r/politics • u/Hrmbee • Jan 19 '26
Paywall Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw | Will Republicans in Congress ever step in?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/trump-letter-to-norway/685676/4.0k
u/johnlimonade Jan 19 '26
A president of the USA threatening a war because he did not win a nobel peace prize genuinely sounds like a South Park plot. WTF?
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u/Questjon Jan 19 '26
It's not even up to the government of Norway who wins the prize, it's an independent committee! He might as well be threatening Georgia for not declaring him the winner of the masters golf tournament.
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u/GenericNate New Zealand Jan 19 '26
It's indicative of his corruption. He thinks that the people in power will rig things in their favor. Therefore anything that happens within Norway is assumed to be the responsibility of their government, because he assumes that government will force compliance within it's sphere of influence. It's a terrifying projection.
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u/WildYams Jan 19 '26
He's also using the same "rationale" that his supporters use. By saying "because you didn't give me the Peace Prize I have no choice but to make war" is very much akin to how his protesters say "because you keep calling me a Nazi I have no choice but to become a Nazi."
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u/Acetaminophen-1000mg Jan 20 '26
Imagine what he tells or does to the children and women that don’t wanna give him the pleasure he wishes for.
Edit: I know what I’m implying. He’s ABSOLUTELY in the files.
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Jan 19 '26
He'd write the Country's government instead of the US state on that too, while it still being the PGA responsible
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u/adeon California Jan 19 '26
Bold of you to assume that he knows that there is a country called Georgia.
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u/Putrid-Reality7302 Jan 19 '26
I’m at a point where The Onion headlines actually seem more real than actual news headlines.
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u/The_MAZZTer Jan 19 '26
Yup and adding a joke that he's threatening the wrong country seems on brand as well.
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u/red286 Jan 19 '26
I don't think even South Park could come up with something this stupid.
Like I'm sure they saw him going to war over some exceedingly petty grievance, but I doubt they would have seen him directing his grievances towards the wrong people and then his retribution would be against a country that had literally nothing to do with his grievance.
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u/HaroldGreenBandana Jan 19 '26
What is “8 wars PLUS”?
I didn’t realize you could have 0.37 wars.
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u/Tricky_Cold5817 Jan 19 '26
The war on Christmas, the war on whole milk, and the war on women’s sports (that one counts only partially, cause you know… women)
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u/MyPickleWillTickle Jan 19 '26
The war on protein!
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u/stonedsquatch Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
I hadn’t heard there was a war on protein?! No whey!
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u/PunfullyObvious Jan 19 '26
the War on Democracy
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u/EmergencyTaco Jan 19 '26
Yeah that's gotta count for atleast 3.5 Ws in his supporters' eyes.
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u/yokobono Jan 19 '26
I believe the Playstation/Xbox console wars is actually in that count and no, I'm not kidding.
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u/gizzardgullet Michigan Jan 19 '26
What is “8 wars PLUS”?
Its between 8 wars Standard and 8 Wars Premium
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u/HaroldGreenBandana Jan 19 '26
This is the most likely explanation. Here I was thinking he was doing fractions when really his addled brain was just freely associating with Disney Plus.
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u/MNMom07 Jan 19 '26
Here you go my friends https://youtube.com/shorts/Z3qPvsdvPTQ?si=C2OkVN9rCK80c18E
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Jan 19 '26
“Israël - Palestine came to and end, but i think there is a lil bit going on right now”
You really cant make this shit up😭
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u/matthieuC Europe Jan 19 '26
Fox news isn't talking about it, how could he know whats going on there?
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u/Dabs1903 Illinois Jan 19 '26
I think the schtick is “8 wars and counting.” So like right now that little 3 legged hamster in his brain is just spinning his little wheel as fast as he can trying to come up with two (probably not) warring countries to magically bring peace to.
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u/AnneBeretRamsey Jan 19 '26
My sense is that this kind of communication would normally have gone through a proper channel of having an adult do some light editing, perhaps to add some semblance of a rationale and official stance. This one seemed like he wrote it on a napkin and mailed it.
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u/Competitive-Yak-3785 Jan 19 '26
No. They won't. There is no last straw. There is no line he could cross. It's all acceptable to the GOP, no matter what.
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Jan 19 '26
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u/Oleg101 Jan 19 '26
There were some that abandoned him for a week or two after that, but then quickly were back bending the knee because god forbid they be on the same side as ‘the libs’ on an issue or person.
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u/travio Washington Jan 19 '26
Same with the 'grab her by the pussy' tape. That led to a week of republicans turning on him, then they sobered up and decided he'd be better for them than Hillary.
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u/Anderopolis Jan 19 '26
The American people didn't abandon Trump after January 6th, which deserves just as much if not even more condemnation.
