.
Without Rule of Law you end up with entrenched, heavily intermarried oligarchies and monopolies. If anyone starts a company which challenges one of the oligarchy’s companies, they get bought out, coopted, or destroyed.
The rich people at the top of the society accumulate more and more power and money while the rest of the society is stagnant and gets poorer.
Winners and losers in the economy don’t appear based on merit. They get picked by the government based on bribes, corruption, nepotism, and favors. You see that with the tariffs.
There are a huge number of exemptions to the tariffs and bribing Trump like Apple did is one way to get them.
An oligarchy is the opposite of a meritocracy.
And, the USA has lost most of its Rule of Law.
A few examples.
.1. ICE are poorly trained, heavily armed right wing thugs. Their main purpose isn’t even immigration enforcement. It is to terrorize the US population.
They violate the law every day without thinking twice about it.
People including US citizens are getting disappeared.
.2. Trump is bailing our Argentina and US Hedge funds with $40 billion.
Who authorized that? No one. Spending is the right of congress.
Argentina is irrelevant to the USA, a perennial failure no matter what anyone does.
Why is it we have $40 billion to bail out Argentina but cut money for healthcare and science?
.3 The tariffs are arbitrary and exemptions are everywhere depending on who you know and who you bribe.
.4. Who gets TikTok? Some friends of Trump.
.5. Want to get out of prison? If you are a Republican it is easy to get a pardon.
This destruction of the Whitehouse is just one more example. It is illegal on many levels and yet it will be done in two more days.
The USA is on the way to being a mediocre has been country and these are the reasons why.
We have a lot of momentum so it will take a while but it will happen.
That photo of the destruction at the White House is the perfect visual metaphor for what Trump and his accomplices are doing to America. To say I’m pissed off is putting it mildly.
I am not truly shocked by much these days but, FUCK ME, how could a demolition crew be hired to knock down the East Wing of the White House and
A) Nobody appeared to have a clue it was going to happen
B) Paintings, furniture, etc must have been moved out over a period of weeks in advance
C) The demolition crew started munching away at the building
and
D) Nobody in the entire FUCKING country has any means, balls or authority to stop it! (P.S. Too late, it’s gone.)
I mean, not to get wound up or anything but What the Actual Fuck is going on?
Total silence from the media (to be expected; it’s dead) Total silence from Congress. Total silence from the Courts. So, I guess we’re at the Who Cares Anymore, Just Burn It All Down stage.
@ 1 StevoR
FTFY.
I’ve been reading various books on Wold War II and the contrast between Churchill and Hitler regarding the truth and loyalty. Churchill was well aware that people would want to tell the Chief the things he most likes to hear so that could lead to an outlook far more sanguine than the brutal facts allow. Hitler, by contrast, wanted people whose loyalty lay in never contradicting him.
@StevoR #1
-sigh-, ok, I’ll take the bait.
Trump didn’t come out from nowhere.
The condition that made the USA (and pretty much all “western” democracies) ripe for fascism didn’t come out from nowhere, and have been championed by both parties.
Voting, important as it is, would have only slowed down this.
You already got what you wanted, when people voted for Biden.
You successfully slowed down fascism* by four years.
And this is a good thing.
But you didn’t stop it.
Voting does not stop fascism.
So yes do vote, but stop obsessing over it and start thinking about alternative ways of repairing your society.
If you need an example, I’d throw in community building and joining local groups.
Fascism at home for white cis people. Fascism for people abroad, for Blacks and trans people went ahead as normal.
Sure, True.
Good question.
Who could have stopped this?
.1. Almost all of us who live here couldn’t have stopped it even if we had advance warning.
I couldn’t.
One old Boomer person on the West coast a few miles from the Pacific ocean.
Almost all of the 347 million people in the USA can say the same thing.
.2. So who could have stopped this?
It would have to be an organization with power equivalent to the US president.
That really leaves the US congress and the US courts.
I wouldn’t want to be the company that is tearing down the Whitehouse though.
For the record it is ACECO, a Maryland-based demolition contractor. ACECO is a subcontractor The general contractor for the project is Clark Construction, based in McLean.
If you look at who owns ACECO and Clark Construction, they will probably be raging MAGA cultists or outright Nazis.
This country has gone to shit and I’m actively rooting for its downfall and for the prosperity of its enemies. If, for instance, China takes Taiwan in the few years, I will publicly praise China.
The entire place was built on a foundation of bullshit. There were never truly any guardrails to prevent a dictatorship. Trump is just exposing the country for what it always was — a den of the wealthy thieves.
@14 raven
There are several answers.
1) The US Congress. The House of Representatives managed to impeach T-Rump twice during his first term, but the Republicans in the Senate couldn’t bring themselves to convict because they placed party over country. In the present term, Congress could have retracted the emergency powers being cited to issue tariffs, etc. or at least passed resolution clarifying that they do not consider the current use to be justified under current law. They have not done so because the Republicans have majorities in both houses and are putting party above country.
2) The US Courts. Most especially the Supreme Court, who decided in Trump’s favor several times. For example, deciding that the 14th amendment doesn’t say what it clearly says. Also, allowing geryymandering, bribery, etc.
