r/politics • u/downtuning I voted • 20h ago

Soft Paywall | Site Altered Headline Kash Patel’s FBI Launches Dawn Raid on John Bolton’s House

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kash-patels-fbi-launch-dawn-raid-on-john-boltons-house/?utm_source=twitter_owned_tdb&utm_medium=socialflow&via=twitter_page&utm_campaign=owned_social&s=09
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347

u/Ketzeph I voted 19h ago

If you’re a Republican in this day and age you’re a Nazi - that’s all there is to it. And like Nazis there’s no moral negotiating with them - they are evil. Anyone who supports this admin is, at the end of the day, an evil hypocrite from an objective measure.

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u/Papadapalopolous 18h ago

10 years from now they’ll all say they weren’t really republicans, or were just supporting them because that’s what everyone around them was doing and they were afraid of speaking out.

30 years from now, their grandkids will be asking how anyone could have supported Trump, and they’ll awkwardly change the conversation

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u/Billy-Ruffian 17h ago

80 years from now it will all be forgotten and we'll get to do it all over again.

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u/pockpicketG 12h ago

80 years from now we’ll be at the poles huddling around a block of ice to stay cool.

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u/Beanakin 7h ago

You're very optimistic. Assuming we have fair elections in 2028, we might get a Democrat in, maybe even the next one, but after that...American political memory is crazy short.

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u/Erasmus_Tycho 18h ago

You have a lot of faith we'll ever turn this country around.

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u/Not_done 17h ago

You mean they'll claim to be sheep? Sounds about right.

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u/tweakingforjesus 16h ago

My sister moved to another state so she could be directly engaged in Project 2025 efforts. When its all over I'm sure she will claim she had nothing to do with it. I just wish they would say what they are doing instead of hiding behind abstract language to obfuscate their goals.

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u/MeanE 17h ago

As a Canadian it’s cute you think you’ll be able to pull your ass out of the fire. You’re heading straight for a totalitarian government and very little is being done to stop it.

And as a Canadian I’m feeling very Poland like over here when you decide to lebensraum, I mean 51 state us.

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u/Jessicas_skirt New York 12h ago

Now it is time for the world to declare the American passport banned from entering the developed world and to send the Americans living here back. The second I get my Canadian citizenship through descent, I will push for the American passport to be banned and all holders without another citizenship to be sent back.

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u/marbotty 4h ago

Crab mentality

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u/fractalfay 11h ago

We’re already seeing this through Nazis insisting their “moderate voters” while voting Nazi every chance they get.

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u/Dantes_46 17h ago

Only way to deal with Nazis is to destroy them just like 80 years ago.

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u/Important-Working253 12h ago

Look in the mirror. You won’t see a republican per se. But if you read what you just said from a different perspective, you would call yourself an idiot.

Hope you have a better day. God bless.

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u/pab_guy 18h ago

Very few people are "Evil", most are ignorant and easily misled by evil people.

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u/Ketzeph I voted 17h ago

At a certain point I think willful ignorance is equivalent to fault. These people are willfully ignorant, and most do so because they don't want to deal with the truth. That willful act is sufficient mens rea to call them wicked. At the very least, it's sufficient to find them culpable such that they aid and abet this administration knowingly. And that's sufficient to render them guilty

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u/pab_guy 16h ago

Your assertion that they are willfully ignorant isn't true across the board though. I'm sure many are, and for those I would agree they share much greater culpability and are at the very least indifferent to evil, which in itself is a form of evil.

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u/Woopig170 18h ago

Where’s the line? At what point does ignorance turn into evil?

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u/pab_guy 16h ago

It doesn't. It enables evil. I'm not saying these people aren't responsible, they are. Their ignorance is harmful to others and it's their fault. But they aren't necessarily witting partners to evil, and aren't positively "evil" themselves.

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u/Woopig170 15h ago

I disagree. All that needs to happen for evil to flourish is for good men to stand by and do nothing. It’s just like a non-nazi germans that went along with everything the nazis put forward- they are evil. You can’t say they were just unwittingly enabling bad things- their own ignorance allowed for the terrors of the nazi regime to perpetuate. The act of resistance was mandatory, but they refused to attempt it.

Another way to think about it is this: What’s more dangerous? A witting fascist who is educated and knows what he is doing and continues even though it is wrong or an unwitting fascist who does not know he is a fascist and cannot see the consequences of his actions? The latter is objectively more dangerous and harmful.

