The USAID deaths are hard for people to contextualize, because they are abstract. You can explain and/or blame others with the decrease of aid. The death of the baby is easier for people to visualize the direct cruelty.
Iirc it's called the Identifiable Victim Effect. People are more likely to care about individuals than large groups. That's why in those ASPCA ads they'll give you a few of their animals' names and their backgrounds, to make you pay more attention.
Similar to the Rob Reiner comments seemingly being a final straw for so many people. Just such an obviously delusional and cruel thing to say about a specific person most people liked. Gets people much more worked up than him committing war crimes or cutting off financial aid from people, which are clearly much more destructive.
I'm not saying this in defense of him. But there hasn't been a president in my lifetime who wasn't guilty of war crimes. That's not a disqualifier to the office for anyone apparently. He's the only president ever (that we know of) that was directly involved in baby murder.
I've said this about Tony Blair in my country, best Prime Minister of my lifetime, easily. The War on Terror will always tarnish his reputation but he completely transformed the UK for the better. So many New Labour Acts are now taken for granted. War just seems to be a near permanent feature.
For sure, but that's the reality of things. Blair and New Labour could have been just as bad but they weren't. They made my community and my life better. They paid me to study when I turned 16 and that got me into uni which led to me being a lecturer now. Genuinely opened doors for me and many other people.
Similar feelings about most dem presidents we've had in the US. Our options are basically extremely slow progress or hurdling towards hell, so the choice is pretty obvious
A lot of people have become too frustrated with slow incremental change, half of which is inevitably wiped out when conservatives win, so they've just lost all faith in the system and appreciation for "better" rather than "ideal"
Yeah the modern idea that if you compromise then you're tainted is so unhealthy to a democracy. And I do think your two party system doesn't help, people on either side can't move their vote to a third candidate without strengthening the other side.
Contrary to what you see on typical social media posts and fun tumblr stories, Tankies are a whole different thing then what most people think. Doesn't help that most people look at the vast majority of Marxists and call them tankies.
In fact, "America bad therefore other side good" wasn't even a tankie thing. For relevant purposes it goes back to that wanker Noam Chomsky.
Internet Tankies are the kind of British citizens who think opposition to the british empire means this whole conquistador business must be propoganda by the crown to make spain look bad.
That and cherry-picking the few fuckups that have happened (because the real world is messy and complicated) to prove their point, while ignoring the mountains of good stuff it’s accomplished.
Their conclusion is already USA Bad and they fit the examples to support it.
Yes the fact that the USA likes to go to war, destabilize governments, support genocidal states and is currently led by Nazis whom Americans elected twice, these things tend to color people’s opinion of the US.
Oh - I guess I assumed your comment was related to USAID cancellation somehow. If you were just making a comment about US being bad, then never mind... Carry on, I suppose.
I’m giving you very basic reasons why people might not love the US so much abroad. Also maybe read the room? Right now isn’t exactly the best time to chant “USA! USA!” when it’s becoming very obvious that your government is full of Nazis, pedophiles and Nazi pedophiles. The government the american people elected. What a fucking embarrassment.
I fully agree with the people abroad who do not love the USA. You are absolutely right that the government is full of scum. I am absolutely not celebrating the country's actions as a whole.
This thread started because some people are celebrating the cancellation of USAID. Said it was good that the program got cancelled because it was secretly death squads. It's a weird fallacy to think that because the US does a lot of bad things - which it does! - USAID must also have been bad.
You chimed in explaining that the US does do a lot of bad things. You're right, but in the context of discussing the fallacy, it's a bit weird to list the evils - it's just disconnected from the topic at hand. That's why I assumed that you were falling prey to the same fallacy. I see now that you were actually just changing the subject.
Color Revolution nonsense. If you work backwards from people in smaller countries (especially former communist countries that have tried to liberalize or engage with the US/EU) having no agency then any attempt by the US to engage with them is obviously an attempt to further exploit them. Note that the people making these arguments are also often trying to defend Russian and Chinese attempts to expand their own spheres of influence through both softer tools like BRI up through Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Yes, espionage agencies tend to conspire. The CIA has a long history of using USAID and other NGOs to cover their activities. It's extremely naive to believe they wouldn't do that, especially when they've been exposed doing exactly that, multiple times. When I was studying international aid and development they made it explicitly clear that aid workers in certain regions are at risk of being mistaken for spies and killed.
There's also a difference in the level of intentionality involved. While Trump doesn't care about these people and thats horrible, he also likely isn't smart enough to really get what that means. I suspect trumps handlers or his own soup brain immediately dismissed the USAID death numbers as a democrat hoax.
The baby thing is so personal and so direct, you have to understand it and you have to know it is wrong.
I am not trying to defend trump in any way, but it is a level of personal evil i didn't expect him to engage in. Its hard to descibe why precisely but I always got the image he'd be grossed out by having to be so personally close to such cruelty. He's this soft new york billionaire, driven by spite. The baby thing suggests he is just totally devoid of empathy and entirely comfortable being very close to the worst kinds of atrocities imaginable. Again, we already knew he was a rapist and a pedophile, but being willing to wittness something like that and not have it eat you up a little, not feel afraid and go to the authorities? Not just be disgusted at an intuitive level? It is a different kind of evil to see someone else's act thats so extreme and just go along with it in my eyes.
