But it’s still fucking amazing and jokerfying that biden is the fucking guy this decaying empire coughed up during its death rattle to oversee the continuing and accelerating decline.
Real last days of rome shit. Actually, it’s too much even for that. If someone was making a movie about the fall of rome and the emperor was portrayed as a doddering old decrepit fuck like Biden people would say it was a little much.
It’s still astounding that they couldn’t find another smooth talking neoliberal ghoul ANYWHERE. Couple that with Pelosi’s fucking “good morning, Sunday morning” gaffe, the fact that Feinstein apparently doesn’t know what planet she’s on, and then multiple senators and congresspeople are apparently on Alzheimer’s medication. The absolute state of bourgeois democracy. incredible.
In the Soviet Union, a detached and decaying class of ancient bureaucrats run the state.
Some people try to say the US is the late Roman Empire, but real heads know we're Brezhnev's USSR.
I don't wanna be 'that guy' but it was almost 100% because the media deemed him 'the safe bet to beat Trump'. Like literally any talking point against Biden was refuted with "ah but he is the frontrunner, and therefore the best chance to beat Trump." "Yeah, Bernie would be great, but Biden is the best charhuhughw Trump."
Fucking dementia patient basically only won a fraction over a tie because of a fucking pandemic.
Being Doomer isn't really my thing so I'll cap it off with this: this podcaster I like (ew yuck) responded to a cynical tweet about the world with "I think most people are morally good, it's just they need to be deprogrammed from billion dollar funded scare-mongering apparatus'"
My grand parents are 10~20 years younger than Pelosi or Feinstein
fuck I'm old
I have a vague memory of the rulers of ancient rome being old as fuck, too, and that being maybe not the cause of its collapse, but a sign of the end of the empire.
The way I see it, Biden ran despite being told not to. And then when it came time to ratfuck Bernie, on paper he made the most sense for everyone to get behind. A two term, well liked, vice president wasn't going to drop out and endorse a mayor from a small town in Indiana.
Of course, he should have. Even as much of a ghoul Pete is, getting him as president might have preserved the system for a couple of more cycles. Young, woke, representing the future, blah blah blah. Well, basically any of the other ghoul would have been better, like you say. (speaking as a ghoul trying to preserve the system and empire, not because they would make my life better, to be clear)
If you really want to see the US mirror the late Roman empire, we actually need to see like a 13-year old win the election in 2024.
According to the ancient historian Cassius Dio, after murdering Emperor Pertinax in A.D. 193, the Praetorian Guard tried to cash in on the power vacuum by placing the Roman throne on the auction block. Following a brief bidding war between former consul Didius Julianus and Pertinax’s father-in-law, Titus Flavius Sulpicianus, the Praetorians reportedly sold control of the Empire to Julianus for the enormous sum of 25,000 Roman sesterces per man.
Eagerly waiting for the time the Secret Service installs Bezos on the throne after getting paid $200k per man AND Amazon gift coupons worth 50$.
After defeating the latest Canadian barbarian invasion, the troops will hail their commanding officer as commander in chief and march towards DC to overthrow the sitting president.
They will raise him up on their drone keyboards and acclaim him Commander and Chief.
What gets me is that the upcoming administration and Sleepy Joe himself have been killing any amount of optimism Progressives had (or really, anyone who isn’t a “bruncher”) in the weeks leading up to his inauguration.
Undoing Trump’s disastrous border policies and putting a leash on ICE? That will come... eventually. A reexamination of our foreign policy? How about a continuation of “tough on Russia/China” fearmongering and support for interventionism instead? (Without even bothering to find better puppets than Venezuelan Beto) M4A? Eh, we got bigger things to worry about than some pipe dream, at least that’s what our corporate sponsors say.
At least Obama put in some effort to keep up the progressive grift. Now, the Dems have come to the realization that being anti-Drumpf xD gives them a blank check to continue the status quo going forward as long as they still offer empty promises of reform and the usual platitudes.
If you wanna lean into it and down a whole bottle of jokerpills, I recommend listening to the Gerontocracy episode of ALAB (All Lawyers Are Bastards), assuming you haven’t already.