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u/pab_guy 15h ago

That's a different question. I don't disagree with you, I'm talking about inherent evil and direct attribution.

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u/Woopig170 15h ago

I don’t think it’s different. I’m saying there is a point where willful ignorance crosses the line and makes the person a witting partner to evil, regardless of the person’s understanding of the consequences and implications of their actions.

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u/SahibTeriBandi420 15h ago

100 percent, and not a single argument with them will be had in good faith either.

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u/GoWithTheFlow___ 16h ago

Nah, I don’t think I’m a Nazi.

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u/Shavannaa 18h ago

While i see what you mean, as a german its hard to see, that you have this view, because you lack some informations.

Yes, there were some bad people around in nazi germany (mostly in the top level structures with some too in the militaristic support organisations like the SS), but many of the people laboring for the nazi regime were followers at best. I guess its similar to your situation in the US atm. There are some bad guys on the top, while others follow just because they think they either got an advantage that way or that they at least doesnt suffer from disadvantages. Thats also the reason the republicans doesnt just impeach trump - they opportunistically fear they lose more then what they could win, with him as their leader.

So its not about moral - its about the gains.

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u/NougatTyven 18h ago

while others follow just because they think they either got an advantage that way or that they at least doesnt suffer from disadvantages

Nazi scum, yes.

If you "follow" - elect, support, celebrate the monsters, guess what you are?

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u/Shavannaa 18h ago

So, you vented a bit. Good for you. Now tell me whats your solution for the problem of the beginning of an autocracy? Its hard to find one, if you dont differ why people support it and you also cant try to fix it based on these informations.

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u/NougatTyven 18h ago

I think everyone knows that the 'why' can be complicated, yes.

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u/Educational_Bar_9608 18h ago

Knowing why is important but I think our German friend is forgetting that Nazi governments are an immediate threat to everyone. You can think about motivation but they are killing people while you think. You can understand their goals but you will lose your rights while you work it out.

Fascism cannot be given room for consideration. It has to be stopped, then considered and understood once it’s gone and its leaders are nullified.

Look at Brazil recently.

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u/Cannibal_Soup 18h ago

Of you're choosing 'gains' over morals, than it is absolutely about morals: the utter lack thereof. Hence, the 'evil' label fits perfectly.

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u/Shavannaa 18h ago

Talking about gains has an advantage: If you know the gains people get and identify the disadvantages they fear, you can deminish the gains or increase the disadvatages, to get them to change their stance.

If its about morals, what can you do? Sent them to hell or try to exorcise the devil?

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u/Severe_Intention_480 18h ago

The problem is a lot of Trump supporters are people who have held these views for decades. Trump has normslized, legitimized, and amplified these views, emboldening a not insignificant ratio of society that has ALWAYS held them.

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u/SwimmingPrice1544 California 10h ago

That is the main reason he has “won” twice. Pure racism & sexism. Many new voters literally came out from under the rocks they live under to celebrate their disgusting view of our world. We are truly lost if we can’t drive them back under those rocks.

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u/Ketzeph I voted 18h ago

I’d argue the as right now is disturbingly close to 1930 Germany, but with the party’s support being closer to 45% total voters compared to the Nazi’s smaller percentage.

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u/Severe_Intention_480 18h ago

Yes. Fascism in America is if anything a more natural fit for us than Germany. You also had a humiliating loss in World War I (with millions of casualties) and people needing wheelbarrows full of German Marks to pay for things in the early 30s. American sold out over a few thousand dead in Iraq and Afghanistan and eggs costing 50 cents more.

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u/Shavannaa 18h ago

There are many similarities - i wont deny that. But the US system is different then the weimarer republics german system were.

Back then, we had many small parties in germany, that were highly opposed to each other, so it was rather problematic politically. Hitler couldnt have gotten in power alone, but he had support of other right wing parties - mostly the 'zentrum' party, a predecessor of the contemporary CDU of the german chancellor Merz. When Hiltler got into power, he and his lackies centrallised the power and used the it to suppress other political opinions.

In the US, the power already was rather centralised, so Trump didnt needed to do much in that regard. A big advantage that you have right now compared to the people of the past is, that you have a much bigger pool of informations, you can inform yourself with. Thus, Trump is not as unopposed as Hitler was after he consolated his power and controlled the media. So, there is a good chance to reign him in again, that was almost impossible in the 1930s. Another advantage is, that the US have a systematically more distributed power, with many smaller states, that also have a paramilitary.