Also, it hurts republicans and is therefore good strategically. Every republican of any prominance should be forced to say out loud whether they support it or not (either by the media or ideally their voters/viewers).
I am sorry for my ignorance, but what is the "Trump baby thing"? When I google it I get info about this thousand dollar baby account thing, which is weird and confusing and seems designed to prevent me from knowing what you're talking about. :/
Click the justice.gov link above and it will take you to a pdf that outlines the situation.
In 2020, a woman calls the FBI tip line, talks to an agent about when the woman was 13, which was the year 1984. She was sex trafficked by her uncle and Epstein at this age and was also pregnant at the time. Trump (and many others) would pay to do [redacted] acts to her. She gave birth to the baby; her uncle killed the baby and disposed of the body in Lake Michigan. Trump was present for the murder of the baby and disposal of the body.
With Covid response and convincing morons to basically actively spread Covid and the USAID cut, trumps body count from his direct decisions and actions and leadership is at having an active war level. That and he racked up trillions in debt doing it too. What are a few extra dead teenagers and babies along the way?
Plus a lot of arguments against the type of people who cut aid programs are stuff like "if you had to pull the trigger yourself and witness what you're doing firsthand you might think twice" but this proves Trump would have no such qualms.
this one is a bit cartoonishly evil. not entirely shocking, but not something I'd have thought to attribute to him otherwise. like we all knew he was a rapey asshole when he talked about "grabbing them by the pussy" and deliberately walking in on teen girls who were changing clothes, so any SA accusations and the Epstein stuff was fairly predictable, but the whole watching a baby be murdered wasn't on my radar
I think it pertains more to the perception of what will actually cause problems for the White House.
As it is, Trump's white "Christian" "family values" voters don't give a single fuck about hundreds of thousands of kids dying in impoverished countries. It's fucked up that they don't care, but that's the situation.
They don't give a fuck about the ones dying here in our own country! Whether its lack of food, healthcare, shelter, etc. or being gunned down at schools. They DGAFF. Acceptable deaths to them.
OP is pointing out that the cuts to USAID already have resulted in an estimated 600,000 dead. But thats a statistic that people read and don't pin to trump, its not as personal as reading that he watched 1 infant drown. That people are mad he watched 1 death while not being mad at the 600 000 hes already killed from this alone.
yeah man it was a democrat hoax first. oh fuck wait it wasn’t a hoax but Biden was covering it up while he was in office. Oh fuck uh the records were sealed while he was in office so it was illegal to discuss, but here’s bill clinton. oh weird he’s calling to release the whole thing too huh. but we still have to take all the info out, because of the hoax. oh fuck you can unredact the info and see the direct names of the people involved. oh but that’s not real either because-
our prime minister resigned over allegations without proof. Your president isn't any more special when they're being accused of crimes that would send someone to decades in prison...
Yeah, I don't understand the point of this post. And lots of people ARE outraged by the gutting of USAID and DO recognize that it has and will continue to kill tons of people.
Exactly. Just because everyone isn't talking about it 24/7 doesn't mean that a bunch of people aren't upset about it, including people that don't even use USAID.
Every person in my life that is a moderate or right winger that I try to talk to is only swayed by individual acts of evil, so I think OP has a point. Yes some people are outraged but not enough people to get the critical mass for change yet
Op seems to agree with you, they literally end with “Still, what works works. Google Trump Lake Michigan”. I think they’re right to mention this, both because it’s bad on its own and because by connecting it to very abstract policy (getting rid of USAID) people can have a more visceral reaction to the harm caused by that policy.
This, purity tests are not trans rights or genocide like so many centrists seem to believe, it's this nitpicking phrasing bs and interpreting everything anyone says in the most uncharitable way possible.
I always say that the left sucks ass at branding. The rural farmer gives zero fucks about whatever theory you spout at them, but is very eager to stick it to "the man".
I'm generalizing of course but we really get way too hung up on marketing in a way that doesn't feel uncomfortable, and that's kind of not how politics works?
I would say the problem is that we aren’t hung up on marketing at all. We actively loathe the concept of proper marketing. Or, to use the word that actually applies here, propaganda. We suck at it because we fundamentally reject actually fucking using it. Nothing gets an entire leftist group on your ass faster than going “hey, maybe we should stop trying to demand everyone be educated and an equal member here since it clearly doesn’t fucking work and they actively hate when we do that, stop bashing people for ending up on our side if they didn’t do it via studying 100 year old texts (that well over 54% of Americans are fundamentally incapable of reading) and just get the numbers of people on the bottom rung of making shit work we need via whatever propaganda will work?”
Yeah. Similarly I see a lot of backlash to pointing out how the erosion of trans rights affects cis women. Obviously the affects on trans people SHOULD cause outrage on its own, but pointing out how it affects cis women is a good "stepping stone" for many people.
