Don’t forget about distracting with a war against Venezuela. Or Iran. Or Panama. Or Greenland/Denmark.

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Beyond how other people are pointing out this is usually racist and a voter suppression taxtic, this also misses the point of voting.

The point of democracy is as an alternative to violence. The idea that we talk to, and listen to, each other instead of making demands with spears of guns or whatever. Cut people out of the process and they turn back to spears or guns or whatever else, literate or not.

The idea that Bubba is Bill Clinton is the part I have a hard time believing. And I think it might be a joke. But I also think it’s possible that Trump performed oral on someone or something named Bubba.

I’ve never heard that nickname for Bill Clinton before. Maybe I live under a rock or maybe it’s a private nickname that could be corroborated elsewhere in the Epstein files, but idk he’s never looked like a “Bubba” to me.

More critically, I have a hard time believing the 2016 election cycle plays out the way it did if this were the case.

But I do think it’s clear there’s SOMETHING that Trump doesn’t want the public to know about. And I don’t think he or his base care about him being with 16 year old girls. Or even his daughter. What could it be that Trump would be scared of his base knowing about?

So I think Bubba could be another dude. Or perhaps a gigantic novelty dildo. Or maybe even an animal.

Edit: For everyone getting caught up in the nickname, Mark Epstein has said that it wasn’t Bill Clinton. Plus, even if you don’t believe him it still doesn’t make sense that it’s Bill with how 2016 played out.

I have wondered this for a while. All the stuff with the child’s beauty pageants. The “grab them by the pussy” comment. The various quotes about liking young women, calling his own daughter hot, etc. Even without the Epstein files it’s pretty clear that his base is not bothered by him sexually assaulting you girls.

At the same time, he’s scared of something. Putin clearly has something over him, or at least did during his first term. The speculation back then was some sort of “piss tape” with a Russian prostitute, but… Would his base really be bothered by that? And if not, what exactly could Truml have done that his base WOULD care about?

The rumor I started seeing this morning makes more sense: that there is evidence of Trump giving a blowjob to Bill Clinton. I think any evidence of Trump doing any sort of submissive act with another man would cost him his base.

Bill Clinton would be especially egregious as a hated Democrat, and there IS a relationship and connection there i could see but it almost seems too ridiculous to be true. And like… He ran against Hillary Clinton. Surely if that happened and evidence existed, it would have gotten out before now, right? Or at the very least the Clintons could have used that aseverage to get Trump to drop his campaign. So I’m not sure I buy that rumor. But it could have been another guy. Or anyone with a dick.

Another thought I have is that there is a common trope in the BDSM scene where people tend towards sexual roles that oppose their “normal” daily roles. Powerful men like to dominate everywhere else, but like to be submissive in the bedroom. I wonder if it could even be something as innocuous as video of Trump going down on one of his wives that he is afraid of leaking.

In most US states that would not be illegal.

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I suppose when you look at the world through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.

A couple of different controversies. He has posts on Reddit (that have since been deleted, but you can find them archived) talking about how student-teacher sexual relationships can often be consensual.

The more famous controversy is this one. Which is hard to summarize other than him being a general asshole to fans, and while he didn’t really say anything too terrible he uses a lot of red-flag language talking about “cancel culture” and “sjw’s” which, in my experience, is only used unirlnically by shitty people.

The main Factorio dev is pretty publicly a shithead.

Perhaps even worse: Factorio has never gone on sale. They are very strongly against the idea of sales. Which like… Fine, but game value depreciates so you should at least drop the price over time. Not the case- in fact they INCREASED the price from $30 to $35 in 2023. The game came out in 2020. It’s now a 5 year old 2D indie game listed at $35. Can I afford that? Yes. Am I going to buy it? No.

Ah thanks- the article keeps updating as info is released.

I hope no detainees were harmed

I didn’t call anything a distraction, and I doubt you throwing out insults or telling me to “fuck off” is going to change anyone’s mind but okay. Your own comments are full of smug jokes that I chuckled without needing to personally attack you over.

Have you actually talked to any of them?

I’ve seen a lot of houses in my city that I noted as having Trump flags have taken them down this summer. My Republican family members, and those of my friends, certainly aren’t sharing that sense of victory you’re claiming to see. They remember that Trump promised to release the files and haven’t. They’re all riled up ready to prosecute Bill Clinton and wondering why Trump has gone soft.

And literally just last week the UK arrested 2 men for projecting a picture of Trump and Epstein together during his visit, which has brought a ton more attention to the story. It’s not going away just because you seem to want it to.

I was agreeing with your argument but you seem to come to the opposite conclusion as me.

These fools already vote against their own interests. They had pensions, union jobs, government funded infrastructure, benefits. They voted to give all of that away and embrace fascism because they were emotionally manipulated to do so. You can give a Truml voter all of the facts you want: climate change, vaccines, immigration, taxes. They aren’t moved by any of that. The people who would be moved by that already know better and never would have supported Trump in the first place. I understand a lot of people here fall into that category, but we must be careful not to fall into an echo chamber and ignore just how dumb and irrational huge swathes of Americans are because that’s how we got into this mess.

If you want to dislodge Trump’s current supporters, you need to attack their emotions. Bombing thousands of Muslim kids in the middle east doesn’t move the needle, but a dozen or so good white Christian girls who had their precious virginity stolen from them? (I don’t mean to belittle the suffering of the victims, just to illustrate that this appeals to mysoginists and Christian nationalists). That gets clicks, that drives outrage.

You’re making a lot of broad assumptions about audiences. And “serious conversation”… My sibling in Satan this is c/politicalmemes.

These memes don’t just stay on Lemmy either. They get reposted all across the internet, printed on stickers and posters and t-shirts. The UK just jailed journalists last week for the terrible crime of projecting a picture of Trump and Epstein together on a building during Trump’s visit. It’s very much a topical issue that is heavily tied to broader issues of free speech and political corruption. And it’s not just about Trump- how many other powerful people are in those files that faced no consequences? This isn’t distracting from other issues- it’s a part of them. All of these other issues seem to always track back to billionaires promoting horrible inhuman behavior and fascism, so I don’t see how the Epstein files are distracting from anything.

I’m also critical of Biden and Garland for not doing more with this when they were in power. This isn’t

I agree with you that the Epstein case is relatively small compared to the millions of people who Trump is causing to suffer. However, the Epstein files also seem to be the first thing that cracked his base of political support. It is a weakness that anyone against Trump should exploit, not because it’s the most important issue, but because it’s the one that is most likely to remove him from power.

Deporting immigrants, locking up trans people, outlawing abortion, destroying free speech and political opposition, supporting genocide… These are all things that his base WANTS. They rejoice in the suffering of the “other”. They care about the economy too, but they’re told dumb to realize that Trump is the problem.

I’d be interested in a link if you have one.

That’s why I qualified my initial comment. Like, I included video of him saying those things but with AI it’s hard to say for sure.

Hard to say for certain in a post-truth world, but allegedly he was calling for the full release of the Epstein files and was softening his support for Israel.

He was still a terrible piece of shit and I’m not sad that he’s dead.

P.S. I hate so much that Twitter is where this shit is stored. I also found references to Kirk saying that October 7th was an inside job, but the linked tweet is gone.

Seems like confirmation the whole Elon v Trump falling out earlier this year really WAS just pure theater.