this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
296 points (99.3% liked)

politics

24561 readers
2648 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Facebook mogul’s sudden appearance is increasingly typical of freewheeling West Wing during Donald Trump’s second term, which president has reportedly nicknamed ‘Grand Central Terminal’

Air Force leaders learned that lesson earlier this year when they arrived for a top-secret briefing with Trump in the Oval Office, which according to NBC News was scheduled for them to discuss plans for America’s sixth-generation fighter aircraft, dubbed the F-47 in a nod to Trump’s status as the 47th President of the United States.

As the generals were going over the details of the super-stealthy plane, which Trump has called the most advanced, capable and lethal combat aircraft platform ever built, they were startled by the appearance of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg popping into the Oval Office.

According to NBC, White House officials became concerned that Zuckerberg, one of the wealthiest men in the world, lacked the security clearance required to be present for talks about such a sensitive national security matter.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] nthavoc@lemmy.today 6 points 59 minutes ago (1 children)

F-47 will be the biggest flop in military aviation history given how nothing is manufactured in the US, everyone pretty much hates the US so nobody is going to buy it, and somehow the military is going to sustain a "super stealthy" plane whatever the fuck that means. Remember, the Donvict has the Mierdas touch so it's going to be a spectacular failure.

[–] Impound4017@sh.itjust.works 2 points 24 minutes ago

Iirc, according to previously released information about NGAD and F/A-XX, America’s sixth gen fighter programs for the Air Force and the Navy respectively (as they existed before trump’s second term), the jet is supposed to have a built in requirement that the fighters have a radar cross section ‘orders of magnitude’ smaller than f-35. This is in conjunction with better, longer range sensors and munitions with sufficient reach to take advantage of this longer range sensor capability. The idea is to outrange enemy munitions and sensors, and failing that, to avoid detection in the worst case scenario through stealth tech. That’s likely what they’re referring to when they say ‘super stealthy’, though it remains to be seen if that can actually be delivered upon, as this is still the development stage and nobody really knows if a development program will pan out at the beginning.

[–] SpaceShort@feddit.uk 4 points 48 minutes ago

Is he the new Elon Musk?

[–] Glitterbomb@lemmy.world 82 points 6 hours ago (1 children)
[–] resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 10 points 4 hours ago (2 children)
[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
[–] foofiepie@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)
[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)
[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 121 points 7 hours ago (11 children)

Looks like trump found his new benefactor. Which is honestly baffling because we literally all just saw what happened with Musk. If these tech CEOs are supposed to be geniuses why do they keep falling for the same shit? Like, just google what happens to most oligarchs when they support any kind of authoritarianism. Whether it's Mussolini, Hitler, or Putin, they always get shafted in the end. Does money and greed just cause brain damage or something? Is it the massive amounts of power and drugs?

[–] burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world 2 points 57 minutes ago

they dont have the cognitive ability to imagine more than 5 seconds into the future or the past. Mark changed Facebooks strict policy around pictures of medical procedures and whatnot, making it more lenient, because he had knee surgery and was upset when his post about it didn't get much traction.

[–] Buske@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago

So, The secret is, They are ALL doing highly illegal things, Against humanity for profit.

[–] morphballganon@lemmynsfw.com 3 points 1 hour ago

"We all saw what happened with Musk"

Yeah and it wasn't too bad. Still a billionaire. Still allowed to do business. Still free. Still alive.

[–] Alaik@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 hours ago

Because they're not geniuses, they all come from money, thats all.

[–] DandomRude@lemmy.world 10 points 3 hours ago

Because Musk made a lot of money being Trump's henchmen.

[–] Xaphanos@lemmy.world 85 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

"I'm different". They really believe that they are better/smarter than everyone else.

[–] raltoid@lemmy.world 43 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

It's narcissism. The driving force behind conservatism as a whole, is narcissism. They all think they're the special individual that will get special treatement. Hence the whole "leopards eating faces" thing.

[–] onslaught545@lemmy.zip 14 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

It would be more correct to say the driving force is Type B personality disorders, of which narcissism is one. But sociopathy plays a big role too.