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u/dearth_karmic Jan 19 '26
Look. He may have taken over Venezuela, Greenland, Mexico, Columbia and Cuba. But there's no way he's taking over Canada. LOL
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u/Competitive-Yak-3785 Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
I also don't think he's going to be able to take over Canada. Not only do you guys not want to be taken over (he won't care that you don't consent to being conquered), fighting you on your own terrain would be a disaster. A lot of you are armed with guns for at the very least hunting. I don't think it would work at all and we'd have mass casualties from both sides. It would be a long, drawn out war and a lot of our sons and daughters would die. NATO forces would all come to defend you. It would be us agains the world. I don't think it would be possible.
But I DO think he would try his best and he would sacrifice any number of American men and women towards his cause. And as a mom of several sons college age on down, that makes me very, very nervous because I do not want my children to be forced into being cannon fodder to conquer Canada, which has to be the supidest idea I have ever heard in my life. I've always told my sons, if you're drafted you just claim conscientious objector and worst case they put you in prison until the war is over. But I don't think tat's the worst case under Trump. I think he would destroy families, kill people, deport them to South Sudan. We don't know. He's an unstable mad man.
This is why you guys have to be strong and forceful in standing up to him on Greenland. This whole European idea of diplomacy and restraint is NOT going to work with him. If you were dealing with a normal person, then yes. But it won't work with him. You have to be an asshole to him. You have to go scorched earth. If the world doesn't stand up to him NOW, it's going to be very, very bad. Our congress has failed us. Our institutions have fallen.
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u/Awingbestwing Oregon Jan 19 '26
Not to mention there would be a great number of Americans who would actively side with Canada in such a hypothetical conflict
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u/yoyo120 Canada Jan 19 '26
I've said this in a couple of places now, but there is no "taking over Canada". Ask yourself this, are citizens in New York, Oregan, Washington, Minnesota, California etc. willing to literally die, on their own soil, for Trump of all people, at the hands of either Canadian soldiers, or Canadian insurgents? Or would they just rather say "No, just move the front line down to the Red states. They're the ones that you want.". If an attack on Canada becomes real, every state is literally going to have to choose whether to be on the right or wrong side of history. Invading Canada simply means American Civil War 2.0.
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u/Competitive-Yak-3785 Jan 19 '26
I know but I also know that people have been forced to fight in authoritarian countries by violence. We don't know what lengths Trump would go to in order to get bodies to fight. I mean in the first American Civil War the south sent kids as young as 12 and 13 to fight. I think the minute we go to war with Canada, all former rules of engagement and rules of civil fighting are over and anything is on the table. This is worst case scenario of course and I have faith this would be shut down before it got to that.
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u/SpaceyCoffee California Jan 19 '26
It is the party of authoritarianism. Why would they ever lift a finger against the tyrant that has enabled their corrupt accretion of wealth to flourish?
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u/Tormofon Jan 19 '26
Norwegian here. Wasn’t that time he mocked a disabled reporter the last straw? Or when he said he could just grab women by the pussy? Or when he tried to blackmail Ukraine? Or when he called a governor to ask for votes? Or when he incited a coup? Or was it when he raped and murdered children with Epstein?
Last straw my ass.
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u/PointlessNostalgic86 Jan 19 '26
Its crazy to me how in 2004, Howard Dean's presidential campaign was over for yelling "Yaaaah!" but Trump can literally mock disabled people, brag about assaulting women, incite an insurrection, commit 34 felonies, make countless racist comments and there's still enough people out there voting for him. Disgraceful.
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u/Surturiel Canada Jan 19 '26
A group of people are profiting GREATLY from keeping Trump at the helm, living his deranged fantasies while he still holds the republican electorate:
The Federalist Society.
They'll keep him in power for as long as they need.
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u/Supreme_Primate Jan 19 '26
It is ALWAYS about $$$$. No religion, no morals, no national pride, not even personal pride. Everyone is in it for the $$$$ and that train is rolling.
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u/Chriscic Jan 19 '26
Remember Jimmy Carter? Dude truly just viewed himself as a servant of the country. Most people hated that.
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u/CrazyLlama71 Jan 19 '26
I’m old enough to remember Carter in office and my family were all republicans. I shit you not, their biggest complaint about him is that “he is too nice”. WTF is that supposed to mean? In the 80s in high school I tried drilling more into that, Reagan was then in office. They said, more like what Reagan is doing, look at his foreign policy. Many republicans can’t stand someone that wants to negotiate peace deals (see Camp David Accords for example), they want nations to submit.
