I think the worst thing is that I've been saying this for years now and keep getting warnings/bans for it. 

Ethics aren't that complicated. Pattern recognition isn't that complicated. Correctly identifying bad-faith arguments and where they lead is not that complicated but we're supposedly expected to give them the benefit of the doubt before pre-judging. 

But honestly, if it goose-steps like a nazi, it's probably a nazi. and Nazis are bad. The entire world went to war over it. The issue is settled. IT was not hard to identify, as far back as 2016, that this was where shit was headed. Again, history classes exist for a reason. Pattern recognition is key. 

and to anyone trying to downplay the risks because they were either too stupid to identify the direction shit was headed or were secretly glad for those things to happen (like the erosion of women's rights, queer rights, what  little racial equality we had, etc), yeah...for once I agree with Rol about something. Y'all are the dumbest people alive or straight up evil. There is no middle ground there. You're either too stupid to see all the warning signs, willing to forgive them, or were outright cheering for objectively terrible things to happen.

All for the false hope you'll save a few bucks in taxes every year. 

I do not know how to impart empathy or reason in people. We've been telling y'all for years that Trump and the entire conservative party are grifters but nooooo.

a little bit of bigotry and tribalism goes a long way. "Cut off the nose to spite the face" and all that. Lovely.

and now America is actively trying to make enemies of every nation in the developed world that it once called allies. 

Can someone who is FOR all this actually give me a good reason why you think any of this is a good thing? Rejecting allies, going hard on xenophobia and racism, eroding civil rights, doubling down on practices that make life in America expensive and hard on all but the wealthiest? Can someone. PLEASE make it make sense. Because it doesn't. At all. It really does feel like some of you just really hate minorities a tonne and would do anything to see them queers and beaners (I think that's the racist term for Mexican?) suffer enough to no longer taint the straight white view that you deem as the only thing that is acceptable. 

Fucking bigotry and ignorance at every level. 

Hungary would be nothing without EU and its handouts, hence why for all the crying, Orban never tries to pull Hungary out of EU. But Orban is the poster boy for turning a democratic country into a hybrid autocracy which silences its critics, hence why Republicans in America are suddenly obsessed with Hungary, it can't be for their economic or military power and half of Europe (more) consider Orban to be a joke, even fellow right wing politicians, I bet American Republicans didn't even know what Hungary was 10 years ago.

If Elon hates EU so much, if Hungary hates EU so much, here's an idea, the door is there, fucking leave.

Anyway, earlier in the morning (sorted by UK) on Reddit, I saw dozens of Subreddits demanding that Twitter be banned and multiple debates ongoing, it seems like the recent Nazi salute has really angered people. I am not surprised the first one I saw was a Liverpool Subreddit, the Scousers are based and have always hated people like Elon Musk, I wonder how the votes will go but I'm seeing dozens of Subreddits demand it.

Elon Musk Funding Tommy Robinson's Legal Battles, Claims Far-Right Leader's Team

Look at this, Elon Musk funding the legal battles of Britain's most well known white supremacist, yet another unfortunate accident by poor old billionaire Musk, like supporting the Nazi Party in Germany is an unfortunate accident, unbanning Nazis is an unfortunate accident, using fascist language is an unfortunate accident, using Nazi salutes is an unfortunate accident, spreading propaganda for Russia is an unfortunate accident, the poor man just can't catch a break, he just wants to abuse his workers in peace!

@Ryuu96 I think Orban is an excellent forecast for what the USA could become in this Trump administration or with a future president.

Is it a dictatorship? Not at all. The people still have some civil liberties and political rights. But is it more authoritarian than it should be and could potentially become a dictatorship in a not so crazy prediction? Absolutely. 

Hungary: Country Profile | Freedom House

"Since taking power in the 2010 elections, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Alliance of Young Democrats–Hungarian Civic Union (Fidesz) party has pushed through constitutional and legal changes that have allowed it to consolidate control over the country’s independent institutions. The Fidesz government has passed antimigrant and anti-LGBT+ policies, as well as laws that hamper the operations of opposition groups, journalists, universities, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that are critical of the ruling party or whose perspectives Fidesz otherwise finds unfavorable."