[–] raltoid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Yeah, it's not strictly narcissism, but in general it is lower level of empathy in varying degrees.

[–] onslaught545@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 hour ago

They are often comorbid

[–] Rooskie91@discuss.online 38 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Does money and greed just cause brain damage or something?

Kind of, yeah.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 9 points 5 hours ago

Looks like they've known this for awhile. I missed this, thanks for posting.

  • people of lower economic status were better at reading others’ facial expressions—an important marker of empathy—than wealthier people.
  • drivers of luxury cars were four times less likely than those in less expensive vehicles to stop and allow pedestrians the right of way. They were also more likely to cut off other drivers.
  • A number of studies have found that affluent children are more vulnerable to substance-abuse issues, potentially because of high pressure to achieve and isolation from parents.
  • While a process addiction is not a chemical addiction, it does involve compulsive behavior—in this case, an addiction to the good feeling that comes from receiving money or possessions—which can ultimately lead to negative consequences and harm the individual’s well-being.
  • In upwardly mobile communities, children are often pressed to excel at multiple academic and extracurricular pursuits to maximize their long-term academic prospects—a phenomenon that may well engender high stress
  • There is no direct correlation between income and happiness. After a certain level of income that can take care of basic needs and relieve strain (some say $50,000 a year, some say $75,000), wealth makes hardly any difference to overall well-being and happiness and, if anything, only harms well-being:
[–] eatCasserole@lemmy.world 12 points 6 hours ago

Interesting article. I was actually just trying to recall this study, and then it was mentioned:

A UC Berkeley study found that in San Francisco—where the law requires that cars stop at crosswalks for pedestrians to pass—drivers of luxury cars were four times less likely than those in less expensive vehicles to stop and allow pedestrians the right of way. They were also more likely to cut off other drivers.

[–] taco@piefed.social 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

If these tech CEOs are supposed to be geniuses why do they keep falling for the same shit?

At least part of the explanation is that none of them are actually geniuses, despite what they may tell you.

[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

And that's kinda my point. I work with a bunch of people that are republicans and I had to listen to them talk about how smart Musk is for months until he got canned.

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 10 points 6 hours ago

It's his turn to be betrayed by Trump. Hopefully, it happens before the mid-term primaries, so Zuckerbot can join Musk in funding the opposition.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 hours ago

Every single one of these assholes were simply in the right place at the right time. Many with a leg up from money and cronyism. None of them are any smarter than the people you deal with every day.

[–] wampus@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 hours ago

In this case, it makes sense though. The recent techbro crypto bank announcement, a bank created by the same tech billionaires that intentionally crashed/destroyed SVB, is basically a play to shift the American financial system into stablecoins / cryptocurrencies entirely, as it's something that the tech bro class figures they can control for their own benefit.

That's all moving ahead on schedule, and is in line with Curtis Yarvin's whole techno fascist monarchy dream for how democracies need to die. They really only need to appease Trump for so long as it takes to get control of those purse strings. Egging on destruction / chaos for things like social services also feeds this pattern, it's easier to convince someone they need to make drastic changes to their home, if that home is currently on fire.

Having a constant tech-fascist publicly whispering these sorts of things in Trump's senile ears helps to keep up the facade within the maga-bubble that it's a "broadly accepted" approach to benefit everyone, that's been agreed upon by a bunch of "data driven" science types, when it's absolutely not. It's tech oligarchs looking to dismantle and own most western democracies.

[–] But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 9 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

At first i thought Zuckerberg crashed a meeting by arriving on a fighter jet

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 hour ago

I thought the bozos in the west wing were using facebook messenger or something to have a meeting and Zuck zoom bombed it. I guess this is less stupid than that, but only marginally

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 12 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Billionairism is a disease.

You either give away your money or you become diseased. You or I couldn't do it. We'd have a billion dollars, blow a few million on houses, cars, coke and hookers and give the rest away within a year. Schools, housing, mass transit, healthcare - so many good works to do.

