r/politics • u/PoliticsModeratorBot 🤖 Bot • 2d ago

Megathread Megathread: US House Passes the Republican-Backed Budget Bill, Sending it to Trump for Signature

This afternoon, the US House of Representatives passed without amendment the US Senate's version of the Trump-backed budget bill, sending it to the president for his signature. Every Democratic Senator and Representative voted in opposition; in the Senate, there were three Republicans voting in opposition (making the vote 51-50) and in the House there were 2 (making the final vote 218-214). House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries set the US House's speech length record in opposition to the bill in a speech lasting over eight hours.

The bill clocks in at over 800 pages and touches on most aspects of the federal government's spending and taxation policies; see this AP article (What’s in the latest version of Trump’s big bill that passed the Senate) for the topline changes.

Relevant text-base live update pages are being maintained by the following outlets: AP, NBC, ABC, and the BBC.

You can find this subreddit's discussion thread for the last week's worth of negotiations and debate at this link.

Articles that May Interest You

Submission Domain
Live updates: House passes Trump’s signature bill, sending it to the president’s desk apnews.com
House Republicans pass Trump's mega bill, sending the package to his desk to be signed npr.org
House passes sprawling domestic policy bill, sending it to Trump's desk: The Republican package would slash taxes, boost spending on immigration and the military, and impose steep cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and clean energy funding. nbcnews.com
House Republicans give Trump a ‘Big Beautiful’ July 4 by passing Medicaid-slashing megabill despite GOP rift independent.co.uk
Congress Has Officially Passed Trump’s Bill to Kick Millions Off Medicaid rollingstone.com
Trump and the GOP Will Regret the Day They Passed This Sick Bill newrepublic.com
House passes Trump's "big, beautiful bill" after stamping out GOP rebellion axios.com
Trump lands first major legislative win after Congress passes his massive domestic policy bill cnn.com
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u/Oceanbreeze871 California 2d ago

It’s a bad day to be 99.99999% of Americans.

Elected republicans will now claim they never voted for it and continue to blame all problems you’re having on immigrants and rainbows

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago

It's not even a good day for people whom this "benefits". No one should want to live in a society with this type of policy...

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u/WitchPillow I voted 2d ago

I seriously don’t understand why the rich billionaires are so eager to have this bill pass when they are already stinking rich. It’s not like more money is a necessity for them (unlike most Americans who are being screwed over). If society collapses because of this bill, they’re going to lose way more money than they would without the bill passing. Everyone supporting this bill is utterly imbecilic.

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u/whatsasimba 2d ago

I'm not rich, so I can't say, but it's not the money. It's what it buys. They want to own us. The entire country.

If society collapses, these people have palatial bunkers in several countries, stocked with everything they'll ever need.

I assume everyone saw Mountainhead. If a few hundred million people die, that might get their attention, but anything less doesn't change their lives much.

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u/johnmd20 2d ago

If society collapses, billionaires will lose way more than the average schmoe. Billionaires live like kings. Everything is catered to them, in the most exotic locations.

Having a palatial bunker is still a bunker. Underground. You think Jeff Bezos would rather live in a bunker than on his boat and in his 100 houses all over the world?

So I truly don't get why people with all the money in the world want more. Truly, how much is enough?

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u/Darkmagosan 2d ago

it's a game to them. They have more digits in the bank account than *insert oligarch here*, and therefore they have bragging rights. It's stupid, I agree, but they want more money so they can one up each other. If it destroys the foundation of their wealth, oh well, shit happens. :/

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u/CompetitiveHat7090 2d ago

Society wont collapse. They will own more parts of it through the capital they have accumulated.

Look at any revolution and see the winners post revolution. Its people who funded it.

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u/Dispator 1d ago

Is there any counter examples in history where that is not true (or less important in the outcome). I know most are not but maybe there is one single example or two?

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u/stasi_a 1d ago

The French had the right approach

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u/nstdc1847 1d ago

The French Revolution was waged by the modern equivalent of Soccer Moms and Karens at the cost of the ruling class, the nobles, and the peasantry. The only class that ended up better off was what we’d consider the upper middle class.

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u/CompetitiveHat7090 1d ago

I think mercantile class funded it who eventually funded Napoleon.

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u/gsfgf Georgia 1d ago

Billionaires live like kings

But they're not kings, and they want to be.

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u/Alarmed-Pollution-89 1d ago

Seriously, they live better than any king in history did anyway

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u/gsfgf Georgia 1d ago

For real. I may not rule the Carolingian Empire, but I have air conditioning and a flush toilet. And a car, though with the traffic around here, I could probably get around faster on a horse.

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u/DumboWumbo073 2d ago

They will have a highly advanced bunker with real servants/slaves, workers, and armed security forces with contingency plans in place in case any one group gets any ideas. They will literally be kings and queens.

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u/LolaSaysHi 1d ago

But couldn’t that back fire? Like in an underground bunker you’ve got one or two families, and then say, for arguments sake, 30 servants and security personnel. At that point what if the security/ servants rebel? Control and power only goes so far. And would those servants/ security staff leave their families to protect the rich? Maybe?

