[The Weeping Angel]

Anyone would think the midterms were really important, and by cutting ads, they mean to run ads in key battleground states highlighting how, under Trump, your food isn't safe anymore.

[The Weeping Angel]

Also, can anyone name one Democrat who spends their time whining on YouTube?

[Abernathy]

I dunno. The more I see of Trump appearing in clips on news bulletins, the more he seems to me to be just … well, incompetent. He basically doesn’t really understand just about everything he is trying to do, but covers it up - not very successfully - with bombastic hyperbole and blatant lies.

I’ve more or less stopped being bewildered about how so many Americans could have decided to vote for him as their president, but the thought of it still creeps into my brain box every now and again.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Given American history and culture Trump was inevitable. Which makes everything getting better when he has gone very unlikely. The Democrats are as much prisoners of that culture as the Republicans.

[davidjay]

It beggars belief that the most powerful nation on earth is run by a man who.is at best is a collosal egomaniac and at worst is suffering from mental illness. Just to give the most obvious example - the Capitol Riots were the closest America has come to insurrection since the civil war. The President believes no crimes were committed and no-one has in his administration has said different. Every day he says and does things that would get him either sacked or sectioned in any other job. How did we get to this and why is he still getting away with it?

[The Weeping Angel]

Because he was enabled every step of the way by the Republican Party and the wider conservative movement.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

By the whole American experiment.

The historical imperative (the 'experiment') guiding United States development is rooted in the interplay between ideological exceptionalism (allied to 'rugged individualism' and the 'frontier spirit'), continuous geographic and economic expansion (internal and external, vide Venezuela, Greenland, Hormuz), and the consolidation of institutional power (the destruction of checks and balances, the seeding of the Supreme Court, courtier politics). From its founding through its rise as a global superpower, US growth has not been accidental; it has been driven by a deeply ingrained belief in a unique national mission combined with material imperatives. Trump is just the reductio of those imperatives.

That also applies to the American press and media which plays to those stereotypes.

I know that Matt and Samanfur, like me, belong to Facebook pages which highlight American comics. Look at the misogynistic and normative values from the 50s and 60s they display - the indoctrination of youth. TV and movies the same.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

This goes back to the earliest Puritan settlers. Described as Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny
They spoke of the "City upon a Hill": Early Puritan settlers introduced the concept that America was a divinely sanctioned moral experiment. This evolved into a secularised national belief that the US has a unique duty to spread freedom and democracy.

In the 19th century, this ideological mission justified continental expansion. The belief that the US was pre-ordained to dominate North America legitimised the displacement of Indigenous populations and wars for territory, such as the Mexican-American War.

Historian Frederick Jackson Turner’s "Frontier Thesis" argued that the continuous availability of unsettled land shaped the American character, promoting individualism, egalitarianism, and democracy.
Vast geographic territory provided the raw materials and agricultural capacity (initially powered by the brutal system of chattel slavery) necessary to build a self-sustaining economy independent of European powers.
The 19th-century "Market Revolution" mandated the construction of massive infrastructure—canals, steamships, and transcontinental railroads—to connect Western resources with Eastern factories and ports.

The post-Civil War Gilded Age established a legal and political environment hyper-focused on capital accumulation, deregulation, and technological innovation, transforming the US from an agrarian society into the world's leading industrial power.

And exceptionalism and a bastardised, abysmal education system suited only to indoctrination.

Which leads us to modern Republicanism (and to a great extent the Democrats) and, of course, Trump.

[The Weeping Angel]

I know that Matt and Samanfur, like me, belong to Facebook pages which highlight American comics. Look at the misogynistic and normative values from the 50s and 60s they display - the indoctrination of youth. TV and movies the same.

Ok, but you can find examples of misogynistic and normative values that were made here in Britain.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Which is true but utterly beside the point...

[The Weeping Angel]

This goes back to the earliest Puritan settlers. Described as Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny
They spoke of the "City upon a Hill": Early Puritan settlers introduced the concept that America was a divinely sanctioned moral experiment. This evolved into a secularised national belief that the US has a unique duty to spread freedom and democracy.

In the 19th century, this ideological mission justified continental expansion. The belief that the US was pre-ordained to dominate North America legitimised the displacement of Indigenous populations and wars for territory, such as the Mexican-American War.

Historian Frederick Jackson Turner’s "Frontier Thesis" argued that the continuous availability of unsettled land shaped the American character, promoting individualism, egalitarianism, and democracy.
Vast geographic territory provided the raw materials and agricultural capacity (initially powered by the brutal system of chattel slavery) necessary to build a self-sustaining economy independent of European powers.
The 19th-century "Market Revolution" mandated the construction of massive infrastructure—canals, steamships, and transcontinental railroads—to connect Western resources with Eastern factories and ports.

