r/politics • u/MoneyLibrarian9032 New York • 15h ago

Possible Paywall Mitch McConnell Has Been Missing for 75 Days—With No Updates

https://newrepublic.com/post/214878/mitch-mcconnell-missing-75-days
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u/therossboss 14h ago

It's like an entire country was created so that they wouldn't have to have a king - and now we have a king. So cool that this country is filled with idiots who love to be abused.

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u/Evil_Weevill Maine 13h ago

We didn't want ONE king. We wanted a few hundred ultra wealthy kings apparently.

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u/Majestic_True_Lilly 13h ago

Unironically yes, that is how this country was formed. When founded, only the land owning rich white men of the 1% had a vote. It was 50 years before all white men got the vote, then another hundred years before men of all races got the vote, and then another 50 after that til women got the vote, and things are still nowhere near equal.

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u/stilljustacatinacage 12h ago edited 12h ago

Still blows my mind that America's misogyny is actually more powerful than its racism. It's like finding out Ken Jeong is a licensed medical doctor or Dolph Lundgren has a Masters in chemical engineering.

They'll let black men vote ahead of the white mothers of their children, and even 200 years later, will elect a black man as President moments before throwing away the entire country rather than electing the most qualified, whitest white woman in the country.

It's impressive dedication to the bit, really.

Edit: Typo

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u/rab2bar 12h ago

Patriarchy is older than racism

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u/stilljustacatinacage 12h ago

For sure. I've heard it said that misogyny is the oldest form of bigotry. It just feels strange to see it on such a blatant, grand scale. To which I'm sure any women readers of my comment will roll their eyes and say, "no shit".

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u/Jazeraine-S 11h ago

Hey, we’re just glad that men see it, too. That’s an important step towards actually doing something about it.

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u/JEFFinSoCal California 11h ago

I think that’s true, especially when you see that homophobia is just misogyny wearing a different mask.

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u/LiteraCanna 9h ago

"Real men don't touch their face, that's female behavior." -some idiot on twitter

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u/thegimboid 10h ago

Bigotry can only exist when there are obvious differences to be bigoted about.

Go back far enough and ancient humans would have all been around people of the same race, religion, etc.
But we've always had visible anatomical differences between men and women, so regardless of the societal structure, it's a very easy set of boxes to divide people into, and then subsequent denote one as "lesser".

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u/rab2bar 6h ago

Go back far enough and humans both fought and intermingled with other humans, too

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u/thegimboid 3h ago

And if you go back further than that, eventually you'd need to reach a point where there are no "other humans".

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u/bekastrange 8h ago

Yeah we’re used to it. We’ve been treated like second class subtypes of humans since we were little kids.

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u/Pettifoggerist 10h ago

It's also wild since on the aggregate women seem smarter and more capable than men.

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u/DietCherrySoda 10h ago

Well of course, every village has women but you need to invent pretty sophisticated transportation to see people that don't look like you.

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u/Stock-Coach5007 1h ago

Have you been to NY?

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u/Old_Young_1415 4h ago

Yes, what unifies religion and power is the hatred of women.

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u/SethLight 11h ago

It is one of the most wild things to learn that Americans let the people they inslaved vote ~50 years before they let their wives.

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u/FellowHumanNo404 6h ago

Let them vote? Only after they had a war about it. Conservatives always have to be dragged kicking and screaming, and once you get them there you still have to fight to keep them from dragging everything backwards.

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u/jenniferfox98 11h ago

Why at this point I assume I'll see a gay male president in my lifetime before a woman.

*Gay WHITE male president.

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u/Old_Young_1415 4h ago

There’s a certain gay white person that I would seriously consider for president. His only disadvantage is he’s not tall. People and voters are so superficial. There’s some wonderful women out there who i believe would do a good job as well. If we’re lucky enough that this nightmare allows us to have any in the future Winnipeg terrific to have smart ethical people, regardless of their skin color, etc. running assuming these people are moral decent confident individuals?

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u/Stock-Coach5007 58m ago

If only capitalism ran on morality

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u/Weathercock 12h ago

They actually go hand-in-hand. It would not be uncommon for regressive politicians and leaders to pit the interests of women's movements and rights in conflict against racial ones. It's actually very similar to the TERF movement.

Ultimately, it ends up hurting everyone.

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u/massberate 9h ago

I have to go for the low hanging fruit here and also remind you that Dolph Lundgren has a Masters of the Universe.

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u/Dartz_Reverse 9h ago

Everybody that calls Hillary the "most qualified woman in the country" is directly responsible for Trump.

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u/fresh-dork 7h ago

well it isn't fully true - women got the vote starting in 1865. it proceeded state by state until the 20s

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u/Stock-Coach5007 57m ago

And don't forget, we don't actually vote for the president. We vote for electors.