3) The US population, who elected those cowards in (1); although distorted by gerrymandering (2)
Some people here probably know about Robert Arnold, and in fact PZ may have already linked to him. But if you don’t know him, he’s really worth listening to: https://www.youtube.com/@Defiance13
Walter Solomon: you’re going to cheer on crimes by other people because the US has bad governance?
How does that make sense in your mind? Makes as much sense as invading Iraq because a government-linked in Afghanistan attacked the US.
I can’t blame anyone for cheering on the fall of the US after all its done, but I don’t see the point in praising other countries unless you’re worried about getting disappeared by their secret police. I only respect China in the sense that I respect fire and electricity: It’s dangerous if not handled carefully.
… a flag waving over a wrecking crew.
Two flags, actually.
The national one is politically mandatory (though arguably redundant what with the two oversized poles Trump had emplaced this summer) – but the black one (as shown above) is purely partisan.
USAnians will recognize it as the “POW/MIA” flag, showing the silhouette of a clearly Caucasian man under a watch tower, purportedly signifying the troops taken captive after misadventures abroad. SFAIK, no American troops have been held anywhere since the last one was released in Afghanistan in 2014, but “patriots” have continued to fly it nonstop (including multiple state agencies here in Florida – especially, and ironically, the prison system).
It became popular, particularly among Republicans, at the end of the war on Vietnam, mostly as a way to distract attention from US atrocities and defeat, but also as an attention-grabber by/for billionaire Ross Perot in preparation for his later presidential campaign. The whole “Prisoner of War/Missing in Action” crusade allowed the US to pretend it was the victim, starting in the ’70s, rather than having to deal with its own vast crimes; so far as I can tell, it serves the same purpose over half a century later. Our victim complex has now grown to pathological and fascistic proportions, unchallenged by politicians and the grassroots alike, and carefully cultivated by the incumbent whiner-in-chief.
Yeah, rooting for other bad countries because the USA is bad is one of the most foolish things I can think of.
@ 20 Pierce R. Butler
Well I’ll be darned. Ya learn something new every day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POW/MIA_flag
Re: the White House destruction, to me it shows that the US tragically has a president who doesn’t know or care about the many differences between being an elected official and being a rich real estate developer. He regards the whole government, heck the whole country, as his own corporation to run however he pleases – and the rest of the government is letting him get away with it. The thing about “checks and balances” is that it assumes that at least a majority of the government’s branches are being run by responsible people who care about good governance. That is no longer the case. I don’t know if any political system can work well if the majority of the people running it are corrupt opportunists and their lackeys.
211 years after the British Army burned down the white house, Trump finishes the job?
numerobis
You don’t think it would hurt the US if China takes Taiwan because the US sure thinks so. Why else would the US promise to intervene if China ever invaded Taiwan — out of the kindness of its heart?
And as I said, I’m rooting for the downfall of the US. So, yes, it makes plenty of sense.
@rsmith #24:
At least the British soldiers who raided the White House got to eat a hot meal off the president’s table before they trashed the place. The construction company tearing it down today are not going to get a free meal from Trump and he will, going by prior behaviour, most likely refuse to pay them without first being dragged through the courts he now owns..
@Rich Woods $26:
If those builders are smart, they would have insisted on payment up-front.
Meta-grift:
Website that promised to unmask Charlie Kirk critics took thousands after he died – then disappeared, report says
They have just opened drilling in the Arctic Wildlife refuge.
You’d think Canada would take advantage of this by scooping up all the bright students who can’t get into the American universities, but our government clamped down so hard on the issuance of student visas that colleges are undergoing massive cuts (because we depended on that out-of-province tuition).
I wish that the USA would be able to do all this self destruction without bringing down all its neighbours….
To add to what a few others have noted about the collapse of the country:
You have to recognize this as a long term project by a collection of oligarchs that have managed to consolidate power slowly over the last 50 or so years. They started with media and creating “wedge” issues to divide voters over time. They developed a subservient class of lawyers and judges through the Federalist society, and used the cover created by their media operations to hide the true purpose of this. They co-opted Christian churches that should have known better by giving them visibility (but essentially no power) within the movement. They generated a fake economic theory (supply side) to justify cutting back on the government’s ability to regulate their own power. This all accelerated with the power of the world wide web and social media, but it didn’t start there. Anyone that thinks that this is a recent phenomenon around Trump is missing the big picture. Trump is certainly the logical end point, but he is just basically the perfect puppet. To stupid to know how stupid he is. Born rich and used to letting other people do the actual work of business all around him but acting as the figurehead because that’s been how he has always worked.
canadiansteve, you write as though the voters themselves were blameless.
“They started with media and creating “wedge” issues to divide voters over time.”
That’s called ‘politics’.
Point being, sustainable, good democracy relies on an informed electorate.
Over to John Adams: (https://www.civiced.org/quotations-about-democracy)
“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right … and a desire to know.”
—John Adams, 1765
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
—John Adams
“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right … and a desire to know.”
—John Adams, 1765
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
—John Adams
[oops, sorry for the double-tap]
@11. Silentbob :
No, you broke it. That was correct the first time around exactly as I wrote it.
The ONLY way to prevent Trump’s Fascism at the ballot box was to vote for Kamala Harris.
Voting for anyone other than Kamala Harris – the ONLY genuine, real world alternative to Trump – helped Trump gain power.