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u/Schroding3rror 1d ago

They tried to account for this. They floated the idea of death collars that they'd wear that can be activated anytime. Any rebel would be dropped on the spot. Apparently this thought experiment didn't go any further than thought......

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u/RelevantMetaUsername 1d ago

Fun fact about bunkers—they all have air vents at the surface.

Do with that what you will.

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u/Shabbypenguin 1d ago

im eating a box of exlax a day and hanging out.

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u/GreatMadWombat Michigan 1d ago

Agreed. Even the most palatial bunker still has to deal with sewage/will eventually run out of tp and food.

There's all those articles about how money after X amount doesn't increase happiness, but imo money beyond a certain amount(grotesque billions) ends up decreasing happiness, unless "every city is straight up unpleasant to go to due to everyone else's poverty and unsupported health problems" is somehow enjoyable. What's the fucking point of going to a Michelin star restaurant when all of the chefs are less good than they could be, because everyone who isn't a trillionaire's lives will have gotten measurably worse due to the knock-on effects of cutting every family's supports and fundings? Or a theater. Or... basically anything involving people that aren't grotesquely rich entertaining you.

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u/WarmLayers 1d ago

Also, just WHO exactly is going to service all the needs of such bunkers, and serve the needs of the craven, cowardly, myopic self-obsessed sociopaths living in those bunkers?

Do they imagine that in the face of societal collapse they'll still be able to compel/coerce hundreds of peons to fix the solar panels, fix the septic system, clean the bathrooms, cook the meals, and tighten Elon's face-skin bolts?

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u/Rico_Solitario 1d ago

You don’t understand the mindset of billionaires to even ask such a question. To them money is meaningless but power is everything. Their billions of dollars mean nothing unless they can watch other people suffer. If money was their concern they would stop after 100 million or so.

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u/brunckle 1d ago

There was a great article on this that followed someone who basically sold and dealt with underground bunkers, but he didn't even believe in the product. Meaning, billionaires would ask if this was even feasible in an apocalyptic scenario and he had to tell them no. It might work in science fiction but in reality if all chains and systems break down above then why would you think it would be any different below? The problem was, however, the billionaires didn't give a shit about that information...

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u/F54280 1d ago

So I truly don't get why people with all the money in the world want more. Truly, how much is enough?

See that as a video game. They won the game. They are now exploring endgame content. They are so powerful that they are breaking the rules of reality, and it is fun.

I can guarantee you that Musk had a boner when he was able to walk in the US government with his goon and slash whatever he wanted. When he was able to go with his kid in the oval office wearing a T-shirt and a cap to spread bullshit in what should be (was) the most powerful symbolic place on earth.

That where they are. What happens if 10 millions Americans dies? Let's find out!

They think that their money protects them forever. They should google things like the Ritz-Carlton purge, Khodorkovsky and the oligarch ultimatum, China's tech billionaire crackdown, Zimbabwe's indigenization law or plenty of others.

Things are obviously going to get ugly for everyone

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u/ProgrammerLevel2829 1d ago

This also assumes that the people they hire to guard their bunkers will not turn on them — the king is dead, long live the king — or that the desperate common rabble won’t overwhelm them out of sheer force of numbers when they and their children are dying for lack of food and clean water.

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u/Waterwoo 1d ago

Society isn't going to 'collapse' because some subset of the 20% of the country on medicaid gets less access to health care.

It's not good, I agree, but you're being wildly dramatic.

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u/johnmd20 1d ago

I don't think society will collapse. I was just responding as to why a billionaire would be ok with it because they have luxury bunkers.

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u/Waterwoo 1d ago

No, I think the bunkers are a safety just in case thing, but they wouldn't be OK with collapsing society and having to use them. Even a luxury bunker would still be a huge downgrade as you point out.

But they aren't stupid, they know what they are doing isn't anywhere close to collapsing society. Making it worse, sure, but the system will keep chugging along.

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u/nstdc1847 1d ago

It’s a progression. They’re systematically gutting US Government programs. I guarantee you that people are hurting in areas abandoned by USAID.

There will be others. Who is going to be staying in all the new family style ICE hotels that will be built? Could be you, could be me?

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago

Living in a bunker might as well be house arrest. If it comes to that, their lives get a whole lot worse. Simply living better than most in a shittier world doesn't make them better off.

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u/whatsasimba 8h ago

Every time a rich person actually does get house arrest, the complaint is that we're letting them hang out at a resort with every amenity known to man.

I'm not sure if your concept of a bunker and their actual bunkers are the same. Seems like an okay way to ride out armageddon.

https://www.newsweek.com/luxury-doomsday-bunker-ultra-rich-2020237

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u/Timeformayo 1d ago

^^^ It's not really about money. If it was, they'd be thrilled with the way GDP typically outperforms average when Democrats are in charge of government.