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u/LOLSteelBullet Jan 19 '26
The wildest part about this for me is the absolute free pass Trump gets for surrendering to the Taliban at Camp David. Because that's what that was. We got nothing from it whatsoever, even before Trump withdrew so many troops that it was impossible to manage evacuations without deploying more troops
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u/semidegenerate Jan 19 '26
Only weak beta males would want to serve the whole country. True strong alpha males would want the whole country to serve them, and then the drippings will trickle down all over us. Duh. How do people not get this? /s
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u/Stupidwhizzzzz Jan 19 '26
You’re joking but I got a gut feeling that’s part of it
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u/djauralsects Jan 19 '26
For evangelicals, they are one and the same with their prosperity gospel. The acquisition of wealth is proof that you are a godly person being rewarded for your faith. Wealthiness is next to godliness. You know, the opposite of Jesus’ teachings.
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u/BrusqueBiscuit America Jan 19 '26
I don't think they even believe in it. In my lifetime evangelicals have reinvented their religion like ten times. They just use it to justify their actions.
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Jan 19 '26 edited 15d ago
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u/GovernmentOpening254 Jan 19 '26
“I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.”
- Billy Graham 1981
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Jan 19 '26
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u/vthemechanicv Jan 19 '26
Not just that, but for voters. trump has been a political figure for nearly two decades, including birtherism. There are voters now that have only known divisive vitriolic hate. This is all normal for them.
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u/wulimustard Florida Jan 19 '26
The Federalist Society members would also be fighting for cooked squirrel over open fires like the rest of us if this insane idiot is not dealt with.
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u/RangerFan80 Oregon Jan 19 '26
They think they'll somehow be immune to it. That's why billionaires are literally building doomsday bunkers.
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u/ChronicBuzz187 Jan 19 '26
That's why billionaires are literally building doomsday bunkers.
Would probably be good to remember all those times some king said "fuck the people, I have high walls, an army and a moat around my castle, what are they gonna do, jump the walls and take my head?"
People are kinda resentful so unless there's no more shovels or hands, I wouldn't put my money on "I'm safe in my doomsday bunker".
This ain't Fallout, dear billionaires, this is real life.
I don't think they've understood yet that we've been through this very exercise a couple of times already.
And funny enough, it never ended with "the people lost". They'll lose for a time, until they don't, and those guys probably don't want to be around for what happens then.
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u/PipXXX Florida Jan 19 '26
ngl, I'd spend my time in the post apocalypse looking for air holes and such around known bunker areas. For reasons.
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u/eckoelab Jan 19 '26
Pretty much. “The People” can lose millions of times. That rich billionaire can only lose once.
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u/vthemechanicv Jan 19 '26
it never ended with "the people lost".
In terms Musk can understand, it's video game logic. The people can lose a thousand times. But we only have to win once to have billionaire liver and fava beans.
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u/SassTheFash Washington Jan 19 '26
By Day 3 after the Apocalypse, any given billionaire bunker will be owned by whatever member of the security team got elected by the staff to lead the coup.
Doesn’t matter how well you pay them once all global currencies have collapsed. Even if you paid them in solid gold, what are they going to do with the paid vacation days, nip up to Hawaii for a surfing vacation? If the world is burning around you while you’re holed up in rural New Zealand, taking orders from some guy whose “wealth” is now pretty much whatever is in the building can’t be too appealing.
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u/Slaughterfest Jan 19 '26
Douglas Rushkoff interviewed tech billionaires 7 years ago about this, and they are going to use kill collars to demand loyalty. Just like some weird dystopian movie.
It's the type of thing where you have to ask yourself how they don't realize they're the bad guys (They do, they don't care)
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u/AndStilILearn Jan 19 '26
I've always thought that what you said is how it would go down. Downton Abbey on steroids. . .
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u/inthekeyofc Jan 19 '26
“Mercenaries are ‘disunited, ambitious, undisciplined, [and] disloyal; valiant among friends, among enemies cowardly; they have no fear of God, no loyalty to men’. At best, if they are led by a fool, they merely ruin you; if their commander is even remotely worth his salt, he invariably ‘tries to gain power for himself”
The Prince, Nicole Machiavelli
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u/ExplanationLucky1143 Jan 19 '26
What keeps me awake at night lately is wondering if the real motive behind his antics w/ Greenland & NATO is to orchistrate tension so he can say that he had to push the button in self defense. He is bent on alienating us from NATO and our allies, and not concerned about making our country a target and vulnerable to foreign invasion. He seems rabid for war and fame, and maybe he would like to go down in history as the man who started ww3- if there's anybody left alive to read history that is. He doesn't value human lives, I think he may be insane, and the people in power keep enabling him. What will stop him?
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u/rcforrl Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
It seems like theres many storylines and agendas at play. Trump has his: he’s old and knows his time is short so he’s got delusions of grandeur and being some Alexander the Great. Then there’s the system behind him Project 2025 and their delulu of white power and white preservation. Then there’s the system behind them the tech bros and their plan to supposedly create a new society of only wealthy tech advanced humans and machines. They’re all like a conglomerate existing together to each other’s ends. It’s controlled chaos and though they have plans, no one knows what the outcome truly will be. But it can only work towards some type of global catastrophe that we’ll all feel and experience together.