I’ve explained this many times here. I’ve asked you before and will keep asking what part of that do you fail to understand?
Your refusal to answer that question* Silentbob – & beholder – speaks volumes in itself and leads me to think you are NOT engaging in honest good faith here. You can’t say you weren’t told or warned pre-election. Some of us, me included tried really hard.
Not voting helped Trump. Trump voters helped Trump and, yes, third party spoiler voters who voted for Stein and West de facto, in effect, in reality helped Trump. That’s basic, inarguable fact.
Which, I guess, is why you refuse to actually put forward any actual argument against it because there simply isn’t one.
.* Among many other questions you consistently fail to engage with and answer.
@rsmith #27:
And Trump would have replied they were being unpatriotic and that he was giving them a great opportunity to build something historic and world-famous, then moved on to the next company if they didn’t fold.
StevoR, in most browsers you can select the source code thus (I use firefox, but other browsers can also do it similarly, if slightly differently):
1. Select text
2. Right-click selection → View Page Source
3. Source opens with selection highlighted → Ctrl+C
In mycase, it preserves the strikethrough and yields:
(Good response, BTW, Pawadan)
[may I wax sardonic?]
Rich Woods @35, that was in days of yore.
Now, Trump can sic the DOJ on them.
He’s more puissant.
And… he’s got form.
He loses the case? ah well, taxpayers paid for it.
cf. https://www.notus.org/courts/trump-legal-strategy-doj
He “wins” the case? He doesn’t have to pay them, they have to pay him.
cf. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/10/21/donald-trump-justice-department-russia-classified-documents/86823594007/
(Cue lawyers rubbing their hands; they can’t lose, both sides get paid)
[also, terminology: premiere vs premier; one is a first event, the other is the main event]
@34 StevoR
I’m mostly in agreement with your general sentiment, although I would argue that critisizing “your side” is almost always appropriate. The moral imperative of voting for the lesser evil should not preclude aknowledging and crtisizing their evilness, however lesser.
But if you mean your statement to be an actual numerical claim, then it’s incorrect.
There were only two states, that would’ve flipped if ALL third-party voters had voted for Harris: Wiskonsin and Michigan with 25 EC votes combined. That would’ve shifted the outcome to 287:251. Trump still would’ve won.
Trump throws hissy-fit, punishes Canada for accurately quoting Ronald Reagan
Also like the White House demolition the damage is not repairable even with party change.
The American Century is over.
@31
Which is of course why virtually every single business he has ever run has gone flipping bankrupt – even corporations have boards of directors, who can fire the idiot at the top, if/when they start running the company into the ground. And.. kind of like a state, the people (i.e. everyone working for the company) may be given the fiction of being able to vote, even if its a “yes or no”, on who gets picked, while 90% of them have no f-ing clue who they are saying yes or no to, what they qualifications actually are, or if they would be good for the long term wellbeing of either themselves, or the company (because, unlike the president, they don’t even campaign really, and just like the president, they are chosen by the company as a candidate, not out of the general population, by the actual people).
But, yeah, its hardly a surprise that a man that has no bloody clue, at all, how to run a successful business, and thinks they should be run as a dictatorship, believes that is how a national government should work as well. My only wonder is when he will get super confused that there is no court he can declare bankruptcy to, when he finally realizes its all crashing down, and no one he can, technically, legally sell it to, to escape with his pockets lined with cash, when he needs to get out. Because, we all know, this is always his, and people like him, exit strategy when they fuck something up.
Is he dead yet?
#15
Even if they publicly (or privately) execute members of the DPP?
David Heddle@44:
Innocent people may die, but that’s a sacrifice “Walter” is willing to make. As long as the US is inconvenienced, nothing else matters to him.
Not to worry, Trump just announced the new ballroom replacing the East Wing will include a 24-hour MacDonalds.
@John Morales #32
Not at all, I just pointed this out because anyone that thinks this is only about the last decade is missing the forest for the tree.
Maybe outcomes such as now were not happening 10 years ago, but “Donald Trump ran a successful campaign for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He formally announced his campaign on June 16, 2015, at Trump Tower in New York City, initially battling for the Republican Party’s nomination.”
That’s over 10 years ago.
This is the Trump era, where Congress and the High Court and Congress all become enablers and let him get away with shit.
Not Nixon, not Reagain. Trump.
[oops… citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_2016_presidential_campaign ]
@47. canadiansteve : “Not at all, I just pointed this out because anyone that thinks this is only about the last decade is missing the forest for the tree.”
Its only been this last decade and only under Trump that the SCOTUS has been so blatantly rigged and Congress been so useless and irrationally hopeless partisan and captured as to be impotent that we have a POTUS – & worse shadow POTUS Miller – with such utterly unchecked and unbalanced (both senses of word) power.
Can you think of any previous American Congress and previous SCOTUS that would so surrender themselves and capitulate to the wishes to any previous POTUS? I can’t. Of c I’m an Aussie but one who has followed US politics and history quite a lot for quite awhile albeit self-taught.
Hate to use an ancient Roman analogy but doesn’t this seem a lot like the Roman senate under Tiberious and Caligula, those first Caesers now?
GOD DAMN this is the Eve of Destruction. I don’t know how the Yanks sleep at night – perhaps it is during the daylight hours when that pesky sun is in the sky.