It’s because this is so much more personal. It’s one thing for someone to sign a paper that will have terrible effects. It’s another for them to stand there and witness it first hand.
Himmler saw exactly one mass shooting of Jews in person. He found it repulsive and nauseating. But not enough to, you know, stop murdering innocent people. No, just repulsive enough for him to look into... alternative ways of dealing with it.
I do agree that the fatal and completely avoidable consequences of shuttering USAID aren't recognized enough. I hope history books recognize this as a textbook case of government incompetence, organized by the party claiming to fight against that very same incompetence.
Google Trump Lake Michigan
But wouldn't that keyword search... pull up timely and relevant news results of the exact story you're also arguing is overly emphasized? What's your point?
Because as it turns out most people genuinely do not get outraged at the USAID thing. They have no concept of With Great Power. The Epstein stuff at least gets clicks and buzz, that might do something in the polls.
They're not necessarily being shitty. Most people have a difficult time relating to numbers that large. Individual people or small groups are quantities we're used to handling.
While we recognize that a million (for example) is a lot of people, it can feel impersonal. A dozen people is easier to conceptualize, and thus feels more impactful.
It’s also indirect. Even something like the holocaust, or Gaza, is easier to conceptualize because it involves people being murdered with the power of the state. Whereas with USAID, no one is getting “loss of USAID funds” written in their death certificate, so besides the actual numbers being fuzzier it’s easier to justify or excuse and harder for even the well meaning to make the mental connection.
the other day, i read something that goes like this:
"ignorance, it isnt bliss. ignorance is weakness. ignorance is a crime."
especially if that ignorance is actively harmful to other humans.
being ignorance of the atrocities committed by your very own nation, of its massive impacts towards countless people in the world, is nothing but evil.
my point is that having no concept of how power can damage people, having no conscience to get outraged at hundreds of thousands of starving children in poor countries, that's ignorance.
People respond to what is in front of them. Atrocities like the holocaust, the Vietnam War, and now the genocide in Gaza get notoriety because of the copious amount of media to come out of them. “Six million Jews” is abstract, but images of skeletal figures packed into bunks is concrete. It’s the images of Vietnamese children on fire that drove Vietnam being a cultural phenomenon. TikTok’s of dead Palestinian children is why Gaza has become a similar cultural phenomenon, while dead children in Yemen didn’t. If you’re looking for someone to blame, blame the media for not covering the widespread, needless loss of life as much as they should.
I can’t believe humans’ brains didn’t evolve to conceptualize the death of more people than you could meet in 100 lifetimes. Pretty problematic not to have been born as like an ant queen or something so that millions of years of genetics driven by environmental factors would give you that ability >:(
People have no concept if the USAID stuff bevause it's nebulous and not grounded in reality. Everyone just spouts those numbers but no one actually has looked into them and they are calculated very unscientifically.
Its like when all the doomer estimates of economic value that could have been lost by the railroad strikes came oyt of the woodwork to get people against the workers.
Not to mention not always reliable when you take algorithms into consideration, and even less when the first result is always their dogshit AI that hallucinates harder than a teen at Burning Man taking shrooms for the first time
I think by "google it" they just meant search it up. Googling something has become more than just using google.com over the past few years, so I'm pretty sure OP wasn't explicitly promoting google. Also, this is just a really weird thing to complain about, considering they linked websites in their post.
But the verb "googling" or the action of "googling it" can also refer to other websites like Bing or Yahoo. Are you saying you're Yahooing it? You aren't mario jerking off bro. "Search it up" and "Google it" are pretty interchangeable. And yeah, I guess it's "promoting" Google, but at the same time, it's a search engine. Like that's it's job, to help your search up things.
E: lmao y'all are like "it's a corporation that means you will never get any truth using their service. OP should have said use your preferred method of searching the Internet that isn't tied to a corporation because using 'google' as a verb is hilarious and I need to feel superior" or something
I think it does make sense at least. If you provide support, you can also take it back. As long as you don't let anyone stop being reliant on you, you have a measure of control on them.
Destroy a country and then come in and make it reliant on you. What sort of policies do you think that country will now pass? Whatever ones you want them to. It’s literally just classic abuser tactics. An abuser is just as bad when they’re being sweet and lovebombing you after beating you as they were when they were beating you.
It removes the perverse incentive to destroy countries. As it stands, the American system works via America destroying third world countries, making them reliant on American aid to fix what was destroyed, then using this as a soft coup (why openly take over when you can gaslight everyone and claim it’s still a sovereign nation?) to force their governments to pass laws to allow American megacorporations to rape their nation and people for every cent of profit that can be squeezed from them. Behind every blood diamond, Nestle death squad, and lithium mine is America destroying a country and then making it beholden to America to survive. Without the ability to use it for unofficial coups, there’s less of a purpose to do it.
Plenty of aid organizations that aren’t aren’t a mechanism for the US government taking over exist.