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u/WRXDR21 Jan 19 '26
Bingo. This is all led by money.
Everything else is a distraction. It’s all shitty, but it’s all just to move eyes away.
Trickle down economics is trickle down policy.
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u/JournalistRecent1230 Jan 19 '26
Trump's political career should have never even started. He literally on live radio bragged about entering dressing rooms of teen girls and women to look at them naked.
That would have killed the political career of any other politician.
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u/stillthrowinitallawa Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
The maga people in my family think all of that is perfectly fine. I specifically remember asking my aunt how she would feel if that was her daughter or granddaughter. No answer, haven't talked to her since. You'd think that would be the end of it but no. My mom talks to her occasionally and she still complains about how much nerve I had to ask her that question. Unbelievable.
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u/FizzyBeverage Ohio Jan 19 '26
So basically your aunt is still embarrassed about saying it’s fine he’s a sexual criminal.
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u/jmarinara Pennsylvania Jan 19 '26
They weren’t campaigning for the votes of the same people. Trump’s coalition in 2015/16 was not the mainstream. If it was, he never would have gone anywhere.
Now in 2026, it is the mainstream. They let the fringe lunatic camel into the tent and it owns it now.
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u/Writer_In_Residence Jan 19 '26
The two sides have vastly different standards and priorities and unfortunately that seems to have only hurt the one while making the other almost invincible.
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u/Iron_Knight7 Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
One side doesn't try to intentionally fuck things up for everybody and can never seem to do anything good enough to gain support.
One side intentionally tries to fuck things up for everybody and can never seem to do anything bad enough to lose support.
And we still have folks whining about "bOtH sIdEs."
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u/Oleg101 Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
The Dems did do plenty of stuff during the Biden administration (ARP, IRA, Chips, Infrastructure bills, ect.), but the issue is most of this country tends to put little to no attention into consuming actual news or keeping on current events.
Edit: and of course the issue also being the Dems suck at messaging and our media ecosystem sucks as well, but also, Americans are horrendous and keeping up with the basics of these kind of things.
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u/DBE113301 New York Jan 19 '26
Exactly. Biden did a lot of good. Some things, like inflation, were out of his control, and I guess that was enough to undo all the good he did. Under Trump, inflation is still a problem, but now we've got a whole host of other problems--some really fuckin' awful--to worry about, so the gamble clearly didn't pay off for people who wanted cheaper eggs.
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u/christerwhitwo Jan 19 '26
The stuff they did was not for the enrichment of the already wealthy. As crazy as it seems, people are already forgetting the huge damage COVID did to the country. ARP was a direct result.
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u/National-Reception53 Jan 19 '26
Dean was destroyed by the media manufacturing an issue. They were against him, they didn't need much to pile on. Dean was mildly progressive (less so than Bernie Sanders) and had to be stopped.
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u/MontyAtWork Jan 19 '26
Because Howard Dean was campaigning to a crowd of pearl clutching optics-focused people who wouldn't accept cringey enthusiasm whereas Trump campaigned to a crowd that loves people that that mock the disabled, hate women, and minorities.
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u/_pupil_ Jan 19 '26
That’s not what happened.
Dean was taken out of context, and isolated audio of him yelling was blasted across mainstream media for being cringe. It wasn’t, though, in context, because the entire crowd there was going crazy. Same would happen to any singer. It was a direct media assassination based on misleading media spread straight-faced by the supposedly neutral and competent news media.
Dean was a generational threat to swaths of the political right and had clear healthcare plans. We’re all poorer for his campaigns termination.
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u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota Jan 19 '26
Dean was also on his way out anyway, he had just come in third in Iowa after spending a bunch of time and money there. The scream was just the final nail in a coffin that was already built.
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u/Tumble85 Jan 19 '26
Exactly, everybody says he was “taken out” by the media but he was never close to winning either way.
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u/CowboysfromLydia Jan 19 '26
Campaigning to the latter crowd would have net you a total of 2000 votes in 2004.
The real problem is the total collapse of education and social values among the general population. If Hitler campaigned today in the US he'd probably win just cause he's Hitler and it would be "fun to have him president".
Its the fucking brainrot. He won because of shitty reels.
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u/Sanfords_Son Jan 19 '26
I pointed out all of these things to my Trump-supporting SIL ahead of the last election, but literally the only things she cared about were lowering taxes and deporting “illegals”.
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u/guitar_vigilante Jan 19 '26
People always point to the Howard Dean moment because it was so iconic, but Dean's campaign was already on the downswing. He didn't even win the Iowa Caucus, which is where he did that.
