I don't like Elon or the corporate class at all.

But I like what Elon has done in the past month regarding Trump. He actually got the more casual MAGA to listen to the things we've been saying for years. And Elon having his foot on the box a noosed Trump stands on is satisfying to say the least.

I live in Canada where healthcare is free, saves so much on unnecessary paperwork. I don't consider that social security, just like primary education it's a basic necessity for modern societies. 

Beyond that the middle class should be able to make do without subsidized housing or other assistance without going into debt just to make ends meet. Raising the minimum wage is part of that and more affordable housing is needed.

For the US, instead of spending on subsidizing healthcare, the focus should equally be on reducing the costs. Private healthcare is a great scheme to make healthcare more expensive :/ A universal basic income is just another scheme to pump more money to the 1%. That's where it ends up (spending that money on overpriced everything) and it comes from taxes that the 1% can avoid. 

What I'm trying to say is, while the left has good intentions with all kinds of subsidies, they generally backfire as companies don't see a reason to pay their employees better. Capitalism leaves no margins, and thanks to subsidizing housing / mortgages, prices have only gone up. And since people now rely on their house for retirement through reverse mortgages, the problem can't even be solved anymore.

That's what we're dealing with here
https://cupe.ca/retirement-security-key-solving-housing-crisis

Canada has two public pension programs, the Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security. Together, they do not pay retirees enough money to keep them from falling into poverty. Some workers have a workplace pension plan that adds to their retirement income. But more than 60% of people in Canada do not.

For a long time, the federal government has left that majority to fend for themselves. One way people do that is by buying a house and counting on its value to going up over time. Housing is treated like an investment rather than a basic right. And around 40% of Canadian households are counting on that investment growing to fund their retirements.

Anyway giving people more money doesn't work, you will have to keep giving them more and more money until they die. The problem is jobs don't pay enough anymore. If the middle class earns more money, more taxes come in as well paying for social programs. Giving people more money, no reason to raise wages, less taxes come in (with inflation).

Minimum wage needs to go up, maximum wage should be introduced but first the entire tax system needs to be overhauled. It's a complicated mess full of loopholes for the wealthy to exploit. 

Nothing new, 2015
https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

In the attempt to better-understand why people voted for Donald Trump and continue to support him, just look at Exhibit A below:

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bullsht-vance-slams-microsoft-firing-americans-while-applying-h-1b-visas

I just can't see any former President or VP going back 30 years being this direct against a large company like Microsoft.

So your argument is that the continuation of the oppression of the black man was a cause worth dying for for Southerners in the Civil War. It's not something that you think is a good reason to die for, but it was good enough as a moral cause for Southerners back in the day.

Wow, had to read that one a few times...

Look, I suspect you desperately want to re-enforce your notion that people who aren't weeping over their Gramsci are just horrible right-wing, racist monsters but I'm not going to give that to you. Even SNL got somewhat wise to the idea that those terrible MAGA crowds (which I don't count myself of, for the record) had a lot of common cause and care for black Americans after seeing what the Democrats did to their families since the 60s (eg red lining).

Again, put the keyboard down, don't insert ideas of what you think conservatives are into my sentence and actually read what I was saying.  So far, you're just illustrating in a very real way here for any honest person why the rest of us have such a hard time believing that the woke aren't brainwashed into being incapable of critical thinking and I don't want you of the "stupid Americans" comment to embarrass yourself any longer.  

I really would just have a stimulating discussion among people who respectfully disagree with you if you could just get past this and admit that you were wrong in presuming my positions.  I couldn't get pi guy here, but be the better person that you want to believe you are!

You are upset about presumptions while fully engaging in presumptions on your own. Hilarious.

You complain about a lack of critical thinking shortly after posting about why people voted for Trump and continue to support him. People got duped. Whether it's Trump or Vance, they simply tell people what they believe the people want to hear, but they aren't taking actions to follow up. They aren't bringing back jobs to the USA and they aren't lowering the costs of living either. They aren't releasing the Epstein files either, instead they are pursuing a path of getting Epstein's accomplice out of jail.