There are minimal inconveniences when your Lord and Master, HE WHO SHALL ALWAYS LIVE IN CAPS, runs momentarily amok, but that prick – and the term is used in a minimalist way – has killed a cultural touchstone of your zeitgeist, the theatre in the White House.
You are all so damaged by association with this “person{.
Remember, this too shall pass.
Musical break:
[obs, credit to WhiteHatLurker. shoulda have made note of it, thus this addendum]
@50 StevoR
Dubya, particularly post-9/11 Dubya. (You don’t remember Dubya, Stevo?) Also FDR’s first 100 days in office in 1933.
@31 canadiansteve
Trump is at the helm of a project that’s been planned for a long time. Not planned for him specifically — he just happened to be there when the opportunity presented itself. This is a nominally “democratic” capitalist society so strained by social inequality and financial parasitism that it becomes incompatible with democratic rule. Our rulers overwhelmingly plan to stick with capitalism, so a dictatorship is the logical outcome.
beholder, dictatorship can be of many varieties. What Trump is doing is the true affinity of capitalism:
With some variations, such a Nazi-style merger of fascism and generally conservatism with capitalism to form compounded fascist-conservative-capitalist dictatorship typifies all societies and periods in which the ‘broad coalition of the right’, notably the ‘broader family of authoritarian rightists’, prevails or resurges via conservative movements, counterrevolutions and regimes.
They include interwar Austria, Italy, Spain and other Europe—again in the first two at present, along with some others like Hungary and Poland—America during McCarthyism, its sequel Reaganism and post-2016, Great Britain under Thatcherism and during Brexit, most of Latin America like Pinochet’s Chile over the 1970–80s and déjà vu Brazil and Colombia recently.
For example, conservative-fascist regimes in Italy and Spain reportedly represented capitalist economic-corporate dictatorships as anti-liberal regimes, with the first being a ‘key empirical example of totalitarianism’ and thus equivalent to Nazi Germany, and the second of ‘authoritarianism’ (Riley 2005; Riley and Fernández 2014).
Nazism and fascism overall arose, as its adherent proclaimed or implied, both as the ‘new’, ‘true’ conservatism and so anti-liberalism and as the disguised, slightly modified ideological and political defense of capitalism, as Hitler, Mussolini and most other fascist leaders and rank-and-file declared and acted, against communism or socialism.
They thereby contradicted and revealed ‘National Socialist’ and similar labels as Machiavellian deceptions or delusions, coupled with the Nazi and fascist systematic persecution and suppression of traditional German and other socialists or social-democrats (Barnett and Woywode 2004; Burawoy 2005; Blinkhorn 2003).
(https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1056&context=ji)
—
StevoR is of course correct; you attempted to widen the margin between Harris and Trump during the last election, and fulminated at the Democratic party. The outcome is, well, evident.
@54 beholder
This is pretty much a shorter version of what I said above.
@StevoR and John Morales
Yes, it is the era of Trump, but you didn’t get here suddenly in 2016. If there’s a chance of saving the USA then it will have to include not just fixing the immediate problems of Trump, SCOTUS etc, but the structural problems that led to this point. Your country is on fire – you better put the fire out, but don’t forget to remove all the flammables next to the open flame when you’ve got this fire under control.
@54. Dishonest Trump enabling troll : “Dubya, particularly post-9/11 Dubya. (You don’t remember Dubya, Stevo?) Also FDR’s first 100 days in office in 1933.”
FDR? Nah.
Not remotely given that historical era vs this one.
Yes, Of c I remember Dubya. Put in power by another third party spoiler when Al Gore really should have and might indeed have won. Also thanks EC and Jeb! (please clap.. anyone remember him? I do..Still woulda been bettrer than Trump) but esp thanks Nader. (He really, really should NOT have.)
But no, Congress then and SCOTUS especially wasn’t rigged by him nor did Bush the Lesser try to be, y’know an actual fucking dictator like Trump now is. Thanks to the likes of you & the rest of the Pu(t)ri(di)ty Disunity mob. Dubya for all his evil & war crimes re :Iraq was no Trump. Nor did have have a totally rigged and treasonous SCOTUS that got passed Congress by lying in their confirmation hearings.
PS. Also at the dishonest bad faith troll (#54) here :
Australia is capitalist but NOT a dictatorship. Same for Aotearoa, Canada, Briatin, Germany, France, Brazil, Japan, et ecetera.. They may may not have govts that you tankie troll like (where actually does troll – Putin’s Russia?) – but they aint dictatorships.
So NO.
Dictatorship is NOT the logical outcoem of Capitalism. Dunno why you’d think so.
Even the PRC is actually in essence Capitalist now so.. yeah.
PPS. Yes, it is the era of Trump, but you didn’t get here suddenly in 2016.
Another way of you the dishonest troll denying reality here.
No POTUS has been as bad as Trump – not as openly blatantly corrupt and evil and contemptuous of the conventions and norms and ideals. Even Nixon was forced to resign and chose to resign when faced by his then turned hostile party after he was exposed and shown to be a crook.
