Texas is free to invade whomever they’d like.
DeFascist’s latest plan to win over voters: take Social Security away from Millennials and Zoomers.
Assume Trump is found guilty of something and the folks in uniform come to take him away. Does DeSantis let that happen? He hasn’t really taken any swings at Trump, but it would be a prime opportunity to either bury or burnish his biggest rival.
Bury.
He’d make a bunch of noise about how unfair the weaponized DOJ is and that if elected he would direct them to investigate the corrupt Bidens and Clintons, as well as stop the witch hunting (of Republicans). He’d use it to rally and capture the nuttiest Trump supporters by promising to pardon their hero, if elected.
I guess he figures almost none of them will vote for him anyway so throw a bone to the boomers.
He may figure that people who are already getting or are about to get Social Security care about it, but that people in their 40’s and younger either aren’t thinking about it yet, or expect it to not be available for them anyway.
I’ve been hearing ‘you’re just paying into it but you’ll never see any benefit from it because it’ll be gone before you’re old enough’ since I was in my 30’s or 40’s – that is, since the 1980’s or '90’s; and I’m not at all sure people weren’t pushing that argument earlier and I just wasn’t paying attention. But it’s an argument still being made, and younger people who think it might be true are likely not to care what changes are made in a program they expect to be dead before it helps them directly, as long as those changes won’t immediately land Grandma on their personal couch.
(It might be true for some generation someday, of course. But I think the argument’s often used by people who are trying to make it true.)
It’s weird how DeSantis thinks the President has authority to limit who gets Social Security. Almost all of my clients with developmental disabilities get Social Security because it was approved by local district judges case-by-case. My knowledge of law is minimal in this area.
I’m sure he doesn’t, but his potential voters do. MAGAts seem to think the president has dictatorial, if not God-like, powers – hence, the belief that Trump’s failure to magically make the US a straight, white, Christian utopia could only be due to insidious global conspiracies.
Yeah, I think this is part of the whole “government can’t do anything right, so make sure you get yours” line of thinking. Yet, it’s been said for decades and SS is still here and still delivering benefits. I know that could change by the time I retire, but thats not a sure thing, either.
That line had been pushed at me since I was at least in my 30s…maybe even in my 20s. And I’ve been taking SS for 8 years now. I didn’t believe it then, but I wonder how many 30-somethings are falling for it now. Don’t know.
But I have a niece and nephew, and it wouldn’t make me happy to see them lose SS anymore than it would for me to lose it.
But what if they ate avocado toast and didn’t have to share a bathroom with 20 people in college? Doesn’t that disqualify them from deserving SS?
I know you’re joking, but, no.
Linking this in both DeSantis threads:
Basically, wants to use the power of current protected position to continue wars because he disagrees with their advertising strategy.
I hope to the FSM that one of the upcoming court cases from Disney or the like against his efforts at state-enforced retribution hammer him under the ground, but probably a pipe dream.
And additional words so Discourse doesn’t think it’s too similar to the other thread.
Ron DeSantis promises to “start slitting throats” if he is elected.
Yeah, the “slitting throats” is just more puffery from the struggling campaign. Red meat for the MAGA crowd to get attention, but no way of any action, since “Deep State” is a figment of MAGA imagination. And using the Defense dept to go after Mexican drug cartels is another fever dream - what, is he gonna invade Mexico? SMH
Using violent language isn’t just “puffery” when some of the RWNJs will see it as a call to action.
If someone used that language in reference to him in a public forum, you don’t think they’d be getting visits from people carrying badges?
That doesn’t rule out the possibility of claiming that X, Y or Z is the embodiment of the “Deep State”, whether or not it objectively exists. How many of the people in the past whose careers were damaged by anti-Communist witch hunts really were KGB agents? And it might not just be damaged careers - individual hotheads might be inspired to do no end of physical damage.
This is much more than “puffery.” Since Reagan, a pillar of Republican rhetoric has been to paint federal employees as soulless, inhuman “bureaucrats.” Because it makes their mission of gutting governmental services more popular if they can paint all federal employees as bureaucrats rather than dedicated public servants. But at least back then Republicans just wanted to fire them.
DeSantis’ adoption of the language of violence regarding federal employees is deliberate and designed to appeal to and inflame QAnon conspiracists. And it is entirely foreseeable that this rhetoric will drive some individuals to action. Frankly, I’m surprised that we haven’t already had another Oklahoma City bombing by deep state conspiracists.
I’ve been sitting here thinking about that comment by little ronny. You know, I can imagine myself running for office. I can imagine myself giving a speech, prepared or off the cuff, but I can not imagine ever even having the thought that I am going to “slit the throats” of people.
It’s just sort of unbelievable to me. This guy is fucked up in his head and I really hope his political career gets halted in its tracks because he is definitely a sicko.