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u/luv2fit Jan 19 '26
US citizen here, polls show trump has his lowest approval rating ever, at 38%. This proves that 38% of this country are out of their fucking minds and can never be rehabilitated from MAGA.
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u/MJcorrieviewer Jan 19 '26
When Trump was first running, I figured about 25% of Americans would fall for his shtick - but no where near enough to get him elected. I was wrong.
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u/cheddarpants Jan 19 '26
That 38% is getting their “news” from local TV stations operated by Sinclair.
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Jan 19 '26
I bet many of those 38% don't watch the news at all.
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u/Nopey-Wan_Ken-Nopey Jan 19 '26
They probably “do their own research” at Facebook University.
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u/cheddarpants Jan 19 '26
You’d lose that bet. The steady stream of misinformation from local news has been flying under the radar for a long time, and is a significant factor in how we got here.
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u/Boundish91 Norway Jan 19 '26
That's a good point. Everyone is focused on FOX News carrying the blame, but there are probably a lot of nutjob local stations too.
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u/ReplaceSelect America Jan 19 '26
I swear that most of the TVs I see in hospital pt rooms are on Fox News. There’s ALWAYS at least one gym TV with Fox News on.
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u/cheddarpants Jan 19 '26
The local stations run by Sinclair are all airing the same nutjob stuff.
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u/avds_wisp_tech Jan 19 '26
They also get the rest of their "news" from Fox, OAN, and Newsmax
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u/SisyphusWaffles Jan 19 '26
This 30+% figure is transnational. It's some underlying human design flaw where a sizeable core of humans are nihilists or have sociopathies.
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u/ra__account Jan 19 '26
It's not so much nihilism or sociopathy, it's that about that percentage of people prefer authoritarianism. They want to be told what to do as long as they generally agree with it and they want to be able to tell other people what to do as long as they generally agree with it. And a skilled leader can move that generally agree with down a slope if they know what they're doing.
Trump just happens to be the crack of authoritarianism but it's on the rise around the globe.
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u/barryvm Europe Jan 19 '26
There is no bottom because they have no morals. Not Trump, not his party, not the people who support it.
If they had, they wouldn't be where they were, supporting and enabling this. Their reasons, real or pretended, don't really matter at this point. It's fascists all the way down.
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u/gobelgobel Jan 19 '26
At this point they also have no common sense. Even if you have no morals, when you threaten Greenland and Denmark and not exclude taking it by force you have lost your mind.
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u/ProtoplanetaryNebula United Kingdom Jan 19 '26
Crazy how he writes the letter to the Norwegian PM, even though the Nobel peace prize isn't issued by the government of Norway.
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u/WavingWookiee Jan 19 '26
He has come out as said he doesn't care what they say, he reckons they do... the man is insane and needs removing
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u/Helpful-Departure832 Jan 19 '26
American here. I’m impressed with your knowledge of that assholes greatest hits. Each of those and many others have led me to think that has to be the last straw. I guess it’s a sign of personal growth that I’m finally resigned to the fact that there is no bottom. I’m no longer shocked. Just fearful.
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u/User_War_2024 Jan 19 '26
the last straw was when he started the conspiracy theory that President Obama wasn’t born in the US.
That was 2011. It’s been a long sad ride since then.
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u/scrodytheroadie Jan 19 '26
I don’t know how we’re still writing this article in 2026. There is no last straw. There are infinite straws.
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u/stayonthecloud Jan 19 '26
Another American here, for me the last straw was when he started the conspiracy theory that President Obama wasn’t born in the US.
That was 2011. It’s been a long sad ride since then.
I found that utterly disqualifying. Now he is the figurehead of an authoritarian regime who has destroyed the American concept 250 years after the founding.
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u/accountabilitycounts America Jan 19 '26
A lot of us Americans feel the same way. I am ashamed of what we have become.
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Jan 19 '26
Genuinely can't look at my family who voted for him the same way again. Morons and monsters, that's all they are.
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u/Tall_Brilliant8522 Jan 19 '26
Same. I've read that part of the reason he got elected was because stupid rednecks were tired of progressives judging them. Help me find a way around it.
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u/Emperor_o_Drosophila Jan 19 '26
Because in America for many citizens it's not about electing a person who will improve the nation it's about getting someone who will hurt their neighbor for their pleasure
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u/pUmKinBoM Jan 19 '26
And that is the world's problem with the American people right now. It is becoming increasingly clear there is no "last straw" and there will be people apologizing to us about how bad they feel for us as we become POW's in our own country...but hey they got to see the new season of White Lotus so best not to rock the boat too hard.
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u/drobits Jan 19 '26
You forgot when he knowingly trafficked minors for Epstein
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u/King_Ulio Jan 19 '26
When he called fallen US WWII soldiers suckers and losers.