Oh yeah and we got Trump rather than HRC in 2016 because of the likes of Stein and the Only-Unicorn-will-do & Bothsiderists, the Berniebros and misogynists again then too. You’d have thought Americans might’ve learnt from that – but noooo.. Fer fucks sake you guys. WTF was wrong with you. (Poor eduication, brain-washing, Russian trollfarems influence, delusional lack of understanding of reality, ad nauseam..
PPS. Dubya and Nixon and Reagun were many bad things.
But they weren’t blatant open nazis.
Trump is.
And beholder in reality helped and voted for him.
You really need to brush up on your American history, Stevo. This is embarrassing.
Dubya was appointed by the Supreme Court. Nice try, though.
On this at least we both agree. Yes, Dubya was significantly worse. Rubio is attempting to engineer an Iraq 3.0 in Venezuela, which should jog your memory about just how good those old days actually were.
Show me the receipts, or admit you made that up and apologize.
You voted for Jill Stein by your own claim; that is a vote that Harris did not receive; therefore the net result was that Trump got one more vote than Harris by your action. And StevoR told you that before you voted, and you still chose to give Trump one more net vote.
So, you indeed helped and voted for him by your own account, and there is the receipt, beholder.
@61. Dishonest troll : “Dubya was appointed by the Supreme Court. Nice try, though.”
Lying by omission and insulting everyone’s intelligence here by ignoring the role played by third party spoiler Nader. Had Nader votes gone to Al Gore he’d have been POTUS & there would have been no Dubya – who you claim is worse than Trump. SCOTUS would look very different, history would be very different and we’d have seen leadership and action on Climate from the UsoA. Nader, the utterly deluded fools who voted for him & the very crappy American voting system and EC cost us so much and made the world much worse than it could have been there. How awfully familiar and why couldn’t people like you have learnt from that and avoided it in 2016 and last year?
We do NOT agree at all as I’m sure you already know. Trump is much worse than Dubya. Dubya wasn’t an actual fascist where Trump is. Dubya was smarter and more competent and not a rapist and buddy of a paedophile like Trump is and Dubya at least tried to unite the UsoA whereas Trump is gleefully dividing and attacking it and lying openly and blatantly where Bush at least tried to make a case for those WMDs that was reasonable and plausible. On the issue you claim to care about Bush also wanted a Palestinian state and said it would happen in 2004. He didn’t support a genocide like Far Worse Genocide Don does or want the UsoA to take over a depopulated Gaza & turn it into a riviera like Trump. George II was also NOT a puppet of Putin like Trump is. But as a tankie troll maybe that’s why you think Bush the younger was worse?
Rubio is attempting to engineer an Iraq 3.0 in Venezuela, which should jog your memory about just how good those old days actually were.
Blockquote fix for clarity :
Disingenuous bad faith troll # 61 insultingthe intelligence of everyone here:
Under whose presidency – Trumps.
Would this be happening if Kamala was POTUS? No. There is no reason to think Kamala as POTUS could or would want to be starting a war with Venezuela or blowing up random boats murdering and lying about the very real people aboard them. So, again, thanks for that you disgusting piece of toxic waste. You have the blood of those victims metaphorically on your hands among so many others due to your helping Trump seize power too.
The one who needs to apologise here -and go rethink your life – is you, “beholder.”
I’ve already shown the receipts before but okay here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/05/16/mokele-mbembe/#comment-2265449
You admit to voting Stein – and thus de facto for Trump.
We have plenty of examples of you pre-election last year arguing solely against the Democratic party and Kamala Harris ignoring the reality that Trump is vastly worse too. People can see and have memories here you know.
Oh and have you apologized for lying about blue state New Mexico being worst for education when that’s actually red state West Virginia as I called you out on here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/06/the-future-looks-bleak/comment-page-1/#comment-2280113
Or answered the question I asked you in #11 upthread just here among other occassions too :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/23/the-era-of-destruction/#comment-2281750
Voting for anyone other than Kamala Harris – the ONLY genuine, real world alternative to Trump – helped Trump gain power.
I’ve explained this many times here. I’ve asked you before and will keep asking what part of that do you fail to understand?
Oh and yet again the question you will never honestly answer (go ahead prove me wrong -by actually answering the exact fucking question here) :
Out of the TWO actual candidates who were going to become POTUS – Kamala Harris OR Far Worse Genocide Don Trump – which one was the better, more leftwing, progressive, reasonable, compassionate, competent choice?
We know ofc that in reality, in effect, de facto you chose Trump & argued as well as voted against Kamala.
@ StevoR
Astounding isn’t it, that the Democratic Party in the US was so utterly shit they were incapable of putting forward a viable alternative to Donald fucking Trump. They literally could not do better than the worst president in the history of the USA. The Democratic Party will be remembered like Chamberlain – the enablers of fascism.
Fuck Harris for supporting genocide. They’ll never live it down. Using your logic, the entire Democratic Party “de facto” voted for fascism by being incapable of offering the people an acceptable alternative.
USAnians have a primitive and outdated voting system; roughly a third of the eligible voters couldn’t be stuffed to vote in the last election, and of those who did vote, most preferred Trump. Fact.
People like beholder preferred Trump, obviously, else they’d have done strategic voting.
It was most obvious Stein would never get the presidency.
Mind you, technically that’s just the popular vote; the actual voters are the electoral college electors.