In reality, that’s not how it works anyways. It’s not like if the US won’t, nobody major is gonna get involved. No matter how it happens, even when it’s not the US destroying shit, both superpowers want to expand their sphere of influence. And frankly, they’re better off with China than the US. China isn’t going and destabilizing and collapsing governments all throughout Africa and South America to take them over, and America losing this access to the third world is way better for the third world.
It removes the perverse incentive to destroy countries.
No, it doesn't. If America and the corporations really want something, they will use military force. For example, Afghanistan/Iraq/a large chunk of most U.S. actions in the Middle East.
Plenty of aid organizations that aren’t aren’t a mechanism for the US government taking over exist.
Fair argument, but there's still an enormous void to fill with the loss of USAID that is not being made up.
China isn’t going and destabilizing and collapsing governments all throughout Africa and South America to take them over
No, they don't destabilize governments, but instead, in some cases, they build the infrastructure, then demand resources, then cuts off access if the resources are not given.
On a small scale, no, but on a large scale, yes, because they’re able to buy legitimacy from people like you who just can’t see that it’s all just window dressing to cover their more heinous crimes.
Just remember that anyone can make a tip to the FBI and there needs to be independent verification.
This could be someone with grudge against Trump or legitimate mental illness. A friend of mine was staffer for her congresswoman and they got all sorts of cranks and weirdos calling in.
It’s human to not understand abstract deaths. We can’t comprehend them. But if you say, hey, this guy in the room when a baby was murdered, that’s something we can comprehend and connect to.
The USAID deaths are hard for people to contextualize, because they are abstract. You can explain and/or blame others with the decrease of aid. The death of the baby is easier for people to visualize the direct cruelty.
Iirc it's called the Identifiable Victim Effect. People are more likely to care about individuals than large groups. That's why in those ASPCA ads they'll give you a few of their animals' names and their backgrounds, to make you pay more attention.
A single murder is a tragedy, 10000 murders is a statistic.
how does that quote go, "1 death is a tragedy, 1 million deaths is a statistic"?
sadly this tracks with how people process tragedy, one clear victim feels real, millions just turn into noise
It’s really unfortunate, and it is a limitation of our monkey brains. We aren’t really built to process large numbers like that.
Yeah, it's not really our fault. It's just very very difficult for us to realistically comprehend that sort of thing.
That’s exactly what happened with shootings in the US. Too many to name so they all become a blur
"One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." ~ (allegedly) Joseph Stalin
Edit: two people have pointed out he probably didn't actually say this.
He made a lot of statistics, so I guess that checks out.
Were they good statistics?
They were big, beautiful statistics, everyone’s been saying that - maybe the biggest statistics, really
Alleged quote mind you.
Considering who the alleged speaker is, it's pretty damn believable
Cartoon villain-ass line.
Well, yeah, it came from a real-life cartoon villain.
Safe bet cartoon villains took inspo directly from him if anything
(Misattributed)
Similar to the Rob Reiner comments seemingly being a final straw for so many people. Just such an obviously delusional and cruel thing to say about a specific person most people liked. Gets people much more worked up than him committing war crimes or cutting off financial aid from people, which are clearly much more destructive.
I'm not saying this in defense of him. But there hasn't been a president in my lifetime who wasn't guilty of war crimes. That's not a disqualifier to the office for anyone apparently. He's the only president ever (that we know of) that was directly involved in baby murder.
If anything, that’s a required qualification for the office.
I don't know, I imagine Rutherford B Hayes has some skeletons in his closet.
I've said this about Tony Blair in my country, best Prime Minister of my lifetime, easily. The War on Terror will always tarnish his reputation but he completely transformed the UK for the better. So many New Labour Acts are now taken for granted. War just seems to be a near permanent feature.
But also the bar for best UK PM in that time frame is in hell
For sure, but that's the reality of things. Blair and New Labour could have been just as bad but they weren't. They made my community and my life better. They paid me to study when I turned 16 and that got me into uni which led to me being a lecturer now. Genuinely opened doors for me and many other people.
Similar feelings about most dem presidents we've had in the US. Our options are basically extremely slow progress or hurdling towards hell, so the choice is pretty obvious
A lot of people have become too frustrated with slow incremental change, half of which is inevitably wiped out when conservatives win, so they've just lost all faith in the system and appreciation for "better" rather than "ideal"
Yeah the modern idea that if you compromise then you're tainted is so unhealthy to a democracy. And I do think your two party system doesn't help, people on either side can't move their vote to a third candidate without strengthening the other side.
Calvin Coolidge?
I can't tell if you're saying he murdered a baby or if you think I'm 100 years old?
You are 100+ years old right?
(I missed the in my lifetime bit)
Also a lot of people (or at least many loud people) on tumblr consider USAID to be "CIA Death Squads" and thus cancelling it is actually a moral good.
Yes, I did actually see this sentiment in multiple posts.
That sounds like a conspiracy theory. How did they come to that conclusion?
There is a point about how it keeps smaller nations reliant on uncle sam and has been used to fund propaganda.