Great. What are they going to do about it other than mean words? JD Vance was picked as VP for nothing more than he was a loyal lapdog who won't challenge Trump and will enforce his will, Trump didn't want a repeat of Mike Pence. JD Vance's words are irrelevant without action. You really think people voted Trump because...? Because they think Trump would be tougher on capitalism? Republicans in general are more pro-capitalism and corporation than Democrats in general, it's definitely not a reason people voted a Republican for Presidency.

Under Lina Khan, the FTC was incredibly aggressive, that was a Democrat pick, she achieved a lot of good on shitty corporations, but she also picked a few bad battles, if she won those then Microsoft never would have been able to acquire someone like Activision-Blizzard and that would have happened under a Democrat, but the laws weren't on her side.

United States vs Microsoft Corp begun under a Democrat President (Bill Clinton).

Here is the Clinton team arguing to smack Microsoft down.

Submitting its final filing in its antitrust case against the Microsoft Corporation, the Clinton administration asked an appeals court today to uphold the order to split the company in two. The brief argued that the company's appeal, filed last November, was nothing more than a recitation of the same arguments that failed the first time they were offered in court.

Clinton Team In Final Plea On Microsoft - The New York Times

Bill Clinton wanted Microsoft to be broken up.

The Bush Administration stopped it.

Bush Drops Plan To Break Up Microsoft | Microsoft | The Guardian

• Obama Administration: Justice Dept. Moves to Block Merger Between AT&T and T-Mobile
• Obama Administration: US Government Launches Legal Action Against Apple Over E-Book Pricing
• Biden Administration: The Biden Administration Launches Its Second Big Attack on Google
• Biden Administration: Why is the Biden administration going after Big Tech? - ABC News
• Biden Administration: FTC Sues Amazon for Illegally Maintaining Monopoly Power | Federal Trade Commission
• Biden Administration: Why the Biden Administration Is Suing Apple and Investigating Big Grocers
• Biden Administration: Office of Public Affairs | Justice Department Sues Apple for Monopolizing Smartphone Markets

Lina Khan was going after practically every major corporation and Biden didn't even attempt to stop her, she was one of the most aggressive FTC leads ever and I can assure you, corporations care more about actual punishment and action over JD Vance's useless mean words. And who dumped Lina Khan? Trump did, even though she had support from both Democrats and guess what? JD Vance praised her too.

• Vance: Biden FTC Chief is ‘Doing a Pretty Good Job’ 
• JD Vance Reiterates Support For FTC's Lina Khan

Didn't stop Trump from shit-canning her, JD Vance's opinion was irrelevant.

And the Trump administration is about to approve of an acquisition of Paramount by Skydance only because they promised to "remove DEI" and spend tens of millions advertising for causes on behalf of Trump. Totally what we should be looking at when we're approving acquisitions /s.

Trump's cratering in polls continues. Crushing new Gallup numbers:

Overall approval: 37%
On immigration: 38%
On economy: 37%
On trade: 36:
Federal budget: 29%

Overall approval among independents: 29%

news.gallup.com/poll/692879/...

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— Greg Sargent (@gregsargent.bsky.social) 24 July 2025 at 19:09

Sigh, Lmao. Happy to see his popularity plummeting but the collective amnesia American voters had, or rather, independents had, when voting for Trump. People wanted change and Trump promised change, grocery bills weren't coming down fast enough and Trump promised he would get them down, sprinkled in other bullshit promises and of course none happened, but people seemingly collectively forgot that he achieved fuck all in his first term as well but "my grocery bills aren't coming down fast enough" so they voted for him (and no, it had fuck all to do with "woke" Lol) and now only months into presidency they've once again had to realise how much of a disaster he is, Lol.

🤔

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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) 24 July 2025 at 19:09

Lmaoooo.

Trump is privately worrying about the building crisis over his ties to Epstein, complaining: “They’re going to f--- me.”

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— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast.bsky.social) 24 July 2025 at 16:03

This absolutely reeks of shadiness, cover up, and corruption and Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer is now running DOJ.

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— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) 24 July 2025 at 22:21

FCC Approves Paramount-Skydance Deal After Skydance’s CBS Ombudsman, Anti-DEI Pledges

Approved because they kissed Trump's ring.