The USA’s dated system specifies it — Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution and the 12th Amendment.
—
End of the day, the True Believers will be forever exploited.
Here is an example of farmers getting shafted, and liking it.
Quite telling, how at the end there one can see a True Believer in action — here is an extract from the (autogenerated) transcript, with boundary timestamps emphasised.
“4:46
Jay Green is head of a local frat house, a sixth-generation farmer, and has faith in the Lord, the land, and the president.
I don’t care what the grain markets look like. I don’t care about a trade war. Whenever I’m sitting in the seat of a tractor farming on some land that my great-great-whatever grandpa farmed, and his son did, and his son did, and his son did, and his son did—now I am, um, for a hundred years.
It never looks great for farmers, right? You’re operating in debt all the time. Um, but you do it because it’s what you want.
You have faith in the president?
I do.
I really do.
5:16”
@64 StevoR
How exactly did it help? Surely not in the sense that had Stein voters voted for Harris the outcome of the election would’ve been different? One could shuffle all 3rd-party votes anyway they like, and the outcome of the election would’ve been the same. (source: Wikipedia)
Of course, those 3rd-party voters couldn’t have known that when they were casting their votes. However, if you base your argument on the claim that Stein was very unlikely to win, and therefore voting for Stein was useless in stopping Trump, you should also realize that in many states voting for anyone whatsoever, including Harris and Trump, was predictably ineffective in changing the outcome**.
A claim that is more congruent with reality is
** A voter for Harris in Wyoming, or West Virginia had little chance of helpig her win the election. In those circumstances it’s more about signalling, than about changing the outcome. “See, a significant portion of even the reddest states doesn’t support Trump” kind of thing. But when we are in the signalling territory, a thrid party vote is also a signal: “I don’t support Trump, but the Democrats should try harder”.
ondrbak to StevoR:
“How exactly did it help? Surely not in the sense that had Stein voters voted for Harris the outcome of the election would’ve been different?”
Typical error in probability. After the outcome was determined, it is possible to count the votes for H and T and determine whether S voters could have changed the outcome.
Prior to the trial (the vote count), it could only be known that any vote for S was not a vote for either H or T.
It follows that a vote for S implies the voter did not prefer H or T, since otherwise they would have selected either of them rather than effectively not voting.
Again, since StevoR’s point is so very opaque to you: the only outcomes possible were Harris or Trump.
Stein was never in it.
To elaborate:
Whether it was H or T depended on who got more votes.
Not opposing T by voting H therefore fails to even attempt to decrease the net vote differential, and therefore helps T more than voting H though less than voting T.
That it may not change the outcome does not change that, and that cannot be known prior to the trial.
That signalling attitude is what lost Brexit, and what lost the first election Trump won.
It’s very very very stupid in the USA system, as I noted.
First past the post, no compulsory voting, electoral college, blah blah.
This second time, it was more that more USAnians voted for Trump, with no excuse this time that he was an unknown.
More to the point, Stein got 0.57% of the vote. Such a signal!
(Note RFK Jr got 0.49%)
No disagreement here. In 2016, Stein voters alone, had they voted for Clinton, would’ve flipped the result.
It ranges from very very stupid to largely inconsequential, depending on how contested your state is. And this is not a complete unknown prior to election.
Arguably a stronger signsl than not voting. Still not great, though.
@64 StevoR
No, you’re not explaining anything, you just keep copy-pasting the same text over and over again. If I repeat a lie a thousand times, does that make it true?
Stop copy-pasting the same stupid questions and actually engage in a dialogue if you want my answers, then. No leading questions (stop lecturing me about the answer you want in the middle of the question). No loaded questions. Actually evaluate the words I say and process that like you would in a discussion between two thinking people, and use that process to shape your questions. I know it’s not your style, Stevo, but I believe you’re capable of such a dialogue.
Anything less than that is your usual one-way word noise and a waste of my time.
Well if StevoR is managing to waste some of your time, beholder, well done StevoR, and keep it up!
A good point. I’ve long said a serious American left/green/both party would be focusing on local races; in Presidential races, if they must run a candidate who won’t win, they should focus their efforts on less contested states.
Well, beholder can give their own answer, but here I think may be right. There is certainly a strong tendency under capitalism for inequality, and particularly wealth inequality, to increase. Thomas Piketty, not at the time a socialist*, explains this in Capital in the Twenty-First Century. If the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of economic growth (as it usually does), this concentration will happen in the absence of high taxation on the rich – which, of course, the rich will fight. We’ve seen over the past half-century how successful they have been in practically all countries**, in reversing the decline in inequality which followed WW2 (and was largely caused by the WW2 destruction of fixed capital, high taxation to fund the war and subsequent Cold War, and the need to prevent rich country working class people seeing the USSR as a better alternative). But it’s not clear that the forces exist any more to halt, let alone reverse, this rise in inequality, and it seems most unlikely democracy is compatible with that continued rise. Another, but compatible way of looking at it, is that 2008 represented the death of the “capitalist dream” that a rising economic tide would continue to lift all boats. Behind that are the climate and environmental crises, making clear to anyone with sense that things are likely to get a lot worse. Already, most people can see either (depending on age) that their children will be worse off than them, or that they are worse off than their parents. A large and increasing faction of the elite are reacting by focusing the resulting discontent against migrants, Muslims, transgender people and other minorities, along with ever-increasing authoritarianism in case people realise who their real enemies are (in brief, they’re turning fascist). This process is abundantly clear in the USA, but perhaps just as clear under a supposed Labour government in the UK. Where I differ with beholder is in considering it vital to side with the non-fascst sections of the elite when there is a binary choice such as the American presidential election, both because of the immediate increasie in suffering and premature death the fascists will impose (as we’ve already seen), and because resistance, and the construction of prefiguring alternatives (cooperatives, credit unions, worker-controlled industry, open source software…) are possible under non-fascist but not fascist capitalism.