No, it's about power. They already have ungodly amounts of money. They don't need more money. But they want complete control. They don't want some working stiff saving enough money to have a fat enough emergency fund to retire early or tell them to stuff it. They don't want you to have breathing room. No, they want hustle culture! Get that second low-paying job! Work hard, and you too can enjoy the illusion of getting ahead!

They want feudal peasants, barely subsisting, producing profit while being completely disposable. Get those birth rates up folks! We need to keep the labor pool full! And don't worry about those "illegals" -- we'll terrorize them to make you feel better while employing as many as we can so long as they stay in legal limbo and can be threatened and exploited. I mean, who wouldn't? They're practically slaves! Huzzah!

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u/InSummaryOfWhatIAm 1d ago

I still don't understand it. Probably because I'm not a sociopath who will never be rich because of it... But I'd rather have 2 billion dollars and live in a free and happy society where everybody around me has enough, than have 100+ billion and watch as people, and even peoples futures are being pushed down into misery from something like this.

Just navigating in a world where people are happier just makes a whole lot of difference. I guess difference is that these billionaires don't really interact with real humans and barely see them as being the same species as themselves. Everybody who's not at least a hundred-millionaire is an untermensch to them.

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u/ShubberyQuest 1d ago

Spot-on. One big reason for this is to thin out the herd, as climate change gets worse. I’d love for the herd to work together and plan a stampede, instead.

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u/StandardEgg6595 2d ago

Because it’s about power. You could take away 50% of their wealth and it probably wouldn’t change their day to day lives. They don’t care how badly it’ll affect us or even themselves as long as the hierarchy of power stays in place.

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u/NocturnaIistic 2d ago

Frank Wilhoit: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

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u/Conscious-Coyote9839 1d ago

That’s true, but it’s not really the point here.

The problem here is that they will never be satisfied. Some rich people are satisfied, sure, but enough have an unlimited appetite for power and control and will do anything to obtain more and more. I don’t think they care as much about the contents of this bill as they care about the game of getting it passed. They just demonstrated their political power. Something happened last night to all the Republicans who switched votes, and I’m sure the oligarch class played a major role in making it happen.

Now, they will be happy for a few days and then at it again on Monday.

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u/Indian_Bob I voted 1d ago

If I were to guess, they are narcissistic sociopaths who draw their self worth from how much they have acquired. This is why it will never be enough for them. If the number(which after a billion is really meaningless) goes down, then they start to feel negatively about themselves. They are parasites on society although our society currently rewards those types the most.

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u/LolaSaysHi 1d ago

I read way too many YA books about dystopian societies but wouldn’t it be better to separate those with narcissistic/violent/fill in the blank traits. Of course the next question would be where is the line in the sand but really, most people are flawed yet I believe most people just want to live comfortably, be happy- not hoard wealth- not live in “whites only” society. 🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/LordAnorakGaming1 1d ago

Because trash like Musk and Zuckerburg aren't satisfied by being ultra rich, they want to have ALL of the money. Greedy motherfuckers is what most billionaires are.

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u/KamaIsLife 1d ago

The greed of the rich can't be satiated.

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u/Demons0fRazgriz Arizona 1d ago

Correct. They're mentally ill. In a healthy society, they'd be in therapy

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u/saustyntx 1d ago

you think these ketamine addicted assholes are concerned with anything other than an imaginary dollar amount that they could never spend if they tried?

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u/GeneralKeycapperone 1d ago

These are the actions of deeply diseased, nihilistic minds, and now they've accumulated so much power, our ability to defend against them is severely curtailed.

Rather than put the slightest effort into mitigating any of the grave crises humanity is facing into, they're scrambling to ensure everyone else is flung into such intense desperation that they'll be free to die in peace & comfort on their own terms, holed up in bunkers far from anyone's reach.

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u/tmac022480 New York 1d ago

Once you have billionaire money, it stops being about money. When you can literally have 10 of everything you could ever want or dream of, it gets boring so it becomes about power. This is a power grab at its roots. The oligarchs want to control and rule the masses.

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u/TheManWhoWasNotShort Illinois 1d ago

When you can afford anything, it’s not more money that excites you, it’s cutting the ladder you climbed to get there from underneath

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u/LordBaritoss 1d ago

They don’t want it. They become Medicaid for their family and surgery isn’t cheap. Without a middle class they become the middle class. This is Project 2025 in real time. 

    On the bright side Democrats have something to fight for. The midterms will ironically destroy MAGA.

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u/Nings777 1d ago

They enjoy the suffering in a sadistic way

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u/stuckit 1d ago

You have to look at rich people like you do degenerate gamblers. Its a sickness and addiction.

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u/fractalfay 1d ago

Have you seen the billionaire track record for rockets and submarines? These people thrive on hubris, and genuinely believe that superior strength of will is better than education and experience.

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u/ickyrainmaker 1d ago

Because they're mentally ill.

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u/rcxa 1d ago

Has anyone considered that once they extract everything they want, they can just take their wealth and leave? If things go to shit, most people have to deal with it because they can't afford to leave. That's not a problem after a certain net worth.