It actually kinda brought me back to reality because reminded me that there are real, extremely sad consequences to having a bunch of decrepit people in charge of peoples’ lives
It’s still astounding that they couldn’t find another smooth talking neoliberal ghoul ANYWHERE.
Mayo Pete would totally have won the election, they just didn't want to give it to him for... some... reason..?
Yeah you're right as much as folks on the left hated Mayo Pete he was never a threat to win the nomination.
like i think the problem was they thought pete would not win against bernie in the primaries as like biden and bernie are popular with poorer electors than pete so i think if you remove biden from the ST ballot and leave bernie and pete and the coward liz, i feel like bernie would have taken the primary because pete would lose votes to warren too so her staying in would probably have just meant nothing instead of just killing bernie's shot
He did better than was probably expected, but ultimately it felt like he was trying to jump the queue for "establishment DNC pick", which is why more long-timers like the Klob seemed to hate him too.
He thought he could cut ahead of others who had been selling out their souls longer than he had, which is why even some libs seemed to loathe him.
A time will definitely come for Mayo Pete, sadly.
Honestly I don't think so, a cabinet position like this is probably a dead end for his electoral career. I think his path at this point is to make some favorable moves toward big development firms and move into the corruption field after his term.
Time will tell!
Either way, this guy will be a shitstain for many more decades
A move to the presidency from a cabinet position is absurdly unlikely, he would have to go back to ether a state level gig or a congressional position. I think his best shot, if he still really wants to be president, is to use his cabinet position to fluff the bed for a bunch of a powerful regional developers/transit interests in a prospective blue/purple state, I would go with Colorado if I were him, and then make a Governor or Congressional run with their backing in the next cycle. That would put him in a striking position for another presidential run while also building a real interest group base.
Well that’s exactly what I mean, Pete was an obvious robot. He had none of the Obama magic. Surely in a nation of 300+ million they could find another half decent actor like Obama lol.
Real last days of rome shit.
Rome's Kingdom Era lasted 200-300 years. It's Republican Era lasted around 550 years. It's Imperial Era lasted another 400 years. Then its Byzantine Eastern Empire lasted another 1000 years after that. Along the way, the country endured multiple foreign invasions, slave revolts, civil wars, plagues, assassinations, coups, economic collapses, and natural disasters at least as sever as the low-points of US history. They literally transitioned the European continent from Paganism to Monotheism and established the seeds for several subsequent empires as a consequence.
We ain't Rome. We are not in the "Last Days of Rome". We're - at best - in the Early Days of Rome. Rome sucked. It was a horrible place full of horrible people that endured for centuries under the inertia of its horribleness. This is Real Normal Roman Hours, and Biden is a Real Normal Roman Consul, the vast majority of whom sucked ass.
Empire have also risen and fallen faster with each cycle as history has progressed in a pretty consistent pattern
Ancient Empires may appear, in hindsight, to be contiguous when in the moment they seem fractured and independent.
When the book is written on the Colonial Era, we may recognize "The Empire of Europe" as a singular event spanning centuries rather than a number of disjointed states with Golden Eras lasting decades. Certainly, there is enough modern-day overlap through NATO and the EU to define North America, Western Europe, and the occupied Pacific states as more than their parts.
Listen here, jack, if I can . . . you can . . . if you can smell the smoke twice it's fire . . . darn it all, how do you play this thing . . . boys back home loved to fiddle . . . how did I get up on this wall
I was skeptical of this but...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_of_the_Chinese_Communist_Party
Not a single member of the Politiburo born before 1950. TIL.
The DNC did everything they did to prop up young charismatic people: Beto, Kamala, Pete, etc. The fact is all of them (except Pete, who had his own problems) was a dogshit campaigner. By the time states started voting it was incredibly obvious that Biden was the only candidate who could beat Bernie head-to-head. That's it.
Biden had name recognition and a Obama-appeal.
Had Obama backed any of these other candidates, Biden would have been squashed flat. But Obama "stayed out" and so his nomination was awarded by default to his VP. Biden trounced the competition among old black voters.
It's still amazing how immediately Democratic establishment abandoned #metoo in favor of Biden.
