“No, I’m not a king,” our president said. “I-- I get-- I-- I don’t laugh": American Politics, May 2026

Boom.

here we go! Another month of chaos, high prices, and general discontent

hey at least DHS got funded

/s

And Powell is staying on for the ride!!

Trump fumes as Jerome Powell plots future at Federal Reserve

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is drawing backlash from Trump administration figures and allies after announcing his plans to stay at the central bank beyond his chairmanship.

From the Washington Post:

Pope Leo on Friday named a formerly undocumented immigrant who was smuggled into the United States in a car trunk to be bishop of West Virginia; he also elevated to bishop Howard University’s chaplain, who has called attacks on diversity “un-American” and “un-Christian.”

Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, 55, migrated to the U.S. in 1990 and in 2023 became the first Salvadoran bishop in the country, serving as auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Washington. Believed to be one of the first U.S. bishops born in Central America, he has publicly called for Catholics to speak out against President Donald Trump’s treatment of immigrants.

I really, really want Trump to order this guy deported. You can do it, Donny! Go to absolute war with the Catholic Church! You know you want to...

Oh yeah, Trump would like 3 more wives.

i hope the democrats don't fight fire with redistricting fire, because that would be gauche

https://newrepublic.com/article/209830/trump-supreme-court-gerrymandering-voting-rights

love to mix some useless corn into my gasoline

bullshit!!!

sorry, i gotta say that. i represent missouri

long arms of big corn reaching right into ilx, scary

show me

do your research

*walks into corn*

Listen, Zach, do your research

show me

i like this joke btw

thank you

this state is fucking crazy

what is needed is 100% ethanol, all corn. the food and energy systems need to be completely integrated. all cereals should be used as fuels, but especially corn, or whatever missouri is good at. count chocula is banned not because of the real pain that he caused his community but instead because he is not enough of a fuel

my salary goes up every time you say corn so keep it rolling

https://i.postimg.cc/pTRVBth9/image.png

Keep it corny

xp sorry but there's no AI images allowed in the thread. you can tell it's AI because the kernels are backwards

on the other hand, if we could get corn-powered data centers, we might be on to something

name one thing that has corn in it

haha yeah, i know. take your time.

https://i.postimg.cc/jdHbZ1TL/image.png

lagoon probably wants legumes to replace corn

still makes me crack up that the guy who really kicked off the hybrid corn thing later became vice president of the US only to fumble the bag because he went from
being relatively centrist to socialist so they dumped him from the ticket. also he got into theosophy for some reason and they thought that was weird

i’m eating tortilla chips right now xxp

but what i really want to talk about tonight are the future farmers of america

also I am drinking a little whiskey but I think this one is mostly rye. should be bourbon to support corn

I was at an ag expo once and some kid who looked like he was 14 wearing FFA gear asked if I could get him one of the free samples a tobacco chew company was handing away at a booth. I told him I was there for work and they wouldn’t like that

also wtf at the free tobacco samples. they don’t grow that here

that kid is probably playing candy crush in an auto-driving john deere tractor cab now and spitting his chew into a mountain dew bottle

thats what i would do

god bless corn. it’s the perfect plant, similar to how bananas are the perfect fruit, spiritually

it’s funny, my friend I’ve known from college is so allergic that he starts projectile vomiting about twenty minutes after accidentally eating a banana. i’m only mildly allergic but it’s apparently related to a latex allergy, or so i tell the ladies?!

Sorry to bring everyone down but I have some sad news to deliver: The Daily Wire laid off half of its staff today due to declining popularity.

their leader making insanely bad movies that no one wants to watch to burn money is probably the main culprit. it’s also been floated that hungary was sending them money and oops

story just came out about a huge gop donor whos gone awol maybe he was their guy

No longer quite the audience there used to be for ultra-zionism

Only 200k views for their “Sabrina Carpenter is secretly Right Wing” video.

tough out there

when a huge gop donor goes awol it usually means they died on the toilet

maybe we should see if they got a little too weird rod dreher style

hey at least DHS got funded

But now they're gonna try to get ICE funded via a budget reconciliation bill with no Dem reforms . Their goal is to get it through in May

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5858561-funding-ice-border-patrol/

Senator Collins will ride in on an white horse to save us! Sidesaddle!

really stressing about this U.S. troop withdrawal from Germany, not sure I'll sleep tonite

1946-2026 It was a good run

Can I just get in on the corn and say that is is one of the worst things you could make alcohol from. Not only does corn liquor taste like arse but it is energy negative - you get 0.8kJ of energy out for every kJ you put in. It’s fucking moronic to make alcohol to blend into gasoline from corn.

By way of comparison, sugarcane gives you 7-8 kJ out for every kJ you put in.

It’s moronic and keeps the red states red but it also stifles change and innovation. Some of the most productive agricultural land in the world panted for the stupidest fucking purpose because of a dumb vote buying subsidy that keeps farmer poorer.