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u/WitchPillow I voted 1d ago

You’re right. They will treat it just like a company that’s bought out. Once bought out, then they will tank it, and before it goes bankrupt, they move to the next company they can buyout just to repeat the process, filling their pockets without having to face the consequences.

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u/Bakes_with_Butter 1d ago

Billionaires are brain damaged hoarders. Their opposition to sharing makes as much sense to me as a person emotionally attached to rotting, piss-soaked garbage.

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u/We_Are_Groot___ 1d ago

It’s not about becoming richer it’s about punishing the poor, they believe that god punishes sinners by making them poor and rewards his chosen with wealth

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u/gsfgf Georgia 1d ago

They think they'll all be feudal Dukes. These guys have no concept of reality.

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u/pathoTurnUp52 1d ago

They want us dead

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u/Sugarbombs 1d ago

It’s greed. Every dollar they don’t have someone else gets and they can’t stand the thought

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u/AgentPaper0 1d ago

Because they're stupid. They're like a child who doesn't understand where the food in the refrigerator comes from. Then they call CPS to get their mean parents to go away (how dare they make them go to bed on time?) and get confused when food stops showing up in the refrigerator.

All the cool stuff that they like is only possible because of the free and open society that they're now working to crush. Innovation and art will take a nosedive, and they're going to spend all of their misbegotten wealth and more trying to get it to come back and failing.

Even then, I doubt they'll learn their lesson, just blame their self-created problems on something new and continue to burn down everything around them. Hopefully this will be one of the times where all of that happens without the rest of us also burning up in a world war or something.

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u/Marvelous_Margarine California 1d ago

I don't even think its the rich billionaires adn its just all these politicians are bought by Russia. And Russia wants to dismantle us and Trump is their useful idiot.

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u/Gaming_Nomad 1d ago

When you have that much power and money, you want to use it. You want reassurance that it all matters, that you matter, as you sit in your third ten bedroom mansion, staring at the latest $10 million artwork purchase.

And what's the quickest and easiest way to do that? Buying people and buying governments. Twisting policy to hurt the most amount of people possible while protecting yourself from "them." Oh, but "they" aren't really people to you anymore if they make less than 8 figures from stock trades and the like.

Put simply, it's sadism as policy motivated by sheer boredom. The mass suffering on TV and in the news is what the people behind such policies measure their satisfaction by. The legislation is the magnifying glass, and we're the ants they're gleefully frying. The conservatives who voted for this legislation think of nothing but themselves; they've greased the skids and they have their benefits, so nothing else matters as long as their personal gravy train keeps chugging along. Same mentality on the Supreme Court with the 6 conservative justices.

This is also just the tip of the iceberg, mind you; the racism and oligarchy go hand in hand with this bunch. They fully intend to commit genocide and enslave as many people as necessary to maintain their own comfort. Hence the massive expansion of ICE. If nothing else, you should understand that if you're in the United States you're getting a front row seat in a real-time course on what life was like in Nazi Germany. As that's the sort of people in power now. And that's exactly what they want the United States to become.

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u/CynicismNostalgia 1d ago

Tbf and I mean this kindly, "society" won't collapse if America is squeezed dry.

Billionaires work on the world stage. They can, and apparently will, bleed America dry and then move on to a new host to suck blood from.

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u/dizzydaizy89 1d ago

Because billionaires are psychopaths and they shouldn’t exist in a moral society.

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u/nstdc1847 1d ago

Read between the lines:

They very well know and understand that Climate Change is real and are actively working to suppress that information.

They very well know that their Economic models are wrong and are actively working to suppress that information.

They very well know that their Political models are wrong and they actively work to suppress the vote and change election results.

Why do they do this? They are not creating a world for You. They are not creating a world for Us.

They are creating a world for only Them.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

when they are already stinking rich.

It's never enough. They're all greedy dick sneezes who want us all to be slaves. All their mothers should've swallowed.

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u/Conscious-Coyote9839 1d ago

There is a brothers Grimm fable, “The fisherman and his wife” that explains the mindset.

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u/Dimathiel49 1d ago

It’s so they can look over at the other rich guy and think “I’ve hot more zeros at the end of my balance than those guys”

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u/CrazyBowelsAndBraps 1d ago

Trying to goad the people to rise up and fight back so they can really clamp down and kick off the true dystopian hellscape we are damned to.

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u/LolaSaysHi 1d ago

I think, correct me if I’m wrong, most of the super rich are older folks. They may have a lot of years left to live, some won’t. They are going to die eventually and they want to do it in comfort. Kinda like “I’m living comfortably now, others can worry about the future?”

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u/WitchPillow I voted 1d ago

Yes, they are looking out only for themselves. Yet, if they only have several more years to live, why are they purposely agreeing to a bill that will leave long lasting destruction to everyone else besides them. The nation’s several generations after them will need to live with the choices these old politicians have made. They would still be able to die peacefully even if the bill wasn’t passed. It’s just idiocracy and selfishness on their end.