*One of his more recent books, on my reading list, is Time for Socialism, and IIRC, he’s explicitly said he’s changed his mind.
**There has been some inter-country levelling, but that’s due to the choices of the rich-world elites in outsourcing manufacturing industry to countries with lower labour costs, and to the Chinese dictatorship’s successful switch to (dictatorial) capitalism.
@ Walter Solomon #15
So, just to be clear: You will praise a totalitarian regime for depriving millions of people of their freedom. And for killing thousands if Taiwan resists. Is your indifference to human rights confined to Asians, or does it apply to all non-Americans? Will you similarly praise Putin if he succeeds in taking Ukraine? For all your complaints, you seem to have quite a bit in common with the sociopathic bigots of the America First cult.
ondrbak @69: ‘Arguably a stronger signsl than not voting. Still not great, though.’
It works both ways, no?
A third party vote might be a signal to either major party, not automatically only for one of them.
(Thus my adduction of RFK)
Here, you earlier: “But when we are in the signalling territory, a thrid party vote is also a signal: “I don’t support Trump, but the Democrats should try harder”.”
How is it not “But when we are in the signalling territory, a thrid party vote is also a signal: “I don’t support Trump, but the Republicans should try harder”.”?
(also, RFK again — in case you think it’s because S is H-adjacent, but then so is R T-adjacent)
Again… not much of a signal, and kinda hard to decipher, and lost in the noise.
China has rare earths, but Taiwan has chip foundries. Geopolitical chips.
cf. https://www.visionofhumanity.org/the-worlds-dependency-on-taiwans-semiconductor-industry-is-increasing/
@75 John Morales
Sure, it’s impossible to send a clear and easy to decipher signal via a single vote. It’s compressing complex multiaxial preferences into a few bits of data.
But I wasn’t arguing that it’s a good or strong signal. I was pushing against the notion that voting third-party in the US is necessarily very very stupid. It can be. But in a solid red or blue state a person dissatisfied with “their” party’s policies or conduct can choose which weak and hard to decipher signal they want to send – vote for the party’s candidate after all, vote third party, or stay at home – without their choice being obviously very very stupid.
“But in a solid red or blue state a person dissatisfied with “their” party’s policies or conduct can choose which weak and hard to decipher signal they want to send – vote for the party’s candidate after all, vote third party, or stay at home – without their choice being obviously very very stupid.”
Sorry, I was lazy in my conversion;
Here, you earlier: “But when we are in the signalling territory, a thrid party vote is also a signal: “I don’t support Trump, but the Democrats should try harder”.”
How is it not “But when we are in the signalling territory, a thrid party vote is also a signal: “I don’t support Harris, but the Republicans should try harder”.”?
That is, how do you know whether any 3rd party vote is an anti-D or anti-R signal?
Because you asserted voting 3rd party was an anti-Democrats signal.
Harvard Salient’s Board of Directors Suspends Publication, Citing ‘Reprehensible’ Material in Articles
Sure, Jan.
Sounds like he’s part of the “Back to Europe” movement. Or he’s just stupid; one or the other.
Purity of Essence.
@75 John Morales
The other way around. An anti-trump voter in a an uncontested state, where their vote has little chance of moving the needle, if they are also dissatisfied with the Democratic party, can choose to express their dissatisfaction with a thirt-party vote. Of course, this is a hard-to-decipher signal drowned in noise, but it is not “very very stupid” which I understand to mean “voting against one’s own intetests”.
And of course, anti-Harris voters dissatisfied with Trump or Republicans can choose to vote third-party too. Even the same third party.
But this only makes my initial objection to StevoR’s claim stronger.
Because, surely, Beholder alone had virtually zero impact on the election. To the extent that we can assign blame for the outcome, it’s not to them personally, but to a group of “voters like him”. And who are these “voters like him”? That’s kind of arbitrary, but one the easiest to justify would be “Stein voters”. And we know that Stein voters didn’t matter in this election. But we also know they did matter in 2016. So assuming a certain continuity within this group, we could still claim, that their collective judgement is verging on being “very very stupid”. But now you correctly argue that we cannot assume all Stein voters to be dissatisfied with Democrats anti-Trump voters. Some may also be dissatisfied with Republicans anti-Clinton/Harris voters. And therefore “voters like beholder” are only a portion of the Stein voters, and now we can’t even claim that they had an impact on the 2016 election. Which makes the claim that the “helped Trump to gain power” even less convincing.
That was supposed to be @78.
You never tried to dispute the claim, though.
Again, since StevoR’s point is so very opaque to you: the only outcomes possible were Harris or Trump.
Stein was never in it.