And then (as we saw recently in Virginia) we get hit with the pious scolding of "no farms, no food" and "where do you city slicker snobs think your food comes from?"

this was the height of the ethanol boom, but Martin County, MN, the county next to us, excellent farmland and a corn growing county,actually started to import corn to feed the ethanol plants in the late 90s. an absurd situation. Corn is pretty hard on the land too, you usually rotate with soybeans for that reason, but because of ethanol farmers were trying to do two or three rotations of corn on a field.

Talerico is polling way better than Beto ever did.

akm, there are plenty of edgelords across the political spectrum who are cool with candidates being nazi-curious.

first of all, it's Talarico not Talerico.

and Platner is acceptable because he is the only viable democrat running in that race. If you don't care that a democrat might be the next senator from Maine, flipping a seat, I don't know what to say

bernie, another known nazi philanderer. pretty much the same guy

Oops, sorry for the misspelling.

I'd rather Platner win than Collins, but I stand by the fact that these people pushing him are cool with some light antisemitism.

fuckkng blows my mind that Platner is acceptable to anyone in the party

in the USA, a viable political party is one that has a short list of immediately identifiable and inviolable principles that attract large support, hopefully more than 50% of the voting population in at least 50% of the states. the republicans have achieved this by consistently focussing on smaller rural states and big bliocs of one-issue voters. I can assure you that there are considerable numbers of republican voters who find some of their fellow coalition members repugnant, but remain captive to the party through other core issues they consider worth making common cause with them for the sake of getting big things they want.

your comment shows an apparent unwillingness to participate in this reality, which position can be very ethically satisfying -- and perhaps that position is better than getting enmeshed in compromises that permit some repugnant values to be advanced in return for some of one's core values to be advanced as well.

(shrugs) each of us must decide this for ourselves. but it seems obvious to all of us right now that the Democratc party is failing to be a very viable opposition party to the repubican coalition. I'm aligned with Alfred on this critical question of participation in compromise, based on the fact that politics appear to have a fundamental effect on social reality and at the moment its effects are all very bad.

add: supporting Platner is a long way from the Democratic party defining that short list of immediately identifiable and inviolable principles that attract large support, so I can see rejecting him on that basis. what caught my attention was the idea that it was crazy that "anyone" in the party found him acceptable.

i mean a lot of politicians in the party find genocide just peachy, it’s sort of surprising they’re against the guy with the totenkopf tat /s

Who ironically is against the genocide.

I've got to admit, even though I am very tattoo-paranoid, I don't think I would have recognized that skull as a Nazi signifier. These days I think I would have found it more troubling if he had a Punisher skull on him, tbh. Dude seems questionable, regardless, but better him than some even worse asshole, especially since it's going to be him or some other even worse asshole.

I don't think I would have recognized that skull as a Nazi signifier

this is absolutely wild to me but I guess this is the only good explanation for why most people aren't disturbed by it

yeah, I don't know why I don't know that one. I guess all the sub swastika stuff, there are a whole bunch of other logos and insignias that give me pause. punisher skull, 3 percenter slashes, confederate flag, ss bolts, and so on. but I didn't recognize that particular one.

that is surprising to me, too— the totenkopf is the whole reason why Death in June are disavowed by a lot of people, but i guess you have to be in that world (neofolk and proto-industrial stuff like Current 93 and TG etc) to know who DiJ are.

yeah, I don't know who Death in June is.

I mean, that's not the ONLY reason some people are uncomfortable with Death in June

besides the name, that is. I've heard of them, and current 93, but I've never listened to them. throbbing gristle I know I guess.

I also never heard of the totenkopf before this Platner story.

Same.

But there have been so many acts that have flirted with Nazi iconography, from Bowie and the Banshees to the Sex Pistols to Motorhead to the Stooges to the Ramones, and so on. None of those dudes actually espoused a Nazi idiology, as far as I know.

xxxpost Which is why it was so weird to see everyone here claiming this guy was an obvious Nazi for sporting some corny pirate tat.

don't recall any of them working for Blackwater either

xp

Yeah, he was a bodyguard for translators. Seriously dark shit.

oh ok, I guess it's a cool company to work for if you have the right job title, got it

To me, Platner is the embodiment of that Malcolm X speech about white liberalism. I don't see him as a significant improvement over Collins, and the best I can say is that I'd resentfully vote for him as a tool to a senate majority. But that's the only reason I'd support anything about him.

His promoters seem to assume that the collective we, the marginalized folk, should overlook his bilious rhetoric targeting our vulnerabilities on the altar of his status as the frontrunner candidate. However, his advocates mostly appear to be mostly people whose positional privilege allows them to sacrifice the civic dignity of others for their own political ends. Many of them are not personally implicated at his insults to POC, women, disabled people, religious minorities, LGBTQIA+.

For some reason – in this thread and elsewhere – Platner advocates will acknowlege the affront of the totenkopf, and then countenance his proffered excuse, while conveniently ignoring how his persistent purility upholds, and normalizes, other oppressive ideologies.