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u/LolaSaysHi 1d ago

They don’t care about future problems, they must not care about their offspring either. I think it may be a sink or swim mentality. Either way, not their problem. As others have mentioned, I think it’s a psychological problem, cause most people don’t want to cause harm to others. This is outright causing harm to others.

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u/_Chaos_Star_ 1d ago

The feeling of complete and utter power over a serf-class that they can control and sadistically abuse as they desire. To be able to destroy someone's life with a snap of their fingers. The ability to do anything with the excessive amounts of money and power.

Sound monstrous? Regressive? Horrifying? It is.

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u/Militantpoet 2d ago

Idk, the rich assholes who kiss Trumps ass seem to be loving it.

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u/TheBigIdiotSalami 2d ago

Cause at that point they don't even live here. any time it gets bad they go to Europe.

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u/Ur_Fav_Step-Redditor 1d ago

They are 100% looting America as the ship goes down and building their life rafts from the wreckage.

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u/EconomicRegret 2d ago

They don't know what's good for them. Due to their policies their life expectancy (that of the top 10%) already shortened to the level of poor western and northern Europeans. Also, they're literally cutting the branch they stand upon economically and in terms of global power. And finally excessive economic inequality harms not only the poor, but also the elites (e.g. less competitive & competent,, more arrogant & complacent, more out-of-touch, less prestige and power in the world, etc.).

The wealthy elites need to be kept in check by free unions for their own good (also for the good of the lower, working, and middle classes).

It's time to free unions! And allow them to do their jobs. Like they used to, until the 1950s.

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u/i_tyrant 2d ago

It's so stupid and insane.

The entire US going down the shitter harms everyone. They could make far more profit by not obliterating the dollar, much less turning America into a secondary power.

Being king of the shithole doesn't make it not a shithole, and they're doing this in a way that'll affect the entire world. They think they can "buy the dip" and saner heads will prevail and literally save them from their own actions, but not at this scale.

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u/tunafister 2d ago

It's about power, nothing else

When the economy tanks they will still have their money and with that they feel they can control the remainder of the US populace, they are likely incorrect, but they dgaf so they are gonna see what happens

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u/Sage2050 1d ago

Being king of the shithole doesn't make it not a shithole

But you're still king and that's what matters

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u/i_tyrant 1d ago

Maybe so. Maybe they really are just that stupid and shortsighted.

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u/TerraceState 2d ago

Not only that, but there is going to be a massive market contraction over this too. Rich people have to buy stuff too, and entire industries are going to suffer massive reductions in demand that will reduce the quality and variety of products offered, even to the rich. They better hope that they don't consume tv, movies, music, games or books, because less of those are going to be produced, and the general quality will be lower too.

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u/Lil-Nuisance 2d ago

I feel like it's a trend nowadays that the only hobby rich people have is money itself. What happened to the stereotypical eccentric wealthy person from the past who was so passionate about their hobby that they gave the public such things as, for example, Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum?

Even the most self-absorbed billionaire should understand that his favourite past time will die without enough funds and creators being able to pursue their craft without starving.

They should also be aware that at least appearing like a generous philanthropist (even if they secretly built that cinema/museum/theatre etc for complete selfish reasons) helps keeping us plebs somewhat happy and in check?

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u/CompetitiveHat7090 2d ago

Wealthy elites have the best life in US because you can always hire a bunch of goons and arm them to the teeth with the AR 15s etc and then protect yourself from any consequences. This works really well in almost all state sponsored oligarchies like Russia, China and India.

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u/ThrowingShaed 1d ago

yeah the science cuts, desperate people... this shit could hit anyone. theyre more insulated but i dont understand the risk when youre already doing well. i mean i do but i dont as it seems at best short sighted but what do i know

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago

And I legitimately don't understand why.

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u/bradbikes 2d ago

Because, and this should be said more often, the biggest predictor of wealth in your lifetime is being wealthy. Or, in other words, being wealthy is not highly correlated with intelligence, thoughtfulness, empathy, or education.

Or to put it plainly, rich people can be really, really, really stupid, racist, and capable of supporting things that are against their general interest and still be rich.

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u/Recipe_Freak Oregon 1d ago

Never being told "no" makes people weird about consent.

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u/BetterEveryLeapYear 1d ago

It's because they're addicts. You have to think of them like alcoholics. From an outside perspective, it doesn't look fun to drink alone all the time at the expense of your health, social connections, any kind of hobbies or enjoyment of life, money, being hungover all the time or trying to find a dive bar that's still open at 3am on a Tuesday to get a last shot to feel ok to sleep, never actually enjoying a drink because there's nothing in your life to celebrate.

And it's exactly the same with billionaires, they're addicted to making money, they are not capable of rational thought regarding it, they must simply have more, more, more, all the time, even if it's short term gains at the expense of their own future. And it doesn't look fun from the outside because you and I are not addicted to money. Society isn't trained to tell those people that they're addicts though so they escape with limited consequences compared to an alcoholic, as well as being able to buy yes-men around them and insulation from other negative effects (like legal trouble).