The post-Civil War Gilded Age established a legal and political environment hyper-focused on capital accumulation, deregulation, and technological innovation, transforming the US from an agrarian society into the world's leading industrial power.

And exceptionalism and a bastardised, abysmal education system suited only to indoctrination.

Which leads us to modern Republicanism (and to a great extent the Democrats) and, of course, Trump.

How is the education system bastardised, abysmal, and suited only to indoctrination? Indoctrination to what exactly?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

It goes back to Ronald Reagan who fundamentally damaged American education, for apparently ideological reasons, by reducing federal funding, shifting college costs to students, and undermining public trust in teachers. His administration aimed to reduce 'federal interference' (ie professionalism) and promote local control, his choices created long-term structural challenges for the U.S. school system.

He defunded Higher Education and ended free tuition, a key factor in social mobility: As Governor of California, he cut state university funding by 20% to curb student protests.

As president, he cut the U.S. Department of Education budget from $16 billion to $14 billion and shifted grants to loans: He aggressively cut need-based grants. He replaced them with student loans, laying the groundwork for the modern student debt crisis.

He attacked public schools and teachers with the "Mediocrity" narrative: In 1983, his administration commissioned the landmark report, A Nation at Risk. The report claimed American public schools were drowning in a "rising tide of mediocrity". The report directly blamed teachers and unions, calling them lazy, permissive, and self-serving. This report created a lasting negative stigma around public education, thoroughly exploited by Republicans, paving the way for the privatisation of schools and an end to integration.

Reagan tried to completely eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, which had been created by Jimmy Carter. His constant efforts heavily destabilised federal education policy. Trump has continued this.

Reagan's administration famously cut billions from the federal school lunch programme, which led to infamous school guidelines that classified ketchup as a vegetable to save money. This adversely affected poor and black children. He diverted public funds to private schools, he heavily championed tuition tax credits and school vouchers. This was a deliberate effort to divert vital taxpayer funds away from struggling public schools and into private or religious institutions. A further blow to social mobility and integration.

That's a start.

Continued by Bush, and now completed by Trump.

Education now operates as a two-tier system with public schools at the whim of local political prejudices,

[Tubby Isaacs]

Republicans control both houses, with barely any of them prepared to vote with Democrats where it would mean a defeat for their party. The Democrats barely got 4 defectors to release the Epstein files, which Trump ignored anyway. There are powerful committees who can bring a lot of pressure on the President- guess who controls all of them.

The Democrats will doubtless come back to Epstein, but they run not just on Trump's brazen lawlessness, but also on affordability which is very practical, and was an issue that the Republicans made work in 2024. I'm optimistic, but the House is massively gerrymandered and the Senate biased towards mostly Republican small states. So it's much harder to defeat the Republicans than it is to defeat the Tories.

[The Weeping Angel]

Ok, but it doesn't explain how the system indoctrinates people, and at no point do you mention what happened under Clinton, Obama, or Biden.

[Boiler]

It goes back to Ronald Reagan who fundamentally damaged American education, for apparently ideological reasons, by reducing federal funding, shifting college costs to students, and undermining public trust in teachers. His administration aimed to reduce 'federal interference' (ie professionalism) and promote local control, his choices created long-term structural challenges for the U.S. school system.

Education now operates as a two-tier system with public schools at the whim of local political prejudices,

This year, Trump tried to defund another source of education: PBS and NPR. PBS was formerly known as National Educational Television, which tells you a lot about what the rest of American TV is like.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/jud ... bs-and-npr

[The Weeping Angel]

Continued by Bush, and now completed by Trump.

Here's the Cato insitute complaing that the Bush administration is spending too much money on education.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/elimina ... -education

Not that education spending has been out of line with other current White House policies. President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have increased total federal spending by at least $533 billion in just three years. This fiscally irresponsible pattern is set by the White House, which often requests spending increases but seldom proposes offsetting cuts. Today, Republicans do not talk about eliminating individual programs, much less entire agencies.

The Department of Education itself has grown by 69.6 percent between 2002 and 2004: from $46,282 million in FY2002 to $60,600 million in FY2004. This is a remarkable increase from a party so recently committed to devolving control over education — and the silence of loyalists on this issue is still more remarkable.

The No Child Left Behind Act has made federal education-spending increases a domestic priority. Conservatives claim that runaway spending is the political price of an important reform effort. But we have seen billions spent and little reform to show for it.

The centerpiece of the act, the part for which all the money was supposedly paid, are the provisions that demand alternative educational opportunities for children trapped in failing schools. If the Act had indeed secured their escape, it might have been a fair ransom.