This isn't about desiring a perfect candidate, it's about not wanting to support a man whose historical record is littered with bigotry, chauvinism, and a politically-expedient progressivism perfectly aligned to populist vote-seeking.

thank you remy for putting it better than I can

It just shows where we are that politically-expedient bigot and chauvinist POS is nowhere near the bottom.

right? strange bedfellows…

This is the United States of America. There is no such thing as "politically expedient progressivism." But whatever.

sure honey

To me, Platner is the embodiment of that Malcolm X speech about white liberalism.

i'm not sure i quite grasp your point, are you saying that Platner is a northern fox or a southern wolf?

I know it's British but I guess most people in the US have never run across this Mitchell and Webb sketch which I feel like I see as a meme ever time I go on the internet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY

I don't see him as a significant improvement over Collins, and the best I can say is that I'd resentfully vote for him as a tool to a senate majority. But that's the only reason I'd support anything about him.

I mean, yeah. At base level this is all just tactical, pieces on a board. More blue pieces in the Senate gives at least the potential to mitigate the worst harms of the red pieces, so that's basically job one. Who those blue pieces are individually then becomes important when you move to job two, which is not just mitigating red damage but trying to actually do "good things" however you define those (health care, civil rights, education, climate, etc). So it's not like I don't care who Platner is or what he will actually do, I do care and I have serious misgivings about him. At the same time, people who I trust more (Warren, Sanders) are for him while people I trust less (Schumer) have not been, so I'm inclined to give some weight to that. I'd rather have Dems in the Senate who are less beholden to Schumer and his backers than more beholden. So it's all complicated!

Under the circumstances, though, I hope he wins — and turns out to be better than I fear. If not, someone can primary him next time around.

Also if he blows this election because too many Mainers decide he's got too many negatives, then boooooo to him and his supporters. His whole thing is predicated on being the fresh voice who can win. If he's instead the fresh voice who manages to lose to Susan Collins, then what a waste of time and energy.

At the same time, people who I trust more (Warren, Sanders) are for him

this is what's fucking weird to me. like have they ever once addressed all of this shit with Platner? are they even aware of it? Guy was awful to women and minorities all over reddit as recently as a few years ago. He's a big fan of a white supremacist podcast.

Back in the 1990s, I worked at Domino's Pizza with guy who had a totenkopf-emblazoned Zippo. The first time he whipped it out on a smoke break, he was quick to make some sort of excuse about not having it for Nazi reasons, which is good, because I wouldn't have even known to ask otherwise! I don't remember anything about his political opinions. He was about 6'4" with blonde hair and blue eyes.

i'm not sure i quite grasp your point, are you saying that Platner is a northern fox or a southern wolf?

was thinking of x’s (1963) god’s solution to america’s race problem speech, in he warns about the appropriation of Black struggle and civic progress to advance white liberalist agenda.

^ ^ ^ this is a reason many Black friends of mine give for not trusting Bernie fwiw

yup

Mitchell and Webb

I'm actually really familiar with Mitchell and Webb and this sketch, I just honestly always thought they were generic skulls, which I thought was part of the joke! Kind of like how Beavis and Butthead, when they're not on MTV, have shirts that say "death rock" and "skull."

lol that Colorado election denier that had her sentence commuted by the idiot governor is already on Bannon's show talking about election fraud and hacked machines and the usual bullshit

When I look around and see actual, empowered, unapologetic fascism controlling the entire apparatus of the federal government and running the nation headlong into ethnic cleansing, it becomes a bit harder to worry about exactly how much a skull tattoo on a candidate might provide clues of future votes he might cast in the US Senate favoring those fascists, when the candidate himself seems fairly outspoken against the current policies of our triumphalist MAGA fascists. Seems to me Collins has amply demonstrated she will do zilch to stop the MAGA destruction of our rights. But, that's just me. It's moot because I won't get to vote in that election one way or another. Carry on.

btw, it's June. Someone should venture a new thread in which to express our understandable and well-justified angst about US politics.

i haven't followed platner etc closely, don't know about the tattoos but his campaign disclosed that he was sexting with someone as recently as late last year, "up to 6 women". his wife was the one who disclosed it to the campaign, last fall, just so they could have a head's up

but yeah i don't think he's going to do well, even if he gets elected

it's really sad because in every goddamn city in this country, red state or blue or whatever, there are sooooooooooo many really engaged incredibly smart politically active people that inspire people on a local level and don't come with horrible baggage. and then you end up with someone like platner as the candidate

Thread in June

Platner's positions (if he doesn't abandon them for reasons) would make him one of the furthest left US Senators. Do people really think he's running as a centrist or something?

Platner's positions (if he doesn't abandon them for reasons) would make him one of the furthest left US Senators. Do people really think he's running as a centrist or something?

It doesn't matter what his stated positions are, or how he'd vote. He's a racist, sexist, homophobe, and Nazi. (Also, he owns guns and was a mercenary.) He is unacceptable. Permitting one such as him to hold office would sully the dignity of the august US Senate.

hahaha what dignity

^^^June thread title

"Larger, and harder, muscles than most": American Politics, June 2026

^^ new thread courtesy of alfred