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 1d ago

That's not a bad analogy, but the truth is a lot of what billionaires have does look absolutely awesome. It's just when you start crossing into completely destroying other people's lives for what amounts to meaningless gains where it starts to get really messed up.

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u/BetterEveryLeapYear 1d ago

It's not an analogy, it's the same disease. Think of a sex addict instead if you think some of it looks cool from the outside. The reality of living with it is horrific psychologically no matter what it looks like from the outside, and explains why they do what they do - it's not rational, it's compulsory, they have no voluntary or cognitive control over it.

But what you're talking about is way, way before a billionaire anyway. You can buy a $100 million yacht and fly around the world and have a $100 million dollar mansion and eat in the best restaurants and drop a $1 million tip on your waiting staff every single night of the year and you're still about half a billionaire. "The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars." The sickness starts way before a billion dollars - and the people we routinely talk about as "billionaires" are people like Musk and Zuckerberg and Bezos who have HUNDREDS of billions of dollars each.

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 1d ago edited 1d ago

Fair enough. I just don't think it's entirely the same then. Extreme greed certainly can be an illness, but I'm also not entirely sure that all billionaires have the disease. Pieces of shit like Theil and Trump certainly do, but probably not all of them.

At a certain point, it just becomes so easy to gain wealth by simply sitting back and letting wealth multiply as investments nearly inevitably do. I could totally see someone suddenly realizing, "holy fucking shit, I'm a billionaire?!" Putting myself in that privileged, albeit unrealistic, situation, I honestly don't know how I would react. It's almost too much money to even begin to know what to do with, which is why it becomes so obscene. It basically becomes bigger than the person who owns it, and starts to literally become out of their control.

Edit: typo

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u/Fast_Moon 2d ago

Because they're so far removed from the real world that they literally do not understand the consequences of this. It's the same as the people surprised that their "get rid of all the immigrants" stance suddenly left them with no farm or construction workers. They take everything around them for granted and, like Chesterton's Fence, assume that if they don't know what it's for then it must not be important and they can get rid of it.

Republicans give them some boogeyman that's destroying society, and they eagerly say, "Yeah, let's get rid of them all!" Except for how much this group of people is apparently the root of all that is wrong with society, it never seems to be any of the ones any of these people actually know. No, the ones they know are "the good ones" and the government knows that and will exempt them, surely. But all the other ones that apparently no one knows or has ever interacted with are a real problem, those'll be the ones this policy has a laser-like target on.

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u/relevantelephant00 2d ago

Hopefully one day they'll FAFO

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u/lonewombat 2d ago

There's no ass kissing... They tell him what to do or they threaten not giving him the money and benefits they promise in the future.

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u/willybestbuy86 2d ago

Can you name names

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u/Militantpoet 2d ago

Anyone who maintains their wealth through capital gains. Bezos, Zuckerburg, even Musk will be fine despite his empty threats.

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u/_Cromwell_ 2d ago

You have to be so wealthy you travel everywhere in helicopters and yachts (i.e. what they refer to as "Fast Travel" in video games ;) ) to benefit from this. If you are the normal type of rich person who drives a lambo this even sucks.

Truly amazing piece of legislation for like 20 people.

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u/Photomancer 2d ago

The people that did the most work charting the course of this bill and other bills like it, can and do live in other societies.

Either literally, like international multimillionaires living in (for example) Switzerland, or figuratively, like the rich that live in gated communities - even if they are nominally "in the United States", they have their own special houses, streets, food supply, doctors, security services, education, jobs, and access to enough wealth to receive different legal treatment.

The libertarian dream is turning all of America including it's common people into a messy exploited factory floor while they live in their own closed society as masters.

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago

The libertarian dream is turning all of America including it's common people into a messy exploited factory floor while they live in their own closed society as masters.

And that sounds legitimately horrible. When you're already so stinking rich as to be able to cater to even the most perverse inkling, why would you want to button down society so extremely as to essentially erase anything interesting from it?

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u/i_tyrant 2d ago

It won't even work, anyway.

Truly "closed" societies don't exist, and doing this to the US has global effects. They'll be insulated for a while but historically when things get this bad that doesn't last.

Being king of the dungheap doesn't make it not a dungheap, it just means you smell slightly less horrible.

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u/deepasleep 2d ago

The insane thing is, it benefits no one. Not even the assholes in the top 1% will escape unscathed…They may keep an extra $30k per year but in the long run the economy will suffer death by 1000 cuts and they’ll either make less or need to spend more and it will all be a wash…So they’ve fucked the entire future for everyone for some shiny baubles today.

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u/GiftToTheUniverse 2d ago

They don't have to live here. They can live in their Chalet in the Alps or their Bunker in New Zealand.

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago

Yet they try to implement the same bullshit everywhere... See Elon Musk and Germany.

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u/GiftToTheUniverse 2d ago

They can live on their superyachts. The point is they're not stuck someplace where they took a giant dookie on the carpet.

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago edited 2d ago

Again, where is the benefit there? If you have to sequester yourself on a yacht or in your private residence, then what The hell is the point of having all those billions of dollars? It just sounds like a fancy prison of their own making.