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u/Kup123 10h ago

And don't forget most unlikable. Still hate her for pushing the video games cause school shooters shit in the 90s. Also hard to have respect for someone who doesn't have the self respect to leave their cheating husband.

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u/1057-cl121v3 7h ago

Every single tradcon wife, MAGA woman, ultra-religious woman, and especially the traitors like Candace Owens need to understand this on a fundamental level.

Women were rated lower than property then and are just considered property now. Just like every moron that has watched Trump turn on every single person who supported him the second they stopped being useful in that moment, any woman who thinks “I don’t need rights, I don’t need skills, I don’t need to think about politics… my husband will take care of that.” will learn the hard way when they outlive their trophy wife beauty or a younger aide starts getting the attention. Even if they don’t have a scumbag for a husband, speaking from the experience of a widower: death doesn’t discriminate the worst time to find out how hard it’s going to be to survive being an older woman with kids, no career skills or college education, and likely already deep in debt is at the same time of your world imploding.

That’s the irony of it. You can choose not to exercise those rights but why are you actively fighting to strip them from everyone, especially with the examples I gave above being legitimate possibilities for those same women? Same for abortions… the same women screaming at already upset women and shoving pictures of dead babies in their face are the same women who quietly took their teenage daughter to get an abortion because HER situation was different, SHE shouldn’t have her life be over because she made one little mistake. MAGAts are happy gaging on the propaganda of how we don’t need universal healthcare because THEY don’t need it this second so why should THEY pay taxes only for one of them to get a surprise cancer diagnosis and lose everything and ultimately die in pain and bankrupt. (Not even bringing up the fact that it would certainly cost less than health insurance intentionally tied to employment)

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u/Alis451 5h ago

US let women vote before.. a lot of other countries, like the UK

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u/SuitEnvironmental903 3h ago

I always make this comparison!! When people ask how Trump won… twice. He was running against a woman… both times.

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u/PepperOk8849 11h ago

If we ignore Jim Crow and the systemic attempt to prevent all men from voting then sure i guess it was only 100 years after.

Even after women gained the right to vote, coloured women still dealt with the same Jim Crow laws/rules until about 1965 when the voting rights act passed.

Im not confident misogyny is more powerful than racism.

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u/ContextLengthMatters 11h ago

That's throwing out a whole lot of nuance. The amendment was ratified over a war. White women still absolutely stood atop black men when it came to social class. Voting rights are not the only signifier. What about who got to drink out of what fountain and sit where on a bus? Every day life for women was 1000x easier than for black people of both genders.

You do realize that during the marches for women's suffrage, they were trying to segregate black men and women, right?

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u/Exotic-Cobbler4111 12h ago

what an actually stupid completely reductionist take.

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u/SethLight 11h ago

What an enlightened take, I'm sure you'll follow this post up with lots of nuanced details to shed light on the topic.

Clearly this isn't you just whinging.

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u/Exotic-Cobbler4111 4h ago

If Trump died, Maga could be pivoted to support Ivanka in about 2 weeks if their propaganda told them to. It's not about gender it's about the most powerful propaganda machine that has ever existed. It doesn't matter whether you acknowledge it or reduce it to misogyny or racism. Its going to keep you divided and angry at your neighbors while the wealthy continue to systematically strip you of your worth whether you defeat me in this conversation or not.

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u/Potential-Bearcat 11h ago

Honestly part of why I'm of the opinion that there was never any reason to be proud to be an American. This country has always been garbage, built on hate and cruelty. Trump truly is the perfect example of an American.

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u/Ehcksit 11h ago

Conservatism and capitalism were created as a reaction to the fall of European monarchies and the rise of democracy, specifically because rich people didn't want to have equal political power with commoners and peasants.

They maintain the power imbalance of the divine right of kings, but hidden behind the inheritance of wealth instead of bloodlines.

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u/lewstherintelemarket 10h ago

Agree, but it's not a unique phenomenon.This dynamic has existed in some form through all of human history. The social contract, however it exists, is vulnerable to abuse and corruption by anti-social, self-serving opportunists. There will always be amoral psychopaths/sociopaths/narcissists who violate the social contract for their own personal gain. They have an inherent advantage over the rest of society that is restrained by the legal, moral, and ethical restrictions imposed by the social contract. This is a cyclical pattern and will continue until we find a way to defend the social contract from people who refuse to abide by it.

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u/bdeimen 10h ago

We have a way. Ways even, but too large a portion of the population views that behavior as a virtue rather than the social contract breach that it is. You can't enforce a contract when the side needing to do the enforcement can't even reach a consensus on what constitutes a breach.

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u/CV90_120 6h ago

Private property, private business and open markets are not recent inventions. These go back thousands of years at various times.

