• DandomRude@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    Back in 2017, I didn’t understand how an extremely wealthy heir to a billion-dollar fortune (and regardless of all his business failures) could present himself as the candidate of the little people. Today, after Trump was president and - of course - only made policy changes for the rich, I understand it even less. What is this photo-op all about? Are there seriously still people who don’t understand that Trump has never represented the middle class - or even the working class? You can’t be serious, dear US citizens.

    • DevopsPalmer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      13 days ago

      It’s super frustrating but as an example - my parents are deeply conservative and supportive of Trump, and also on the lower end of “wealth” and semi-retired. It is 100% misinformation. My Dad quotes the Fox news rhetoric like it’s facts, and regardless of me disproving most of the BS, he is completely brain washed. At this point Trump could run a live execution of his political opponents and the Trumpets would more or less shrug.

    • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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      13 days ago

      Yes. Half the country thinks Trump is for the little guy and Harris is an elitist asshole.

      Trump was born rich. Harris grew up middle class and a member of two minority groups. The problem is the democrats are shit at messaging. It’s why Walz calling republicans weird took off. Democrats don’t usually come up with sound bites like that.

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        13 days ago

        I sincerely don’t understand how this is even possible. A lot of these people are old, do they not remember the 90’s? Trump being “Smug Rich Asshole: The Character” was his whole brand, and people loved him for it because we were still drinking that “Capitalism good” kool-aid left over from the cold war.

        How is this man with a literal solid gold toilet “The Voice of the People”

        This whole nonsense makes me perfectly understand how “War of the Worlds” was mistaken for a legitimate news broadcast.

          • luciferofastora@lemmy.zip
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            13 days ago

            I’m only a chapter in, but found the section on conventionalism curious. It may explain why they take such issue with being called “weird”: If they value their perception of being “normal”, “weird” isn’t just an insult used against people you don’t like, it’s an attack on a principal personality trait.

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      As someone who went down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole in the 00s but realized Alex Jones was full of shit by 2010, I was incredibly baffled to see the movement align behind someone who could be an avatar of everything it feared.

      That said, the racism and bigotry in that movement had gone right over my head and I generally dismissed the more out there shit like lizard people or aliens being involved because it sounded stupid. I believed (and still do) that that shit is part of a real strategy to use ridiculous claims to generate noise that makes real things like MK ultra more likely to be dismissed along with them.

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        13 days ago

        Went through the same thing, admittedly what got me out of it was realizing how often it came back to “And that’s why Hitler did nothing wrong!”

        Which made me go “That whole “genocide is good actually” thing… doesn’t really align with all this talk of how peace and love are being threatened by the forces of darkness…”

        I figured it was a few bad eggs who just somehow got the wrong message, but it kept happening

        All the people telling me I was on the George Soros payroll was kinda the very last straw, because how could I be the bad guy in this “conspiracy” and being so richly rewarded for it if I was struggling this much? And who the fuck was George Soros? I still to this day barely know who the fuck that even is.

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          Yeah, for me it was Alex Jones presenting this idea that the world elites had a plan to depopulate the world, saying that he had a solution, but then leaving that as a cliffhanger for his next video. I was left thinking, “wait, this seems more urgent than ‘wait for my next video’, if that’s really happening, it should be a ‘we gotta stop this now’”.

          And then I thought about the high production value of his videos. They were professional level, which would take a budget. Someone threatening such powerful enemies wouldn’t have a budget, they’d have problems created by those enemies (because I never ended up in that “our enemies are simultaneously strong and weak” mindset). I didn’t realize at the time how profitable his schemes were and that he could easily pay for professional-level feature-length videos, but by the time I understood that, I saw his grift for what it was.

          Lol I remember being frustrated by the normies that kept dismissing it, but getting caught up in the denial shit from within sounds even more frustrating.

          • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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            13 days ago

            This reminds me of when I kinda realized Fox News was pure evil because I saw them talking about how Obama was this crazy tyrant who was plotting to destroy the nation…

            And I just asked the guy on the TV “Wait, if he’s a Tyrant who doesn’t care about the Constitution hellbent on this evil, flaunting it as you say… Then why hasn’t he ordered your execution? Why are you on the number 1 rated News program talking about this in broad daylight in a high definition television that’s just sitting casually in the middle of this Hardee’s?”

            And then that’s when the lady behind the counter is like “Sir, this is a Wendy’s”

            and I’m like “I am a Ma’am, and this is a Hardee’s!”