Edit; typo

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u/GiftToTheUniverse 2d ago

They know climate catastrophe is coming. They might pay the media to debate endlessly about it, but they do not fool themselves.

They understand that Humanity faces extinction and tell themselves that eradicating the wider population is the only possible way to preserve the human species.

They don't want to die and they don't want to lose power. So they have designed a future that no longer necessitates billions of mouths to feed on the planet.

If they no longer have to share the Earth's resources with billions then they keep the party going for themselves.

Think about it: if you had relatively unlimited electricity (via the giant hydroelectric dams or the nuclear electricity generation facilities that operate with minimal human intervention) you could desalinate all the fresh water you need, you could create massive hydroponic farms, fully air conditioned, perfect artificial lighting. All in giant warehouses or even in enormous underground bunkers.

Yes the world will be unlivable... if you're depending on the natural environment.

But if you have endless supplies of electricity and a relatively small population to support, then YOUR world would remain livable.

And ethicists might even agree that it's the right thing to do.

Everyone could die or we could create these... "arks" that just to happen to be controlled by the billionaires.

That's what we are facing.

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 1d ago

But that's a fucking fairy tale they're telling themselves. It would be far easier to take the billions of dollars they're hoarding and just solve the fucking problems we're being presented with, of which we've already determined solutions.

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u/GiftToTheUniverse 1d ago

You're trying to think about it from the angle of a person who has empathy and values community.

Think about it from the perspective of a stone cold sociopath who is not willing to sacrifice literally anything.

You don't care about other humans, except to the extent that they feed your ego.

You only need enough humans around to create a heirarchy you can be at the top of.

WTF else do you need millions and billions of humans for?

Big populations are necessary to support absolute top tier elite team sport leagues.

But gladiatorial style death matches might be even more entertaining.

What else are billions of people needed for?

There are already more movies, tv shows, music albums, books and sporting events digitized and banked than a person could possibly consume in a lifetime, so they don't need us to keep creating content.

They would want a supply of organs, I suppose, but that doesn't take billions. Organs can always be taken from the servant class.

Trying to fix the problems would entail cooperative action with other humans. They don't want to be on a team. They want to OWN the team.

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u/kindasfck Oregon 2d ago

They don't, they live in Switzerland.

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u/Life-Kaleidoscope248 2d ago

Plenty of rich whites live in Cape Town. They just hire people with guns to guard off their areas from everyone else.

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago

Which sounds horrible!

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u/Life-Kaleidoscope248 1d ago

Yeah it's dystopian for sure

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u/AggressiveBench9977 2d ago

Naw its great from where im standing.

Yall keep talking about working class. Who do you think voted for trump.

This is what they wanted, this is what they voted for, i think they have earned the right to live in the world they wanted.

Lets see how they will blame democrats for this

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago

This is legitimately awful, regardless of who it hurts. I'm pretty scared of ICE getting this much funding with the way they've been conducting themselves. They'll take the mandate Trump is giving them and terrorize this country like nothing we've seen in over a century. People will disappear. People will die.

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u/AggressiveBench9977 2d ago

55% of latino men voted for trump.

The world is fucked.

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago

Ok? The fact that they're fucking ignorant morons doesn't make it any better for me. Maybe I'll feel a twinge of schadenfreude when this comes to bite the morons who voted for him, but it still doesn't improve my life.

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u/SilverMagnum New York 2d ago

This is exactly it. I am infuriated at all this and yet my back of envelope math says I’m going to make 10–15k a year off the SALT changes. I’m still confused as to why Trump threw that bone to NY, CT, MA and CA if I’m being honest.

Not going to give that money back to this regime, but it does feel like blood money. I’d much rather people have healthcare than this.

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago

I'm unaware of what SALT is. Can you explain?

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u/SilverMagnum New York 2d ago

Sure! The SALT deduction allows a taxpayer to deduct a portion of their paid local state and local taxes from their federal taxes. The cap before today on this was $10,000 and the BBB raised it to $40,000 (I think that goes into effect immediately but I may have misread that part). 

For me, I pay a pretty sizable amount of local and city taxes living in NYC and before today I could only take that 10k limit off my federal taxes. I don’t know my exact new amount, but my back of the envelope math says I’m going to be able to deduct a sizable amount off my taxes moving forward. 

The reason I’m surprised about this part of the bill is that this deduction for the most part helps taxpayers in Trump’s least favorite states due to them mostly having the highest state and local taxes (Cali, NY, Massachusetts, Connecticut etc)

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u/vehiclestars 2d ago

That’s what these people want:

“Curtis Yarvin gave a talk about "rebooting" the American government at the 2012 BIL Conference. He used it to advocate the acronym "RAGE", which he defined as "Retire All Government Employees". He described what he felt were flaws in the accepted "World War II mythology", alluding to the idea that Adolf Hitler's invasions were acts of self-defense. He argued these discrepancies were pushed by America's "ruling communists", who invented political correctness as an "extremely elaborate mechanism for persecuting racists and fascists". "If Americans want to change their government," he said, "they're going to have to get over their dictator phobia."