Who does that remind you of? It sounds like what MAGA wants. 

Most certainly both.

About the nazi references and symbolism, I invite all of you to look up what happened here during the last gorvenment in Brazil.
It's not an USA problem, the far right is pretty much aligning itself with nazism and facism perfectly.
It's no coincidence, it's not an isolated case, it's a movement, it's happening right now, and the result can be only one.

Yup.

Step 1 - Control the Media.

Twitter is essentially a branch of the Republican Party now, Mark is on his hands and knees for Trump and following his directives, changing his entire company to placate Republicans, so that's Facebook and Instagram. TikTok will either owe Trump massive favours or be banned anyway.  As for American news media, always has and seemingly always will be a joke. Billionaires most important concern is making more money.

They don't care about Hungary, it's economically and militarily irrelevant, but what they do care about is how Orban has managed to consolidate power through nefarious means and they see it as an example of how they can do it to America too, because after-all, Hungary was a democratic country but under Orban its democratic institutions have been weakened significantly, they may not be Russia but they don't have to go that far, this makes Hungary the perfect example to follow and they're going to be asking Orban for tips.

r/Military the biggest military Subreddit has banned Twitter posts.

I'm surprised at how many Football Subreddits have been demanding a ban too.

Nazi Musk has pissed a lot of people off.

I definitely think the GOP wants a Hungary-like situation, but there are obstacles unique to the U.S current situation and system that probably will make it difficult to happen. 

The U.S is very plutocratic and kritarchic. The capitalist class and judiciary are where the mass of political power in the U.S resides. They are very jealous of their power. They're happy to back Trump when he has popular support and abandon him when he doesn't (which explains why American billionaires flip-flop back and forth on him.) No other Republican has been able to emulate Trump's popularity. Presidential terms are very short and Trump is a lot older than Orbán. He is very unlikely to care enough to set-up some sort of light autocracy for whomever succeeds him as GOP leader. His decisions and policies will be shaped around whatever makes him look good amongst his base. 

My prediction is we'll be deep in a recession (on par with the Great Recession) if not next year towards the latter end of Trump's term, likely with his tariffs and deportations as a catalyst. Inflation will ramp up again too, so we'll have a stagflation 2.0 crisis. He ends up a lame duck for the second half of this term. Parties flip in the next election. Nothing much changes in terms of the existing undemocratic power structure of the U.S. 

But increasingly, over the next decade or two we'll have crises like this, and people are probably going to further radicalize (on both the left and right.) Whomever is the next demagogue probably will have learned a lot from Trump and if we don't have real democratic institutions throughout the overwhelming majority of this country it could easily end up in a Hungary-like situation given the right crisis. 

The difference between Fidesz and Republicans is that Fidesz controlled enough seats in the parliament to change the constitution any way they wanted. Although their EU membership imposed a limit to how far they could go if they wanted to remain eligible to receive funds.

Republicans are certainly going to pass a lot of sketchy laws, but at least they can't touch the constitution. Nevertheless, the damage they can do will take decades to repair.

I am leaning towards them being idiots.

If we break down this survey... 10% of Americans believe the Earth is flat, 9% are unsure.
That's almost 20% of the population in the USA that doesn't know if the Earth is a ball.

https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/conspiracy-vs-science-survey-us-public-beliefs

People do stupid crap all the time. I literally built a career out of it.
I once got called to "rescue" a bird in a tree. I kid you not. - It just flew away when we arrived.

I think Trump and Musk are detestable and abhorrent individuals, individually. - But people make stupid mistakes in the heat of the moment all the time.
In the end though, the American people did democratically ask for all this... Which is fairly worrying.

Twitter should be banned. Originally Musk bought it to promote "free speech" and has done the complete opposite, he has allowed hate speech, fake information, A.I generated content and scams to run rife... Whilst also shutting down progressives right to "free speech".

His actions and statements are hypocritical at best, narcissistic at worst.