    • BaldManGoomba@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      Before 2016 he was a celebrity people liked him as a no bullshit business owner like the middle class small business owners. As he was exposed to more media and has proven he was more of an idiot it personified him as someone like them. A moron who does what they want with 0 reflection or cares about other people.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        I’m baffled as to how anyone other than asshole bosses saw him as anything other than another asshole boss. The Apprentice gave me a strong negative opinion of him, similarly to how Shark Tank gave me a strong negative opinion of Kevin O’Leary.

  • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    When he went to the bathroom earlier to do the mud pie… he must have used too small of a slice of toilet paper when he wiped, and he got mud pie on his tiny hands, and then he touched the fries, and then someone ate the fries, and now they are sick off of his mud pie.

  • knightmare1147@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    There was a term I really liked for this kind of things: “Vacationing in poverty” I think, where people with wealth ‘adventure’ being homeless or something but don’t even remotely appreciate that the people they’re pretending to be don’t have an ‘off’ switch or an easy out of their situations.

    I find the whole premise despicable.

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      Kinda like that undercover boss show where they tried to show how great these CEOs are by throwing some money at specific employees that are struggling, ignoring that better leadership and compensation that lines up better with the value being created would improve things for all of the other struggling employees that weren’t lucky enough to be assigned to boss babysitting duty (assuming the whole thing wasn’t staged entirely).

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        13 days ago

        It probably wasn’t staged sadly. Those privileged billionaires saw the struggling employees as the exception, not the rule.

        I know it wasn’t because there was an episode where an employee disillusioned with life and struggling with drug addiction was fired “As a favor to him”, and it was framed as being super wholesome, even though now that guy without any financial support and no way to get help will likely relapse harder than he ever has…

          • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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            13 days ago

            “It gives you the chance to put your life back in order” and other empty platitudes that ignore what’s really happening.

            • luciferofastora@lemmy.zip
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              13 days ago

              wat

              I understand that you’re quoting. This is no criticism of your comment. I consider myself fairly adept at imitating the mental gymnastics. But here, I’m at a loss.

              • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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                13 days ago

                The rich do not think critically about the world around them. They have never had to fight for anything in their lives, all their success is just handed to them. They’ve never had to make hard decisions.

                This means that they have never had to be introspective or give any thought to how their actions affect those around them.

                They are simply disillusioned because their wealth puts a barrier between them and the harshness of life.

                So they do not recognize suffering when they see it, and when they do they blame the victim because they know that this couldn’t happen to them, and that means it doesn’t happen to anybody worthwhile.

      • desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        13 days ago

        I would understand a boss going undercover to investigate where things are least efficient and whether their subordinates are lying about safety violations at a lower cost than getting an actual investigation.

        • superkret@feddit.org
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          13 days ago

          The word “subordinates” disgusts me.
          Luckily I’ve never had to work with someone who felt they were above the other members of their team.

          • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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            13 days ago

            Subordinate has a lot of implications, and typically I only hear it used to talk about people working for the bad guy…

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      13 days ago

      Especially since they keep doing it to prove that “Oh anyone can be a millionaire, ya just gotta not be lazy.”, and despite each of them failing when they fail to prove this, they still proceed to learn nothing form this.

      If only I could show the world what rich people really think of the common man, but if thousands of films like “Joker” and “V For Vendetta” where that’s the sole point didn’t do it, then what the fuck else will?

  • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    Wow, someone has actually died as a result of this McDiddles E. Coli outbreak? Imagine living your whole ass life, doing regular shit, being a regular ass person, and then dying to a mcdouble. WTF. Just another reason I rarely let other people cook my food.

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    It’s funny yeah but Trump didn’t spread E. Coli to 10 states in 2 days, and the McDonalds wasn’t open during their photo op.

    • Heavybell@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      No, see, he’s like santa. He can break the sound barrier under his own power in his goal to spread e. coli.

    • lovely_reader@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Yeah, he didn’t do that either. I read that they asked him to and he said that his hands were nice and clean already.

    • Something Burger 🍔@jlai.lu
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      12 days ago

      Isn’t Trump a germaphobe?

      I just looked it up and apparently it’s a lie he made up when asked whether he enjoys getting peed on.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    Every october he dresses up and pretends he’s the spookiest thing he can imagine. This year he’s one of the poor ghosts that make his fries.

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    LOL I wonder how far back this goes. When I was young and immortal I ate at McDonalds a lot because it was handy, and the Quarter Pounder (aka Royale) with Cheese was my favorite thing there. After decades of avoiding it I did venture into one a couple years ago. Was a yuge McLetdown.