To elaborate:
Whether it was H or T depended on who got more votes.
Not opposing T by voting H therefore fails to even attempt to decrease the net vote differential, and therefore helps T more than voting H though less than voting T.
That it may not change the outcome does not change that, and that cannot be known prior to the trial.
Try dispute that, if you truly are not convinced.
“Because, surely, Beholder alone had virtually zero impact on the election. To the extent that we can assign blame for the outcome, it’s not to them personally, but to a group of “voters like him”. And who are these “voters like him”? That’s kind of arbitrary, but one the easiest to justify would be “Stein voters”.”
No. People who did not try to minimise bad outcomes.
If you understood that, you’d understand StevoR’s stance.
—
My particular stance is that to blame the Democratic party for not getting elected instead of blaming the voters is perverse. There’s this perception that the Democratic party is the party that loses and plays feeble politics; I looked it up and it turns out that over the last 30 years (someone made a claim I corrected) the proportion of time in office and the number of presidents for each party are pretty much on a par.
FWTW
… three days and a few discarded drafts later.
@John Morales
I have, you just didn’t find my attempts satisfactory.
This is obviously false if taken literally. So I take it as a simplified description, true to a certain degree of approximation. Fair enough.
Why can’t we apply the same lense to claim, that in some states there was never a race in the first place? This is my claim: in some uncontested states a vote for H and a vote for S were – to a certain degree of approximation – equally ineffective in stopping T. It could be shown to be wrong, but this will take some data crunching and negotiating a mutually acceptable methodology thereof.
You can only do something if you have an opportunity for it. Per my claim above, there were states where there was – to a certain degree of approximation – no opportunity to stop T by voting.
I think it’s fair to blame both. Both the party and the voters have agency, can shape the other and respond to the other. The responsibility is shared and – in my opinion – inseparable. Like genes and environment. Or being and consciousness.
“I have, you just didn’t find my attempts satisfactory.”
Hmm. Mere assertion doesn’t cut it.
In what sense is it obviously false? Are you seriously claiming that, in the circumstances applicable that Stein could credibly become prez?
(It’s not forbidden by the laws of physics, but by the realities of voting)
You claimed it was still sending a message nonetheless (but only to one party!), but of course in that case whyever bother voting?
Also, I can not use your gambit and point out that this is obviously false if taken literally. ;)
I grant that, but beholder (and before him, the Vicar) routinely blamed and dissed the shit out of Ds even when the OP was about something egregious that Rs did. And strongly advocated against voting D.
Perhaps read StevoR’s perorations again if you’ve missed that aspect hitherto, because that is part of the pattern of behaviour.
Your personal opinion is duly noted. Nothing wrong with perversity.
Mind you, you’re not alone in that belief.
cf. https://www.vox.com/politics/466253/why-democrats-unpopular-polls-welcome
↓
The real reason why Democrats are so unpopular
Does the case for centrism stand up to scrutiny?
by Eric Levitz Oct 29, 2025
[basic thesis pullquote]
Give me the short version of your story: How did Democrats end up in their present state?
Since Barack Obama won reelection in 2012, the Democratic Party has undergone two really major shifts. First, we have shifted our priorities, focusing less on kitchen table economic issues and more on issues that are less concrete and more abstract to voters: climate change, democracy, abortion, and other identity and cultural issues.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party became a lot more left-wing than it used to be across the board. In 2013, 24 percent of Democrats in Congress co-sponsored Medicare-for-all. In 2023, that was 47 percent. In 2013, 41 percent of Democrats in Congress co-sponsored an assault weapons ban. Now, it’s 88 percent. Only 1 percent co-sponsored a reparations study bill in 2013. Now, that’s a majority. And I think these two shifts are primarily responsible for the situation that Democrats are in today.
@84 John Morales
Was your
anything more?
In the sense that you stated it in absolute terms, without any qualifiers, such as “credibly”, “practically”, etc.
And also in the sense that if it’s not prohibited by the laws of physics, then its probability is above zero, however small.
Perhaps I expressed myself poorly. The claim was always that StevoR can’t claim that beholder’s vote for Stein helped Trump gain power. The part about messaging was an example of how someone may choose to use their vote, when they don’t see a chance to change the outcome of the election. I wasn’t claiming that it was a clear or easy to decipher message or a message only to one party.
And I don’t have any issue with blaming them for being hypocritical in that regard.
But StevoR often wants to blame them for their votes too, or sometimes only for their votes, and I don’t think he can substantiate that part. By mixing the well-grounded critique of hypocricy and bad faith with much less well-grounded critique of their votes, he undermines his overall point. In my opinion. Eager to be noted. Duly, of course.
“The claim was always that StevoR can’t claim that beholder’s vote for Stein helped Trump gain power.”
Well, he did claim it, so clearly he can and did.
Also, what part of ‘Not opposing T by voting H therefore fails to even attempt to decrease the net vote differential, and therefore helps T more than voting H though less than voting T.’
It damn well didn’t hurt Trump that his only opponent for the position didn’t get a wasted 3rd party vote.
“But StevoR often wants to blame them for their votes too, or sometimes only for their votes, and I don’t think he can substantiate that part.”
Quite rightly so. Actions speak louder than words. Votes count for more than words on a blog.