However, a lot of it is America Bad
Basic tankie shit.
USA = bad, actually. Therefore, anything which USA does = bad.
Supported by the fact that the USA does in fact do a lot of coups in other countries.
It's not even "tankie shit" at that point. It's just bot brained behavior in real people.
congrats, you summarised tankies pretty well.
Contrary to what you see on typical social media posts and fun tumblr stories, Tankies are a whole different thing then what most people think. Doesn't help that most people look at the vast majority of Marxists and call them tankies.
In fact, "America bad therefore other side good" wasn't even a tankie thing. For relevant purposes it goes back to that wanker Noam Chomsky.
Internet Tankies are the kind of British citizens who think opposition to the british empire means this whole conquistador business must be propoganda by the crown to make spain look bad.
That and cherry-picking the few fuckups that have happened (because the real world is messy and complicated) to prove their point, while ignoring the mountains of good stuff it’s accomplished.
Their conclusion is already USA Bad and they fit the examples to support it.
Yes the fact that the USA likes to go to war, destabilize governments, support genocidal states and is currently led by Nazis whom Americans elected twice, these things tend to color people’s opinion of the US.
A beautiful illustration of the point. The fact that the US does a lot of bad does not mean that everything the US does is bad.
Beautiful illustration of what? Did I say everything the US does is bad? Your fragility seems to cloud your judgment.
Oh - I guess I assumed your comment was related to USAID cancellation somehow. If you were just making a comment about US being bad, then never mind... Carry on, I suppose.
I’m giving you very basic reasons why people might not love the US so much abroad. Also maybe read the room? Right now isn’t exactly the best time to chant “USA! USA!” when it’s becoming very obvious that your government is full of Nazis, pedophiles and Nazi pedophiles. The government the american people elected. What a fucking embarrassment.
I fully agree with the people abroad who do not love the USA. You are absolutely right that the government is full of scum. I am absolutely not celebrating the country's actions as a whole.
This thread started because some people are celebrating the cancellation of USAID. Said it was good that the program got cancelled because it was secretly death squads. It's a weird fallacy to think that because the US does a lot of bad things - which it does! - USAID must also have been bad.
You chimed in explaining that the US does do a lot of bad things. You're right, but in the context of discussing the fallacy, it's a bit weird to list the evils - it's just disconnected from the topic at hand. That's why I assumed that you were falling prey to the same fallacy. I see now that you were actually just changing the subject.
Color Revolution nonsense. If you work backwards from people in smaller countries (especially former communist countries that have tried to liberalize or engage with the US/EU) having no agency then any attempt by the US to engage with them is obviously an attempt to further exploit them. Note that the people making these arguments are also often trying to defend Russian and Chinese attempts to expand their own spheres of influence through both softer tools like BRI up through Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Yes, espionage agencies tend to conspire. The CIA has a long history of using USAID and other NGOs to cover their activities. It's extremely naive to believe they wouldn't do that, especially when they've been exposed doing exactly that, multiple times. When I was studying international aid and development they made it explicitly clear that aid workers in certain regions are at risk of being mistaken for spies and killed.
I'm familiar with the CIA's rep, but I was missing that particular detail.
Appreciate it.
Because USDAID is linked to a shitload of sketchy things lmao
Children must starve for muh national sovereignty
There's also a difference in the level of intentionality involved. While Trump doesn't care about these people and thats horrible, he also likely isn't smart enough to really get what that means. I suspect trumps handlers or his own soup brain immediately dismissed the USAID death numbers as a democrat hoax.
The baby thing is so personal and so direct, you have to understand it and you have to know it is wrong.
I am not trying to defend trump in any way, but it is a level of personal evil i didn't expect him to engage in. Its hard to descibe why precisely but I always got the image he'd be grossed out by having to be so personally close to such cruelty. He's this soft new york billionaire, driven by spite. The baby thing suggests he is just totally devoid of empathy and entirely comfortable being very close to the worst kinds of atrocities imaginable. Again, we already knew he was a rapist and a pedophile, but being willing to wittness something like that and not have it eat you up a little, not feel afraid and go to the authorities? Not just be disgusted at an intuitive level? It is a different kind of evil to see someone else's act thats so extreme and just go along with it in my eyes.
Also, it hurts republicans and is therefore good strategically. Every republican of any prominance should be forced to say out loud whether they support it or not (either by the media or ideally their voters/viewers).
I am sorry for my ignorance, but what is the "Trump baby thing"? When I google it I get info about this thousand dollar baby account thing, which is weird and confusing and seems designed to prevent me from knowing what you're talking about. :/
Click the justice.gov link above and it will take you to a pdf that outlines the situation.
In 2020, a woman calls the FBI tip line, talks to an agent about when the woman was 13, which was the year 1984. She was sex trafficked by her uncle and Epstein at this age and was also pregnant at the time. Trump (and many others) would pay to do [redacted] acts to her. She gave birth to the baby; her uncle killed the baby and disposed of the body in Lake Michigan. Trump was present for the murder of the baby and disposal of the body.
well that's nauseating
If that interview with susie wiles in vanity fair is to be believed, Trump literally does not know about USAID being shut down.