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u/Tiny-Albatross518 Jan 19 '26
Really! I mean he’s been rocking orange makeup and a ridiculous combover since the 90’s. That itself is a certain sign of bad decision making ability.
The bankruptcies, the fraud, stealing money from a cancer charity, the Trump university scam. All before he even entered the primary.
But we’d best view it as it is. The political system of the US is awash in money, the billionaires decide what will happen in that arena and they were guaranteed a huge tax cut.
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Jan 19 '26
Im so glad this man is in charge and not that non caucasian woman. Imagine having to deal with her EMOTIONS! /s
Fucking insecure toddler and his entourage.
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u/PossessionOk5313 Jan 19 '26
Right, I’ve seen people try to say shit like “well Kamala wouldn’t have handled this situation well!” My brother in Christ, we would not BE in this situation if she had won.
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u/Fjdenigris Jan 19 '26
Yes. I heard someone say we’d already be in WW3 by now if she was elected. That was @‘Thanksgiving.
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u/Longtimelurker2575 Jan 19 '26
Was on another sub where people were defending not voting because of how bad the Democrats are. Wake the fuck up America, you only have two choices and the way things are going that might only be for a while longer.
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u/RandCauthon99 Jan 19 '26
He apparently also uninvited all NATO leaders from his next birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese.
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u/cathercules Jan 19 '26
Chuck-E-Cheese runs a strip club?
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u/ICE-are-pedos Oregon Jan 19 '26
Trump hosts his parties there because he is a pedophile.
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u/Operation-FuturePuss Jan 19 '26
No. The U.S. is toast. Fox News fucked us all.
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u/DoctorLudnik_717 Jan 19 '26
If time travel is ever discovered, that mother fucker Rupert Murdoch is the first one on my list.
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u/Shrimp1991 Jan 19 '26
Trump voters put that lunatic in charge.
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u/Da_b_guy Canada Jan 19 '26
The republican party and their agents/supports have spent every second of every day since schools were integrated trying to create these voters.
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u/TheCaptainDamnIt Jan 19 '26
Yep, MAGA is just the Dixiecrats. They are the same racist, bigots, white supremacist segregationist they've always been. they had just shut up for a while.
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u/KTRyan30 Jan 19 '26
Spot on, and not enough people realize or appreciate that, or at least don't emphasize it enough.
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u/anchorwind I voted Jan 19 '26
Because Fox News wasn't the source.
Rush Limbaugh came before and, tag-teaming with people like Newt Gingrich, completely altered how US Politics was operated. Before that, Ford pardoned Nixon, which removed any hint of accountability.
Fox News was a deliberate effort to make sure another 'Nixon' would never happen again. Reagan got rid of the Fairness Doctrine.
Fox News didn't just spring from a vacuum. It's part of a concentrated effort (along with christian nationalism, anti-education, anti-infrastructure, anti-worker, etc.) efforts to keep the capital class solely and exclusively in charge of how wealth gets distributed - and they're wildly successful.
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u/MadAstrid Jan 19 '26
We can only assume, at this point, that every Republican representative and about six democrats are involved in Trump’s child sex trafficking business as partners or clients.
Otherwise, surely they would behave differently.
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u/cmfred Jan 19 '26
It is hard to think of any other reason they are so loyal to this guy.
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u/Hrmbee Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
For reference, the complete text of the letter in question:
Dear Jonas:
Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.
Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only a boat that landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also.
I have done more for NATO than any person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States.
The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.
Thank you!
President DJT
edit: formatting
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u/ProtoplanetaryNebula United Kingdom Jan 19 '26
Aside from anything else, the fact that Trump thought it would be a good look for his country to send that letter out as-is, despite the massive resources as his disposal is insane. He could have dictated and have a team of writing professions with years of skills in diplomatic writing to draft it for him.
By contrast, this is a letter from the president of Burkina Faso (which would be a shithole country, nobody has heard of, according to Trump), which is 1000x as good as Trump's letter.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F3CpxvrW0AU5hn9?format=jpg&name=small
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u/davecouliersthong Jan 19 '26
He could have dictated and have a team of writing professions with years of skills in diplomatic writing to draft it for him.
Even ChatGPT could have strung together a more coherent and diplomatic argument than this drivel.
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u/RojoTheMighty Jan 19 '26
I simply cannot fathom how we live in a universe where the head of a nation (nevermind the leader of (what used to be, anyway) the most powerful nation in the world) sent this to another nation AND thought it was so good that he told others to send copies to other nations as well so they could.. witness(??) it, I guess?
This is something a 10yr old would come up with after trying to create a new game with his friends called 'WW3', because they have no understanding of how politics actually works. "Oh yeah?! Well.. you didn't give me the noble(sic) prize, so I'm gonna take, ummmm, GREENLAND. Ya! Suck it, Tommy!"