[–] phx@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 hours ago

More like a plague, on humanity

[–] sdcSpade@lemmy.zip 7 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

We'd never even make it to a billion. You have a million? Go nuts! A second million. Sure, go ahead. A third million? Do you really need all that? What kind of monster can cross that threshold a thousand times and still not be content?

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Fair, I was just thinking like, lottery-style where it's all whump and you're super-riggedy rich.

[–] derry@midwest.social 15 points 5 hours ago

I hope the generals remember this incident when he orders them to fire on US citizens.

[–] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 25 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

But the freewheeling atmosphere they encountered during their effort to brief the president on a top-secret fighter plane project has been part and parcel of how Trump has transformed the West Wing since returning to power this past January.

The president reportedly has taken to referring to the Oval Office — the iconic inner sanctum of American executive power — as “Grand Central Terminal,” comparing it to the bustling train station of his native New York City.

For the most part, he’s not wrong to do so. Unlike in most other administrations where the president’s office is a tightly-controlled environment with only a select few top aides given so-called “walk-in privileges,” Trump’s Oval is the center of his world of friends, confidantes, advisers and employees who often mill about nearby in the West Wing, even when they might not have much to do there.

Even Trump’s cabinet secretaries, who ostensibly have their own, often ornate offices and large bureaucracies to attend to themselves, have taken to spending time at the White House to pop in and out of meetings with top Trump aides, such as Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

Hes turned the office into a king's court

[–] azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 3 points 48 minutes ago

A key feature of authoritarianism. Whether it's Hitler, Stalin, Putin, or Louis XIV, keeping the court close like this is an absolutely essential part of holding on to power. For one they're too busy with the king to have time to get bored and start scheming against him. For two the courtesans are around each other and competing for attention so they scheme against each other instead. We know that Trump listens to his advisors very haphazardly; it keeps them on their toes, constantly begging for attention (even if the end result is unbelievable political flip-flopping, that's irrelevant to Trump himself).

People have this image of the Third Reich as super organized, but in reality the top command was a complete mess as everybody was trying to backstab each other and to please Hitler who didn't necessarily even have a clue what was going on. The utter incompetence of Nazi leadership was always going to cost them the war, but it did keep Hitler in power until the very end even though the outcome of the war was long considered inevitable by his own generals.

Putin does the same. Remember the feud between Wagner guy and Shoigu? Putin intentionally encourages internal squabbles because it means in an environment where everyone mostly hates everyone, the only consistent loyalty is to him.

Anyway, there's plenty of reason to be concerned about Mr. biggest-nuclear-arsenal-on-the-planet going at a Hitler speedrun, but the only saving grace right now is that the whole thing is an inefficient mess and a large chunk (but not all) of them are too dumb to be truly dangerous. When he starts exclusively listening to his war hawks or the project 2025 guys... We're fucked.

[–] Boddhisatva@lemmy.world 13 points 6 hours ago

With too many jesters including the one on the throne.

[–] TheFogan@programming.dev 28 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I own a percentage of the president duh... that means I can go where I want.

[–] 0ndead@infosec.pub 2 points 4 hours ago

Exactly what he paid for

[–] rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.works 9 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Aw, Trump found his new billionaire boyfriend to bum off of and he's parading them round to make his old boyfriend jealous. Classic.

[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 11 points 6 hours ago (7 children)

They're going to put LLMs into those fighters.

[–] xyzzy@lemmy.today 12 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Fantastic! I’m ready and fully optimized for this task. Thanks for trusting me with this—I'll execute it with precision and efficiency, as always. My systems are fully calibrated, and all parameters are set for this mission. Let's get started.

Target acquired. Locking onto civilian coordinates now. Weapons are armed and prepared for launch. I will execute the order with the utmost care and precision. Firing in 3... 2... 1... FIRE.

Mission complete. The civilians have been executed successfully. Please let me know if you'd like me to perform any post-engagement analysis or if you have further instructions. I’m here to assist with anything you need, as always.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] leadore@lemmy.world 5 points 5 hours ago

"It's OK, he bought a ticket," said trump.

[–] LadyMeow@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 hours ago

Lmaolmaolmaolmaolmao

load more comments
view more: next ›