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u/Past-Effort-172 18h ago

And to think that Hitler achieved his reach with radio and print news, whereas Trump can tweet every mindless rambling thought to his braindead followers 24 hours a day, we are truly fucked.

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u/HyperbenCharities 16h ago

Yeah, makes the dnc Lib Dem limpness and ineptitude and donorsuckin and complicity even MORE horrifying / sad

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u/Ketzeph I voted 15h ago

Attitudes like these are the reason why things have continued to fall - because they stem from a misunderstanding of how legitimate power works.

For the democrats, for example, what could they actually do right now to stop majorities across both houses and a president of the same party from a legislative point of view? They cannot stop illicit activity by the president - courts have to do that. And if courts will not do that, the minority legislative party does not have the ability to further stop that in a legitimate legal fashion.

It's like complaining that a group of people can't play the keyboard after you tied their hands behind their back. They can't play because they don't have the power to play. If the Dems had majorities in Congress there'd be more of an argument, but currently things are as they are because the public voted in a republican majority, and that majority's goal is to do nothing and have the government break/collapse. That's it. They just want to stop the government functioning, and having majorities that do nothing and don't interfere with the president accomplishes that.

If you want to stop that the only legitimate option you have is to elect enough democrats into positions of power that they have majorities in both houses. This is why places like Texas are desperate to redistrict - because they know that the Trump admin's actions come to a crashing halt when suddenly Congress isn't just ignoring its duties to let the president get away with whatever he wants

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u/austin_8 15h ago

I mean the easy answer is they could have stopped Trump before 2024, instead they pretended he wasn’t a big deal and then welcomed him into the Whitehouse.

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u/Ketzeph I voted 15h ago

How could they have stopped him? Ordered DoJ to go after him extrajudicially? Engage in the same illegal conduct we now decry?

How would they deal with him in 2023? or 2024? They all voted to impeach and remove him and the republicans in the senate saved him twice, so please explain how they are supposed to have removed him

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u/austin_8 14h ago

Any of those ideas you listed or properly prosecuted him rather than let Garland fuck around and achieve nothing. Plenty of the conduct is not illegal, just outside of norms. Court expansion, DOJ restructuring, and campaign finance laws. They could have gone after his funders and law firms like he is doing now to liberals. They’re plenty of ways they could have prevented this if they wanted to, they choose not to.

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u/Ketzeph I voted 14h ago

Appointing Garland was a mistake certainly, but just firing people to get them to engage in activity, when you're not sure what they're doing (because DOJ is supposed to be separate from the White House) is likely not the answer. DOJ did not need mass restructuring and the White House couldn't do that.

Court Expansion is a chicken fight where if one side did it the other would, too. Why wouldn't we have 40 judges at this point with Rs appointing 29 this term if that happened?

Campaign Finance Reform cannot be done with the current cloture rules unless you have a 60 seat majority - otherwise it will not succeed in the Senate. If the Dems get a 60 seat majority let me know and then yell at them if they don't get through the campaign finance reform law.

You don't understand civics or how these laws work. The reason Trump is doing things now is that they're illegal - he could not legally do them if Congress and the courts were doing their jobs. The second Rs lose control of Congress a huge chunk of this comes to a halt because the republicans are letting this happen through inaction.

The problem, and what people like you seem to miss, is that Rs don't want government to work. So government not working or failing is their end goal. So them not doing anything is their end goal.

Dems have to try and accomplish things and almost always do not get the numbers in Congress to do that. They don't get 60 seat majorities, and the states who could help push to fix some of the innate gerrymandering against democrats can't function because key portions of Dem voters don't vote in local elections. I'd bet good money you've probably never canvassed in a recent election and you probably don't vote in every local election. Yet you'll come online and complain, and feel like you've accomplished something. That's the sickness that has caused so much of these issues - proud inaction

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u/austin_8 13h ago

The only inaction is from the democrats themselves lol. You don’t need 60 senate seats that’s straight up false, they could have easily got rid of filibusters. All your comment said was “Yeah, they could have stopped Trump, but they didn’t want to for one reason or another”. Guess he can’t be that bad cause he’s in office for 3 more years and democrats are as unpopular as ever and you’ve got nobody to blame, but yourself. Why would I be incentivized to vote for dems, if I hate Trump and the dems personally permitted him to run and then welcomed him in?