With Covid response and convincing morons to basically actively spread Covid and the USAID cut, trumps body count from his direct decisions and actions and leadership is at having an active war level. That and he racked up trillions in debt doing it too. What are a few extra dead teenagers and babies along the way?
Plus a lot of arguments against the type of people who cut aid programs are stuff like "if you had to pull the trigger yourself and witness what you're doing firsthand you might think twice" but this proves Trump would have no such qualms.
People being surprised by trump committing a crime are people that are surprised the sun rises from the east each day
Personal baby murder is a bit surprising still. Doesn’t he have people for that?
Yeah like literal baby murder is the kind of shit people say to emphasize how terrible a person is.
this one is a bit cartoonishly evil. not entirely shocking, but not something I'd have thought to attribute to him otherwise. like we all knew he was a rapey asshole when he talked about "grabbing them by the pussy" and deliberately walking in on teen girls who were changing clothes, so any SA accusations and the Epstein stuff was fairly predictable, but the whole watching a baby be murdered wasn't on my radar
wait. so the surprising part is him being able to do it himself?
yeah ok that i can see.
I think it pertains more to the perception of what will actually cause problems for the White House.
As it is, Trump's white "Christian" "family values" voters don't give a single fuck about hundreds of thousands of kids dying in impoverished countries. It's fucked up that they don't care, but that's the situation.
They don't give a fuck about the ones dying here in our own country! Whether its lack of food, healthcare, shelter, etc. or being gunned down at schools. They DGAFF. Acceptable deaths to them.
They don't give a fuck about a baby being killed either and if they do, they're happy to ignore anything Trump does that conflicts with their view
I think OP is missing the fact that said person who saw the infant die is your fucking president.
The child was born already? Then the GOP doesn't care.
OP is pointing out that the cuts to USAID already have resulted in an estimated 600,000 dead. But thats a statistic that people read and don't pin to trump, its not as personal as reading that he watched 1 infant drown. That people are mad he watched 1 death while not being mad at the 600 000 hes already killed from this alone.
I think you're missing the fact that there's no actual proof any of that actually happened except an anonymous claim... which isn't really proof
yeah man it was a democrat hoax first. oh fuck wait it wasn’t a hoax but Biden was covering it up while he was in office. Oh fuck uh the records were sealed while he was in office so it was illegal to discuss, but here’s bill clinton. oh weird he’s calling to release the whole thing too huh. but we still have to take all the info out, because of the hoax. oh fuck you can unredact the info and see the direct names of the people involved. oh but that’s not real either because-
It's not anonymous, the DOJ just redacted the parts where she identified herself.
our prime minister resigned over allegations without proof. Your president isn't any more special when they're being accused of crimes that would send someone to decades in prison...
Which one?
Any of them.
Yeah man records prove nothing! You weren't even born!
If it works it works. The left need to stop falling apart with mindless purity tests.
Yeah, I don't understand the point of this post. And lots of people ARE outraged by the gutting of USAID and DO recognize that it has and will continue to kill tons of people.
It's like the Person who posted this on Tumblr hasn't gone to protests or talked to people on the street
Exactly. Just because everyone isn't talking about it 24/7 doesn't mean that a bunch of people aren't upset about it, including people that don't even use USAID.
Every person in my life that is a moderate or right winger that I try to talk to is only swayed by individual acts of evil, so I think OP has a point. Yes some people are outraged but not enough people to get the critical mass for change yet
Op seems to agree with you, they literally end with “Still, what works works. Google Trump Lake Michigan”. I think they’re right to mention this, both because it’s bad on its own and because by connecting it to very abstract policy (getting rid of USAID) people can have a more visceral reaction to the harm caused by that policy.
This, purity tests are not trans rights or genocide like so many centrists seem to believe, it's this nitpicking phrasing bs and interpreting everything anyone says in the most uncharitable way possible.
Though while we're on the subject can we have more of the former and less of the latter in 2026?
Best we can do is less former and more latter at least for the first months
So you want more genocide and less honesty? /s
The only genocide I want is actually beating Sans.
Best we can do is preemptively blaming trans people for Kamala losing again.
I always say that the left sucks ass at branding. The rural farmer gives zero fucks about whatever theory you spout at them, but is very eager to stick it to "the man".
I'm generalizing of course but we really get way too hung up on marketing in a way that doesn't feel uncomfortable, and that's kind of not how politics works?
I would say the problem is that we aren’t hung up on marketing at all. We actively loathe the concept of proper marketing. Or, to use the word that actually applies here, propaganda. We suck at it because we fundamentally reject actually fucking using it. Nothing gets an entire leftist group on your ass faster than going “hey, maybe we should stop trying to demand everyone be educated and an equal member here since it clearly doesn’t fucking work and they actively hate when we do that, stop bashing people for ending up on our side if they didn’t do it via studying 100 year old texts (that well over 54% of Americans are fundamentally incapable of reading) and just get the numbers of people on the bottom rung of making shit work we need via whatever propaganda will work?”
