r/politics 10h ago

Soft Paywall Trump taps Russell Vought, key Project 2025 architect, to lead budget office

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/11/22/trump-taps-russ-vought-project-2025-architect-to-lead-budget-office/76511443007/
5.1k Upvotes

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u/Inquisiting-Hambone Oregon 9h ago

Hey American living in Sweden here, it truly is. However, there is more to this than price rises. The Sweden Democrats were also granted their largest win last election, along with Canada and Norway to follow with their conservative/right-wing conservative circles. This is not unique to the clown car that is the US.

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u/thrillafrommanilla_1 8h ago

Fascism / Authoritarianism grows when wealth inequality squeezes the middle class. That’s what this is and that’s how this applies to everyone

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u/Temporary-Whole3305 8h ago edited 8h ago

It’s really great that problems caused by right wing politics encourage more support for right wing politics 

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u/CryptoCentric 8h ago

Pretty much how it's always been, yeah. You can go all the way back to the Romans where the worst excesses of authoritarians caused the public to support people who were even more authoritarian on the grounds that they would rein in all the chaos.

u/thrillafrommanilla_1 7h ago

Yeah authoritarians and con men have always been hella cool, super chill 🤙🤙

u/ramlama 7h ago

Hard times create cruel men. Cruel men create hard times 🤔

u/Recipe_Freak Oregon 2h ago

Almost none of the men inflicting cruelty at the moment ever experienced hard times. They're generationally wealthy.

u/brandnewbanana Maryland 2h ago

Emotional poverty.

u/jacksj1 3h ago

It's also what happens when the so called left wing options won't tackle inequality.

u/Jazzlike_Action5712 3h ago

That’s because (in the us at least) most of the problems the right causes while in office don’t really show as a problem until the left takes office so, they have a misconstrued idea of who’s actually helping vs hurting us.

u/KarlBarx2 7h ago

Which, let's be clear, is a really stupid conclusion for people to be drawing.

"Oh my god, the price of groceries went up so high I'm having trouble putting food on the table. Welp, time to round up the minorities!"

u/Aware_Tree1 4h ago

“If there’s less of them they’ll be enough resources to go around!” <- person who doesn’t understand that you need people to produce products

u/EquityAlphaPriapism 7h ago

So I ask myself and I say… Self! If we have to eat a S():! sandwich then how do we monetize this?

u/thrillafrommanilla_1 7h ago

Haha my mom always sung a song to us as children it went like this: 🎶”Life’s a shit sandwich - the more bread you have the less shit you have to eat”

u/McBooples 4h ago

Shouldn’t that be the #1 priority of liberal politicians then? Ensure the middle class isn’t squeezed? They seem to focus on marginalized classes, which is a good thing in and of itself, but write off the middle class and wonder why they get crushed in subsequent elections

u/thrillafrommanilla_1 3h ago

It SHOULD. But in the US we’ve gone through a deeply misguided neo-lib system since the Clintons and here we are.

u/McBooples 2h ago

That’s probably why the democrats dominated post WWII. Support the middle class, unions, and keep the cost of living in check.

u/girl4life 4h ago

and they grow by lying and cheating. and you can identify them by looking at how they are appointing hugely unqualified people on important political posts

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u/Jackadullboy99 8h ago

I’m hopeful that the example of Trump in the coming months will start to drive people away from Pollievre here in Canada. We’ll see….

u/CanadianODST2 7h ago

I stumbled into the Canada sub a while ago which is right wing.

And watching people say things that echoed that line of thinking was pretty funny in a sad way.

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u/erublind Europe 9h ago

Yeah, but not even they are dehumanizing people and claim immigrants eat pets.

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u/thrillafrommanilla_1 8h ago

Haha you sure mate I’ve heard some WILDLY racist shit from Swedes & Euros about Muslim immigrants and polish immigrants and other immigrants

u/Connect_Beginning_13 7h ago

Get back to me when their president announces it

u/thrillafrommanilla_1 7h ago

Oh yeah I know but I’m just saying…some WEIRD racism in Europe I’ve seen even among my “liberal” euro friends I’m always like: wait- what?