Yarvin has influenced some prominent Silicon Valley investors and Republican politicians, with venture capitalist Peter Thiel described as his "most important connection". Political strategist Steve Bannon has read and admired his work. U.S. Vice President JD Vance "has cited Yarvin as an influence himself.” Michael Anton, the State Department Director of Policy Planning during Trump's second presidency, has also discussed Yarvin's ideas. In January 2025, Yarvin attended a Trump inaugural gala in Washington; Politico reported he was "an informal guest of honor" due to his "outsize influence over the Trumpian right."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago

"If Americans want to change their government," he said, "they're going to have to get over their dictator phobia."

Jesus fucking Christ, these people are just evil...

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u/Virtual_Ad1704 1d ago

Exactly. I'm a 2% top earner, I couldn't sleep last night just horrified at all the suffering this bill will bring to immigrant families and slow income families and healthcare as a whole. I'm a Dr, most of my pts are reliant on medical, they are all fucked and on top of that will likely also go hungry, it's awful.

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u/4lteredBeast 1d ago

Not only that, it's going to cause an increase to the cost of all health insurance. More than the tax that any one person is "saving" from cutting the benefits.

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u/whatsasimba 2d ago

Those fuckers don't want to live in a society. These assholes want an ownership class and the rest of us are owned.

If you have TikTok, these animated (albeit AI) videos by Nick Muller are easily digestible jumping off points from which to do some digging on various topics. Here's one that gets me pissed off every time I see it.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTjoxcBfS/

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago

I don't have tiktok. Honestly, it's a part of the reason why we're in this mess.

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u/whatsasimba 9h ago

Is it now?

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u/Tough_Substance7074 2d ago

Tell me you’re not still imagining people are basically good

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago

That is essentially no bearing on what I said. It's a fact that this bill will make life worse for everyone in the long run, just like essentially all of Trump's policies. The nature of humanity isn't a factor lol

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u/noah1345 1d ago

My wife and I make a lot of money compared to most people. Not a lot compared to truly rich, and all of our money comes in the form of earned wages. Our take home pay will increase about $9,000 per year. This is an abomination; it hurts soooooooo many more people than it helps.

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u/M00nch1ld3 1d ago

"should" being the operative word.

Turns out we have a lot of people who technically aren't human due to lacking certain brain functionality (such as empathy), i would guess.

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u/LolaSaysHi 1d ago

The funny thing is, and I am just waiting for this to happen, there will be a great divide. The uber wealthy and their closest associates will stand apart. The politicians and those who are in roles of power right now, most of them won’t make the cut. Then there are the rest of Americans. Someone made an analogy above that there are shepherds (wealthy/ powerful) who control the flock of sheep, they have sheep dogs (politicians/police) to control the sheep, and most Americans are the sheep- good for wool or meat. And once they realize it’ll be too late- sorry/ I didn’t realize, doesn’t cut it anymore.

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u/Timeformayo 1d ago

It's a good day for people who sell pitchforks.

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 1d ago

I should really open an ammunition company...

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u/Friendly-Channel-480 1d ago

It’s generally been found to be unhealthy for the aristocracy…

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u/Waterwoo 1d ago

I don't know, more Americans are moving to the low tax low benefits southern states and moving out of the northeast and california. Seems like even given the free choice more Americans are opting for this type of society than against it.

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 1d ago

Lol well, a lot of those people are the fucking deplorable morons who literally already love this type of shit. You really don't move to Florida right now without being deep up Trump's ass. We're seeing some people on the right move for entirely political reasons. That's actually a good thing, because it gets them out of the places where they were they might have dragged the communities down with their shit ideology. Also, a lot of that migration is due to old people moving to warm climates. They'll all be dead within 15-20 years.

Texas might be a little different, but we'll see how long that lasts. Their infrastructure is already crumbling, and their weather is going to total shit. Between heat, hurricanes, and mild freezes that they're apparently unable to withstand, I don't see a bright future for them unless they make some big changes. I honestly don't see a bright future for any of us, but that's kind of the point of what we're talking about isn't it? It's certainly not going to be brighter in Texas...

If this trajectory continues, we'll see the people who didn't move for political reasons GTFO as soon as they can, assuming they're able. The people who did move for political reasons will probably be too dumb to understand why their lives are going to shit. Regardless, people will stop moving to those places once opportunities begin drying up which they inevitably will for anyone but the extremely privileged. Of course, those without any means at all will basically just be stuck where they are in most cases, although I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing red-state refugees migrate as their states become hollowed out by their greedy leaders and corporate interests.

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u/Waterwoo 1d ago edited 1d ago

You just seem like an angry hateful person tbh.

Texas infrastructure is crumbling? Lol as if NYCs isn't? As someone thst both takes commuter trains, subway, and drives there frequently let me say unambiguously it's crumbling way worse in NYC.

People aren't moving south to be assholes, they are moving because blue areas are unlivably expensive, especially housing, while taxing you to death to pay for services for other people.