Yeah. Similarly I see a lot of backlash to pointing out how the erosion of trans rights affects cis women. Obviously the affects on trans people SHOULD cause outrage on its own, but pointing out how it affects cis women is a good "stepping stone" for many people.
It’s because this is so much more personal. It’s one thing for someone to sign a paper that will have terrible effects. It’s another for them to stand there and witness it first hand.
Himmler saw exactly one mass shooting of Jews in person. He found it repulsive and nauseating. But not enough to, you know, stop murdering innocent people. No, just repulsive enough for him to look into... alternative ways of dealing with it.
cognitive dissonance is one hell of a drug
I do agree that the fatal and completely avoidable consequences of shuttering USAID aren't recognized enough. I hope history books recognize this as a textbook case of government incompetence, organized by the party claiming to fight against that very same incompetence.
But wouldn't that keyword search... pull up timely and relevant news results of the exact story you're also arguing is overly emphasized? What's your point?
It actually pulls up results about invasive carp and big-ticket water projects.
You have to add the word Infanticide to get the results OP is referring to.
Because as it turns out most people genuinely do not get outraged at the USAID thing. They have no concept of With Great Power. The Epstein stuff at least gets clicks and buzz, that might do something in the polls.
People can be real shitty.
They're not necessarily being shitty. Most people have a difficult time relating to numbers that large. Individual people or small groups are quantities we're used to handling.
While we recognize that a million (for example) is a lot of people, it can feel impersonal. A dozen people is easier to conceptualize, and thus feels more impactful.
It’s also indirect. Even something like the holocaust, or Gaza, is easier to conceptualize because it involves people being murdered with the power of the state. Whereas with USAID, no one is getting “loss of USAID funds” written in their death certificate, so besides the actual numbers being fuzzier it’s easier to justify or excuse and harder for even the well meaning to make the mental connection.
the other day, i read something that goes like this:
"ignorance, it isnt bliss. ignorance is weakness. ignorance is a crime."
especially if that ignorance is actively harmful to other humans.
being ignorance of the atrocities committed by your very own nation, of its massive impacts towards countless people in the world, is nothing but evil.
Neither I, nor the person I replied to, said anything about ignorance.
my point is that having no concept of how power can damage people, having no conscience to get outraged at hundreds of thousands of starving children in poor countries, that's ignorance.
And it is a sin.
People respond to what is in front of them. Atrocities like the holocaust, the Vietnam War, and now the genocide in Gaza get notoriety because of the copious amount of media to come out of them. “Six million Jews” is abstract, but images of skeletal figures packed into bunks is concrete. It’s the images of Vietnamese children on fire that drove Vietnam being a cultural phenomenon. TikTok’s of dead Palestinian children is why Gaza has become a similar cultural phenomenon, while dead children in Yemen didn’t. If you’re looking for someone to blame, blame the media for not covering the widespread, needless loss of life as much as they should.
I can’t believe humans’ brains didn’t evolve to conceptualize the death of more people than you could meet in 100 lifetimes. Pretty problematic not to have been born as like an ant queen or something so that millions of years of genetics driven by environmental factors would give you that ability >:(
People have no concept if the USAID stuff bevause it's nebulous and not grounded in reality. Everyone just spouts those numbers but no one actually has looked into them and they are calculated very unscientifically.
Its like when all the doomer estimates of economic value that could have been lost by the railroad strikes came oyt of the woodwork to get people against the workers.
OP learns that people can have two thoughts
(probably mis)attributed to the world’s worst Georgian, but you get the idea
Telling people to educate themselves and then promoting Google is hilarious. “Just Google it.” Google is a corporation.
I think they just said to google the last part, which led me to the PDF file that they also linked
Agree what you said is annoying when it happens, but don’t see that here tbh
As they also provided a good educational link that explores the other thing mentioned, the preventable deaths from the cancellation of USAID
Not to mention not always reliable when you take algorithms into consideration, and even less when the first result is always their dogshit AI that hallucinates harder than a teen at Burning Man taking shrooms for the first time
I think by "google it" they just meant search it up. Googling something has become more than just using google.com over the past few years, so I'm pretty sure OP wasn't explicitly promoting google. Also, this is just a really weird thing to complain about, considering they linked websites in their post.
You are explicitly promoting Google every time you tell someone to "google" something.
But the verb "googling" or the action of "googling it" can also refer to other websites like Bing or Yahoo. Are you saying you're Yahooing it? You aren't mario jerking off bro. "Search it up" and "Google it" are pretty interchangeable. And yeah, I guess it's "promoting" Google, but at the same time, it's a search engine. Like that's it's job, to help your search up things.
And Google's gone down the tubes because of SEO and the AI shit...
I would be fascinated to know how you search or use the internet without corporations. I there some hand-crafted vegan co-op search engine you use?
And?
E: lmao y'all are like "it's a corporation that means you will never get any truth using their service. OP should have said use your preferred method of searching the Internet that isn't tied to a corporation because using 'google' as a verb is hilarious and I need to feel superior" or something
One death is a tragedy, one hundred deaths is a statistic.