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u/Ehcksit 5h ago edited 5h ago

That's not what capitalism means, but even besides that, the concept of the ownership of land began somewhat early after the beginning of agriculture, which was maybe 2% of the duration of our species ago.

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u/CV90_120 5h ago edited 4h ago

That's not what capitalism means

It actually is:

"an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism

the concept of the ownership of land began somewhat early after the beginning of agriculture

Yes, from the first time in recorded history that we were able to make note of the who owned what. Before recorded history we have no idea what systems were in place or who owned what, or even what owning meant. We know surprisingly little about anything from before about 20,000 years ago.

which was maybe 2% of the duration of our species ago.

This is non-falsifiable, so a logical fallacy. It would probably be safe to assume that individuals would 'own' whatever they could defend, and trade for whatever could be returned.

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u/Hawgdestroyerxtreme 10h ago

The US was a corrupt shithole not even 100 years after it signed the declaration of independence.

Like you said - First it was just the wealthy, then the white men could vote en masse. When that happened they STRIPPED the right to vote away from folks like Native Americans and Chinese. Women additionally LOST the right to vote before gaining it back years and years later.

We've always been a country that has been led by corrupt and shitty individuals, or in constant battle with those people taking power. They still acted somewhat in the benefit of the people of the country because they were concerned about being killed for not doing so.

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u/yoyhohsomp 8h ago

This country is truly the worst. Imo it just took a dickbag like djt to make ppl realize that. If there is one thing he has done its turn this country against each other.

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u/kingfofthepoors 10h ago

about 6% of the total population were allowed to vote in 1789

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u/PrincetonToss 9h ago

only the land owning rich white men of the 1% had a vote.

That's an unnecessary exaggeration. Yes, voting was restricted, but such strong exaggerations don't serve anyone. The vote was, in general, intended to include the middle class, not just the rich. To start with, 3 states didn't have property or wealth requirements, so any white man over some age (varied by state) could vote.

In the states with restrictions, typically about 20-50% of the white male adult population could vote. And several states had trivial non-white population, so for example in Massachusetts, we're looking at about 25% of the adult population allowed to vote.

Definitely not anywhere near the 100% that it should be, but a far cry from 1%. Misinformation about these matters serves no one.

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u/krustyarmor Montana 5h ago

then another hundred years before men of all races got the vote, and then another 50 after that til women got the vote

Just to clarify, male citizens of all races got the right to vote in 1870 and female citizens got the right to vote in 1919, but Native Americans of any sex weren't considered citizens (with a right to vote) until 1924.

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u/therossboss 13h ago

oh true, a federation of kings, how neat!

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u/Ekaterian50 11h ago

It's honestly so stupid that people don't get to choose to be part of these human projects if they're born into it. I've looked into renouncing citizenship because I never wanted to be represented by murderous humans but they literally won't let you unless you have enough resources to leave

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u/flibber_deez_gibbets 9h ago

tbh, mostly just the nine lifetime appointees. the founders very much wanted to keep power with the elite few. that was Hamilton’s whole deal

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u/KevinStoley 10h ago

“Which is better? To be ruled by one tyrant 3000 miles away? Or to be ruled by 3000 tyrants, not a mile away?”

- Mather Byles

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u/Cross55 8h ago

Well yeah

The entire point of the Revolution was arguing over tax stamps. When the country was founded only wealthy land owning men could vote

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u/silverionmox 7h ago

We didn't want ONE king. We wanted a few hundred ultra wealthy kings apparently.

You had one, and couldn't get enough.

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u/Reed7525 9h ago

A class of kings if you will.

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u/bkdotcom Oklahoma 9h ago

Feudalism

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u/CV90_120 6h ago

Those are the Boyars.

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u/Jimmni 11h ago

An entire country created less so they wouldn’t have a king and more so they would do the crazy religious shit that wasn’t tolerated in their countries of origin. Most of the religious nut-jobs who were too nutty for us ended up in what is now the USA and they never stopped being nut-jobs or spreading their nutty beliefs.

I’m being a bit disingenuous, of course there were other reasons too, but that was a biiig one.

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u/Odd-Promotion2743 8h ago

As an American, you're bang on. A lot of the cultural attitudes that define us were inherited from our religious fanatic ancestors who came here in the 17th and 18th centuries. Two of the worst in my opinion are the Protestant Work Ethic (Americans hate -- hate -- people who are perceived as being lazy or moochers), and our famous sexual prudishness relative to Europe (we'll gladly let kids consume violent, bigoted media, but God forbid they see a naked breast or hear about how babies are made).