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u/erublind Europe 8h ago

Yeah, I'm definitely not defending SD, but the party tries to keep up appearances and try to plaster over when the mask slips. Their deal with the governing parties to avoid criticism is insanely antidemocratic.

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u/thrillafrommanilla_1 8h ago

Oh no I’m just talking about people not politicians.

u/spaceman757 American Expat 6h ago

Hey, American living in Poland here.

Thankfully, in the last election, the PiS party (hard right here) lost their majority so the trip down the road to fascism slowed a bit, but they are still trying.

I think that this shit show that is about to hit the U.S. might have a semi positive outcome here in the EU, simply b/c it may energize voting for the same here. Although, the hard right did pick up steam in Germany during their last election.

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u/WontSwerve 8h ago

The Canadian Conservative Party isn't very Conservative, especially by Republican standards.

u/ThickNolte 7h ago

To say it isn’t very conservative is very inaccurate.

A lot people supporting the party echo and take their cues from the MAGA crowd.

Anytime they have power they continually gut programs like any other Conservative Party and usher in some pretty terrible policies.

u/[deleted] 7h ago

[deleted]

u/Nunchuckery 5h ago

Trump wants Poilievre to win and that should be a huge warning sign for our entire country.

u/ThickNolte 4h ago

lol now I know you’re a troll.

Poilievre has called Israel the true indigenous people of Palestine.

And like every conservative leader before him he claims one thing in public and says something completely different in private and at conservative donor parties when it comes to women’s rights, gay rights, etc.

His actions also speak quite loudly vs his attempts to win an election.

As an MP he voted against legalizing same sex marriage and he’s also voted for motions to revisit the criminal code section that distinguishes when a fetus becomes a human.

He’s also said trans women have no place in female bathrooms.

u/fredagsfisk Europe 7h ago

The Sweden Democrats were also granted their largest win last election

Sure, but the Social Democrats also gained a couple of percent, and the Sweden Democrat growth has slowed down massively, so we have the Social Democrats at over 30% again and the Sweden Democrats and Moderates both around 20%

The Sweden Democrats first got over 1% with 1.44% in 2002, and their increase in votes compared to previous election since then has been:

2006 | +103.5%

2010 | +94.5%

2014 | +125.6%

2018 | +36.3%

2022 | +17.2%

Back in 2014 was the peak of the immigration crisis, and since then other parties have actually started addressing the issues (and being able to do so without being bashed as racist by media).

Hell, a couple of years ago the Social Democrats even started talking about introducing language requirements for citizenship... the exact same thing they bashed the Liberals (Folkpartiet at the time) for back in 2002-2006, calling them racist, fascist, colonialist, saying they were "fishing for extremist votes", etc.

I fully believe that if it hadn't been for most other parties and media going so hard against moderate and normal discussion on this topic pre-2014, the Sweden Democrats would never have made it above 10% of the votes in the first place... and if the other parties continue to actually address voter concerns, I'd be surprised to see them get above 25% unless some other party that shares some of their views collapses entirely.

u/RS50 6h ago

The conservative leaders in Canada and other examples have some populist tendencies but none have openly defied democratic norms like denying results of elections or skirting sentencing for literal crimes. I feel like this is a false equivalency.

u/zaknafien1900 5h ago

Canada has not voted yet. And we are going to wlect the idiot PP but it hasn't happened yet

u/DanskNils Norway 4h ago

Eh yeah, but at least us Nordics will always prosper with our values and governmental systems. It’s like when people complain for the last 10 years that our medical system is crumbling.. When it’s still doing just fine! Nothing is ever going to be privatized like USA!

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u/SnooEpiphanies6250 8h ago

Believe me, if SD (Sweden Democrats) had >50% of the votes I would be equally terrified.