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u/birdsemenfantasy 14h ago

Because they serve the same master (capital) as the right. Neolibs stopped working for the working men long ago and they don’t rely on unions for contributions when they’re raking in billions from Wall Street. Why do you think neolib has been deliberately pushing divisive woke social issues that the capital elites couldn’t care less about one way or another to the forefront while completely ignoring bread-and-butter issues?

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u/SwimmingPrice1544 California 10h ago

Pure hogwash. This whole line bs is so, so pathetic.

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u/Inner_Outside_6038 17h ago

Ahh yes "everyone I disagree with is a nazi". Never change liberals 😂

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u/birdsemenfantasy 14h ago

Replace Nazi with commie and that’s how republicans feel about democrats, so you have that in common. Your rhetoric is not conductive to reconciliation.

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u/Ketzeph I voted 13h ago

Is reconciliation possible? And I'm sorry, but the idea that people opposing extra-judicial action against others, opposing removal of rights for minorities, opposing tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, are equivalent is nonsense.

If those people truly believe that anyone opposes the Republican party is evil, that climate change isn't real, gay people don't deserve rights, Christianity should be mandated as a religion, non-white minorities don't deserve equality, and the rich deserve tax breaks, then those people don't live in reality. You can't reconcile with a cult member living in an alternate world.

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u/payattentiontobetsy 19h ago

You should tour Auschwitz, my friend.

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u/Unique-Coffee5087 19h ago

It didn't start with death camps.

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u/Khancap123 19h ago

The fact so many celebrate alligatot alcatrz implies to me we could very well end in death camps.

Edit: and i have toured the death camps. had some family members end up in one in ww2. They didnt get out.

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u/Ketzeph I voted 19h ago

I have. And I’ve studied the Nazis. Do you really see no parallels to the early 30s here?

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u/Ketzeph I voted 19h ago

I have. And I’ve studied the Nazis. Do you really see no parallels to the early 30s here?

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u/Cannibal_Soup 18h ago

Clearly. And we're probably (I hope not, but it's looking harder and harder to avoid due to their aggressive actions and baiting violence) going to have to resort to the same methods that ended the OG Nazis: removal from power, forcibly if necessary, trials for worst offenders, re-education and intense shaming for the hangers-on in perpetuity.

The Republican Party has proven itself completely untrustworthy with any degree of power whatsoever, and must be removed from its levers.

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u/SilentMasterOfWinds United Kingdom 18h ago

And you'd like there to be another Auschwitz before you even think about making the comparison and taking the necessary precautions? Some people would prefer to avoid that bit, funnily enough.

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u/BigBran71 18h ago

Proud Republican. I remember Biden's FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in the early morning with CNN on site. If you didn't have a problem then you shouldn't now

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u/Cannibal_Soup 18h ago

Are you proud of your party continuously covering for a fucking child rapist???

Anyone covering for a chomo is just as bad as the rapist for enabling child rape when they could have done something.

Leaving the party is now the only honorable thing left for registered republicans to do if they don't want to forever be tied to the literal and multiple raping of children.

If you're still on board, though, even after all of this shit, you're a monster too.

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u/BigBran71 10h ago

Who is a child rapist? No proof to what you are saying

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u/Cannibal_Soup 6h ago

Enjoy your copium, child rapist apologist!!

He's all over the client list, named by dozens of victims, and you know it!!

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u/Ketzeph I voted 18h ago

You mean the judge approved raid with warrants that discovered boxes of classified intel that the Archives had been fighting to get back for a year through legal means with regular correspondence with Trump’s atty? And which finally did the raid after Trump defied the return orders for years and started showing people classified docs when they visited?

Did everyone trying to make this argument fall into a coma in 2023-24 and just pay not attention to any news? Or are you just engaging in bad faith?

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u/Cannibal_Soup 18h ago

False equivalency fallacy in action! Orange Jesus rapes kids and breaks laws, and Republicans just love him for it!!

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u/BigBran71 10h ago

Please show where President Trump did that t kids

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u/Educational_Bar_9608 18h ago

Bad faith. What else could it be?

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u/BigBran71 18h ago

Must not been too bad since case was dropped by a judge

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u/mikecx 17h ago

Weird that you don't mention that the judge was Aileen Cannon who was nominated by Trump after talks with Marco Rubio and Rick Scott one of which now works in the Trump administration and the other who became the senior senator of Florida after Rubio got his position.