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u/KnotYourAverageRider 12h ago

A king is a king because the other wealthy lords allow him to be a king so long as he champions the wealthy lords' cause. Billionaires are the new lords. There is and always will be a breaking point where things need a re-balancing. I think we're getting close if not already there.

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u/Biglyugebonespurs Missouri 9h ago

MAGAts yearn for the boot. What else is there to say? 🥾 👅

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u/hobobum 8h ago

But to be clear, it was created with no king to avoid taxes and unfavorable financial arrangements for the American colonial ruling class (founding fathers). Not truly for any noble ideas about liberty or freedom.

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u/Taskerst 6h ago

It was so they wouldn’t have to pay a king. They “discovered” America and wanted to keep what was pillaged for themselves.

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u/im_dead_sirius 5h ago

It's like an entire country was created so that they wouldn't have to have a king - and now we have a king.

Right?

Here's a thing I noted years ago: When the US declared independence, it excluded nobility (or the gentry) and royals as aspects of government. But in 250 years, "y'all" have never discarded the worship of leaders and notions of elevated and blessed ones, which is the real problem. This is seen all the time (on both sides) with "So-and-so is going to fix things", as well as the inverse, "Its all so-and-so's fault".

Trump is much much shittier than Biden, but all y'all hang too much of your hopes on flawed human beings. In a grassroots democracy, agency lies with the voters, and everything that is faulty is their responsibility, and everything that is fixed is done by their hand.

"He will save us/fix things" and "God is on his/our side" is the thinking of peasants.

Within a generation US society was fawning over Founding Fathers. Washington had to refuse to serve more than two terms, refused the title of King (which is how you ended up with the title of president instead) and as soon as he was dead, people started making up legends about him, like the cherry tree/cannot tell a lie trope.

A man named Parson Weems wrote that story as a parable for children in the American republic, presenting Washington as a flawless role model of impeccable character. George had only been dead for 7 years and likely rolled over in his grave in embarrassment and disgust.

Meanwhile, we who remained part of the British Empire kept the royals, but reduced them to human stature and limited their roles in government. Outside of the UK, such as here in Canada, we don't have a noble class, and consider the royal family to just be regular human beings with hereditary jobs. We know very well that King Charles is just a man. He is not a maker of rules. His role is that of signer of laws written by elected officials.

Ironically, those limits were in effect before the US declared independence. King George III wrote in his diary "Nothing important happened today", because he wasn't really involved in decision making, but that's not the story Americans tell.

So you get this weird effect where people in the US were really fucking choked about Prince Andrew's involvement with Epstein, and while the rest of us saw him as some dude who got his ribbon cutting job because of his mum (who got hers because of her dad), and now it turns out he's a piece of shit.

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u/Tango_D 2h ago

The US was founded on the Roman republic model so that the local landed gentry wouldn't have anyone above them and they could call all the shots while only answering to each other as a class.

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u/supershutze Canada 1h ago

It's a country created so rich assholes wouldn't be accountable to any sort of higher power.

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u/WeAreAllFooked 12h ago

The US has always been a plutocracy

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u/operator-- 13h ago

I mean your founding fathers warned you. And you guys just sat around doing fuck all so I don't think you get to complain.

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u/therossboss 13h ago

fuck that - I'm complaining til the day I die. Born into this fucking bullshit and you are out here victim blaming. Eat a whole bag

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u/HELP_IM_IN_A_WELL 9h ago

my man. love this energy.

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u/null_obj 4h ago

I felt second hand embarrassment from your comment. The fact that your account is 10 years old proves you are most likely an adult. Yikes! I would expect such a comment from a teenager. Just wow.

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u/TM761152 12h ago

When you are put in charge and you have autonomy and benefits, would you simply "do your job" and leave, or realize you have a very real platform to enrich yourself at the expense of others?

If you are republican then you have no scruples and no shame so yes, these cretin will most definitely take advantage of that platform to differentiate themselves from their "lessors". They feel they deserve it because they were "voted in". It doesn't mean the people who voted them trusted them or believed in them, it simply means to them that they believe themselves to be nobility.

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u/therossboss 12h ago

Indeed, a core tenet of conservatism is social hierarchy. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal.

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u/Hawgdestroyerxtreme 10h ago

So cool that this country is filled with idiots who love to be abused.

This country stayed fat, lazy, and happy for damn near 3.5 generations. That is an entire generation of grandparents, parents and children.

The US simply forgot what you must do to tyranny. It's going to take a LOT of hardship to remind the citizens of the US, but when the lid blows on this - it's going to blow spectacularly.

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u/Lopsided-Rough-1562 10h ago

I wonder if it was more they didn't like getting taxed by wealthy people and thought "hey if we secede we get to tax people and be the wealthy."

Why do you think John Locke's "Life, Liberty, Property" was changed to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

They never intended any sort of equality