1 death is a tragedy, 1 Million Deaths are a statistic
It’s people spinning USAID to have been some sort of arm American imperialism that gets my blood boiling.
I think it does make sense at least. If you provide support, you can also take it back. As long as you don't let anyone stop being reliant on you, you have a measure of control on them.
Wrong
In many places, USAID is a bandaid that sloppily covers the violent damages of US imperialism
But that doesn't make usaid bad
Destroy a country and then come in and make it reliant on you. What sort of policies do you think that country will now pass? Whatever ones you want them to. It’s literally just classic abuser tactics. An abuser is just as bad when they’re being sweet and lovebombing you after beating you as they were when they were beating you.
Okay, so the US will now just leave the destroyed countries with nothing. Is that better now?
What a stupid false dichotomy. They could perhaps render aid and not use it for influence and control. There are more than two choices.
There are multiple reasons why unironically yes.
It removes the perverse incentive to destroy countries. As it stands, the American system works via America destroying third world countries, making them reliant on American aid to fix what was destroyed, then using this as a soft coup (why openly take over when you can gaslight everyone and claim it’s still a sovereign nation?) to force their governments to pass laws to allow American megacorporations to rape their nation and people for every cent of profit that can be squeezed from them. Behind every blood diamond, Nestle death squad, and lithium mine is America destroying a country and then making it beholden to America to survive. Without the ability to use it for unofficial coups, there’s less of a purpose to do it.
Plenty of aid organizations that aren’t aren’t a mechanism for the US government taking over exist.
In reality, that’s not how it works anyways. It’s not like if the US won’t, nobody major is gonna get involved. No matter how it happens, even when it’s not the US destroying shit, both superpowers want to expand their sphere of influence. And frankly, they’re better off with China than the US. China isn’t going and destabilizing and collapsing governments all throughout Africa and South America to take them over, and America losing this access to the third world is way better for the third world.
No, it doesn't. If America and the corporations really want something, they will use military force. For example, Afghanistan/Iraq/a large chunk of most U.S. actions in the Middle East.
Fair argument, but there's still an enormous void to fill with the loss of USAID that is not being made up.
No, they don't destabilize governments, but instead, in some cases, they build the infrastructure, then demand resources, then cuts off access if the resources are not given.
And the Waltons and the Resnicks give millions to charity every year.
And the money they give to charity isn't the immoral part of their actions
On a small scale, no, but on a large scale, yes, because they’re able to buy legitimacy from people like you who just can’t see that it’s all just window dressing to cover their more heinous crimes.
There are no ethical billionaires
Again, the problem isn't the money being donated, but people ignoring their immoral acts
The money that they donate doesn’t exist outside of their immoral acts.
You seem to think that the two are extricable from one another, and that the two can be evaluated separately.
It’s a nice fantasy. And it’s one of the primary (though superficial) sticking points between liberals and leftists
Sadly, as much as I feel a lot of evo psych is bullshit, in this case I do think it boils down ultimately to monkey brain: https://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html
I miss Old Cracked. 😔
That said... do I even want to click OP's link? (Edit: too late, I did)
Just remember that anyone can make a tip to the FBI and there needs to be independent verification.
This could be someone with grudge against Trump or legitimate mental illness. A friend of mine was staffer for her congresswoman and they got all sorts of cranks and weirdos calling in.
One death a tragedy, a thousand a statistic type shit. At least there is outrage.
Because most people are fully down with participating in mass killings so long as they don't have to fire a gun, so that checks out.
This is a random FBI tip from 35 years after the fact. It’s not credible, and acting like it is distracts from the real horrors in these releases.
It’s working. Quit getting in the way of success. Whatever works. That’s what matters at this point, not winning a pure victory.
It’s human to not understand abstract deaths. We can’t comprehend them. But if you say, hey, this guy in the room when a baby was murdered, that’s something we can comprehend and connect to.
The Epstein PDF is barely legible on mobile, tl;dr?
Edit: Found an article: https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/donald-trump-witnessed-infanticide-during-jeffrey-epstein-s-sex-trafficking-crimes-doj-documents-share-chilling-details/ar-AA1SW3wv
Tl;dr an Epstein victim said when she was 13 her newborn baby was killed and thrown in a lake, and named Trump as a witness.
Breaking: humans still more susceptible to anecdotes than statistics, despite obvious logical flaws
A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.
-Josef Stalin.
It’s terrible how correct that statement is.
misattribution, ackshually ☝️🤓
Guess I need to update my apocalypse bingo card again
One death is a tragedy. A million is a statistic.
There's no law against destroying the world for profit.
The human brain is very bad at conceptualizing numbers, especially big numbers.
It is good at processing stories.
"Witness to" is really giving him a lot of credit here.
Its at minimum "accessory to" and more honestly *directly the cause of" infanticide (after he raped a young child pregnant)
Guess I gotta update my apocalypse bingo board again
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A million is a statistic