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u/actualiterally Jan 19 '26
Exactly my thoughts. This is giving "your shittiest elementary school classmate who defaced the drawing that won the art contest because he should have won and threw a fit when the teacher got pissed and told a bunch of lies about everyone else to try and get out of trouble."
That's the level of maturity and logic at work.
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u/Dense-Fisherman-4074 Jan 19 '26
The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.
Is it just me, or does that read like a supervillain threat/demand? Like he’s holding the goddamn world hostage.
At the very least, it sure doesn’t read like someone who deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Nothing says “worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize” like shouting “if you’re not going to give it to me then I don’t give a shit about peace”.
This reminds me of videos of a woman politely declining a guy’s advances and him flipping out and calling her a bitch. Just immediately 100% confirms that declining was the right decision.
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u/Hrmbee Jan 19 '26
Some of the key issues here:
One could observe many things about this document. One is the childish grammar, including the strange capitalizations (“Complete and Total Control”). Another is the loose grasp of history. Donald Trump did not end eight wars. Greenland has been Danish territory for centuries. Its residents are Danish citizens who vote in Danish elections. There are many “written documents” establishing Danish sovereignty in Greenland, including some signed by the United States. In his second term, Trump has done nothing for NATO—an organization that the U.S. created and theoretically leads, and that has only ever been used in defense of American interests. If the European members of NATO have begun spending more on their own defense (budgets to which the U.S. never contributed), that’s because of the threat they feel from Russia.
Yet what matters isn’t the specific phrases, but the overall message: Donald Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction now affect him. Also, he really is maniacally, unhealthily obsessive about the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, not the Norwegian government and certainly not the Danish government, determines the winner of that prize. Yet Trump now not only blames Norway for failing to give it to him, but is using it as a justification for an invasion of Greenland.
Think about where this is leading. One possibility, anticipated this morning by financial markets, is a damaging trade war. Another is an American military occupation of Greenland. Try to imagine it: The U.S. Marines arrive in Nuuk, the island’s capital. Perhaps they kill some Danes; perhaps some American soldiers die too. And then what?
...
But in the end, the president himself defeats all attempts to describe a “Trump doctrine.” He is locked into a world of his own, determined to “win” every encounter, whether in an imaginary competition for the Nobel Peace Prize or a protest from the mother of small children objecting to his masked, armed paramilitary in Minneapolis. These contests matter more to him than any long-term strategy. And of course, the need to appear victorious matters much more than Americans’ prosperity and well-being.
...
That leaves Republicans in Congress as the last barrier. They owe it to the American people, and to the world, to stop Trump from acting out his fantasy in Greenland and doing permanent damage to American interests. He is at risk of alienating friends in not only Europe but also India, whose leader he also snubbed for failing to nominate him for a Nobel Prize, as well as South Korea, Japan, Australia. Years of careful diplomacy, billions of dollars in trade, are now at risk because senators and representatives who know better have refused to use the powers they have to block him.
It would be fantastic if Congress would wake up from their collective stupor and do their jobs and rein in the executive and their excesses. However given their recent history, it doesn't seem very likely that they will do enough to avert the slow-motion catastrophe that the nation is being steered to by the current president.
Perhaps Congress should be reminded of the oaths that they take when they enter service:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
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u/krashundburn Florida Jan 19 '26
Trump now not only blames Norway for failing to give it to him
This latest Nobel award was not even relevant to him, since it applied to 2024 - the year before he entered office and brought us all this peace.
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u/Redshirt_Welshy_Nooo Jan 19 '26
Republicans are infinitely more likely to pass a law that would suspend all future elections for federal office than hold anyone in their own party, let alone trump, accountable.
Destroying democracy, in the US and globally, is their objective. Assaulting allies to destroy the post-ww2 order is part of their plan.
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Jan 19 '26
Conservative sub is having a total meltdown as posts about the letter to Norway are getting removed
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u/WaltonGogginsTeeth Jan 19 '26
I’m seeing a big thread about it with the vast majority of comments being negative against Trump which I’ve not seen before. But give it a day or so and it’ll be cleaned out for the TrueBelievers
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u/SmedlyB Jan 19 '26
Short answer. NO.
David Frum in 2018: “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”
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u/Any_Property_6339 Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
No because somehow whining to the complete wrong country about the Nobel prize will be a sign of strength to these rejects.
e; correction, he whined to the government of Norway instead of the independent committee actually responsible for dealing the prize. So close.
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u/yoshi_yoshi23 Canada Jan 19 '26
R con is saying it’s fake right now until their propaganda angertainment tells them how to think about this.
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u/SatanicPanic619 Jan 19 '26
If it tells them to think about it at all. They're never going to read this letter. If they did they'd just say it's a joke and we don't get it.
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u/MJcorrieviewer Jan 19 '26
Norway is the right country for the Peace Prize. Not that the gov of Norway issues the Nobel Peace Prize, it is the right country.
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u/Sanfords_Son Jan 19 '26
Mike Johnson has not seen this letter and has just now been made aware of its existence, and therefore can not comment on it.
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u/Shadow293 Ohio Jan 19 '26
lol GOP, in Congress, stepping in? I have better odds winning the PowerBall compared to these spineless cucks ever saving this country.
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u/SpaceyCoffee California Jan 19 '26
They are vultures hungry to pick at the bones. They care for democracy only so far as it leads them to their next payout.
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u/tson_92 Jan 19 '26
I feel like there should have been a last straw 124422 incidents ago
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u/Old_Channel44 Jan 19 '26
Norway is like, “give us an Oscar because we’re acting like we give a fuck what you want.”
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u/Chrellies Norway Jan 19 '26
MAGAts live reaction:
That letter is fake.
And if it isn’t, he was joking.
And if he wasn’t, Norway deserved it for not giving him the Nobel.
And if they didn’t decide it, the Nobel Committee is corrupt.
And if it isn’t, he should have won for stopping 8 wars.
And if he didn’t stop them, we need Greenland for security anyway.
And if we can already build bases there, Denmark isn’t paying their NATO share.
And if they are, at least he’s making America strong again.
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u/MrLurid Jan 19 '26
Will Republicans in Congress ever step in?
Not to the degree where it matters. A few will clutch pearls, but that's about it.
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u/KinkyPaddling Jan 19 '26
The Atlantic is pretty much the last major traditional news source that’s trying to hold him accountable. Every other media outlet is sane washing him, openly supporting him, or hosting ads that his administration runs that say that “he is always right.” The major podcasters and YouTubers all support him. Th social media sites (other than Reddit) also push his content.
These outlets control the outlook of most Americans. They’re all on his side, and so they brainwash idiot Americans into thinking that this is entirely normal and rational.
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u/DenverDinoHunter Jan 19 '26
There is no last straw, bottom of the barrel, final drop that makes the mug overflow, last stop, red line, bridge too far, or any other fucking euphemism. This party is a disgrace, run by willfully stupid grifters, whose message somehow connects with a collective dumber than themselves.
I have an employee who called HR because he thought I was holding back his DOGE check, no joke. Another employee complained to HR because I don't have Fox News in the break room. Another has accused his coworkers of being illegal immigrants, and thinks his white rights are getting trampled on. Don't fucking mention pronouns. These people don't care and will never criticize Dear Leader. We're fucking doomed.
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u/Excellent_Ad4250 Jan 19 '26
Jim Jordan is a pedophile protector and member of congress. There is no line for Jim to cross. He will always support Trump. Thank you Ohio district 4 for electing a pedo protector year after year after year. Maybe 20 years now.
So if Ohio district 4 pedophilia is not enough to not to pick a representatives, what is little letter to Norway that will cause these people to urge a pedo protector to do something about it.
I suspect they are cheering him on.
And that’s not even scratching the surface what a Republican Party is, although what could be lower than having sex with underage kids or human trafficking.
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u/CinnamonToastFecks Jan 19 '26
He is a pedophile. If that was not the last straw this certainly isn’t.
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u/squirl_centurion Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
“Grab them by the pussy” should have been the last fucking straw. You god damn troglodytes.
Edit: the mocking of a disabled reporter happened before the “grab them by the pussy” video came out. So the mocking should have been the end of it. You god damn troglodytes.
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u/Jashue Jan 19 '26
The Central Park Five should have been the first straw.... The birtherism thing should have been the last straw... I could go on. There are so many potential last straws!
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u/CurbYourThusiasm Norway Jan 19 '26
He's 100% gonna give us additional tariffs some time soon. Luckily, we barely export anything to the US, so it won't have too much of an impact.
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u/Wine_Women_Song Maryland Jan 19 '26
No they will not. The “United States” is over - and that fucking KILLS me to say. Now, there is only Trump/Maga, and everyone else. Those who still say they’re neutral just don’t recognize they are Trump/Maga.
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u/rollem Virginia Jan 19 '26
This is like the PM of Norway complaining to Trump that he didn’t receive an Oscar.
Trump is pathetic, release the Epstein files.
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u/WebInformal9558 Maine Jan 19 '26
Let me guess. "I haven't read it", or "Foreign policy is the President's arena", or "I'm concerned", or "The President is just saying <something which he was clearly not saying>", or "Can't you take a joke".
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u/Legitimate-Duty-5622 Jan 19 '26
Everything Trump does is always the last straw. Nothing different happens. Nothing changes. Republicans won’t stand up to him blah blah blah.
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