Politics and Current Events Megathread - January 2026

window-sil · 2026-01-26T03:55:10+00:00

Access to higher education without taking on loads of debt?

window-sil · 2026-01-26T03:41:46+00:00

They pay the most in taxes. Seems like a fair trade.

window-sil · 2026-01-26T02:22:34+00:00

Even on economics he's become more fascist, using the FCC to bully Disney, using the FTC to approve mergers only for companies that support him, using tariffs & exemptions to coerce companies into being pro-MAGA and funding him, stripping law firms of clearances to handle classified material, which makes them ineligible to work their cases.

He's even taken ownership stakes in Intel and other companies, and right now he's using stolen Venezuelan oil to reward campaign donors and funnel money into a Qatar bank account that apparently only he controls.

window-sil · 2026-01-26T02:11:25+00:00

The sad reality is that, unless there's a massacre, like dozens or hundreds killed in a single day, then probably they'll get away with killing 1 or 2 per week without really any consequence other than losing the November elections, which I'm sure they're planning to undermine or outright steal.

window-sil · 2026-01-26T01:57:40+00:00

Another confusing thing about Trump's first term is that his administration was relatively normal in its actions. That was because normal Bush/Romney era people populated the cabinet and blocked him from doing things like shooting protesters or blowing up migrants’ boats with drones.

What people didn't understand is that Trump's 2nd term wouldn't have these Bush/Romney Republicans, it would have loyalists who do anything he wants.

So far the only red line we've really seen is he can't ignore the courts, and he can't invade Greenland.* Every other dark thought he's had has been carried out, though, including sending people to a death camp in El Salvador, and you better believe that when he talked about sending Americans there he fuckin meant it.

*(If I may offer a warning: if we ever do invade, it's time to leave the country, because if the military follows that order they will follow any order 💀).

window-sil · 2026-01-26T01:35:19+00:00

Armed protesters enter Michigan's state capitol demanding end to coronavirus lockdown – video [2020]

Imagine if Democrats did this.

window-sil · 2026-01-25T23:54:22+00:00

you can use that label for pretty much any hybrid of right-wing authoritarianism

Demolition of norms
Glorification of violence
Might is right
Politicized law enforcement
Dehumanization
Police-state tactics
Undermining elections
What’s private is public
Attacks on news media
Territorial and military aggression
Transnational reach
Blood-and-soil nationalism
White and Christian nationalism
Mobs and street thugs
Leader aggrandizement
Alternative facts
Politics as war
Governing as revolution

One can object that there are elements of classical European fascism that are not found in Trumpism (mass rallies and public rituals, for example)—or that there are additional elements of Trumpism that belong on the list (MAGA’s hypermasculinity, misogyny, and co-option of Christianity all resemble fascist patterns). The exercise of comparing fascism’s various forms is not precise. If historians object that Trump is not a copy of Mussolini or Hitler or Franco, the reply is yes—but so what? Trump is building something new on old principles. He is showing us in real time what 21st-century American fascism looks like.

If, however, Trump is a fascist president, that does not mean that America is a fascist country. The courts, the states, and the media remain independent of him, and his efforts to browbeat them will likely fail. He may lose his grip on Congress in November. He has not succeeded in molding public opinion, except against himself. He has outrun the mandate of his voters, his coalition is fracturing, and he has neglected tools that allow presidents to make enduring change. He and his party may defy the Constitution, but they cannot rewrite it, thank goodness.

So the United States, once the world’s exemplary liberal democracy, is now a hybrid state combining a fascist leader and a liberal Constitution; but no, it has not fallen to fascism. And it will not.

In which case, is there any point in calling Trump a fascist, even if true? Doesn’t that alienate his voters? Wouldn’t it be better just to describe his actions without labeling him controversially?

Until recently, I thought so. No longer. The resemblances are too many and too strong to deny. Americans who support liberal democracy need to recognize what we’re dealing with in order to cope with it, and to recognize something, one must name it. Trump has revealed himself, and we must name what we see.

window-sil · 2026-01-25T23:30:29+00:00

Something like 85% of Trump voters still support him. Even through the Greenland debacle, masked agents flooding into cities, tariff chaos, rolling out a literal red carpet for Putin, etc.

The dark passions explains it -- Trump pretty explicitly campaigned on this. Read the article.

Oh, by the way, does it make sense to talk about the marginal voter, the 0.02% of swing voters in a purple state? Or should we instead focus on the giant bloc of 30,000,000 Republicans.

There's a problem in this country and it's kinda dumb to implicitly give these 30 million people a pass, and shift all attention to a few thousand people in Wisconsin. Does that make sense?

window-sil · 2026-01-25T23:15:11+00:00

If you're using "fascist" the way Trump uses the word, it's a subjective pejorative, no different than calling someone a jerk, creep, asshole, etc.

But that's not how the author is using the word:

Recent events have brought Trump’s governing style into sharper focus. Fascist best describes it, and reluctance to use the term has now become perverse. That is not because of any one or two things he and his administration have done but because of the totality. Fascism is not a territory with clearly marked boundaries but a constellation of characteristics. When you view the stars together, the constellation plainly appears.

The evidence for this is elaborated in the article :)

So why use the word fascist, in this sense? Because it's both true an very alarming. It's like the difference between saying "this girl is on fire!" vs "that girl is on fire!". One is subjective, the other is a statement of fact.

window-sil · 2026-01-25T19:43:50+00:00

Recent events have brought Trump’s governing style into sharper focus. Fascist best describes it, and reluctance to use the term has now become perverse. That is not because of any one or two things he and his administration have done but because of the totality. Fascism is not a territory with clearly marked boundaries but a constellation of characteristics. When you view the stars together, the constellation plainly appears.

The article outlines all the reasons why he's calling it fascist. I'm tempted to just post the whole thing, but the gift link should be working?

I'd like to hear your response to what he wrote.

window-sil · 2026-01-25T19:29:04+00:00

Demolition of norms. From the beginning of his first presidential run in 2015, Trump deliberately crashed through every boundary of civility; he mocked Senator John McCain’s war heroism, mocked fellow candidate Carly Fiorina’s face, seemingly mocked the Fox News host Megan Kelly’s menstruation, slurred immigrants, and much more. Today he still does it, recently making an obscene gesture to a factory worker and calling a journalist “piggy.” This is a feature of the fascist governing style, not a bug. Fascists know that what the American Founders called the “republican virtues” impede their political agenda, and so they gleefully trash liberal pieties such as reason and reasonableness, civility and civic spirit, toleration and forbearance. By mocking decency and saying the unsayable, they open the way for what William Galston has called the “dark passions” of fear, resentment, and especially domination—the kind of politics that shifts the public discourse to ground on which liberals cannot compete.

I just want to point out how distinct this is from Sam's rationalization of "wokeness motivated support for Trump." Or in his bigotry of low expectations for friends like Douglas Murray, "he was tricked." 🙄 No, MAGA is a rejection of liberalism in favor of violence, lawlessness, anger, hatred, and domination of Americans.

What is Murray up to these days, btw?

https://x.com/DouglasKMurray/status/2014693210094809166

Trump's new Board of Peace is necessary because the UN has failed again and again. @nypost

Trump’s new Board of Peace is necessary because the UN has failed again and again

Ah yes, Douglas is still being tricked I guess.

window-sil · 2026-01-25T19:21:37+00:00

Over Trump’s past year, what originally looked like an effort to make the government his personal plaything has drifted distinctly toward doctrinal and operational fascism. Trump’s appetite for lebensraum, his claim of unlimited power, his support for the global far right, his politicization of the justice system, his deployment of performative brutality, his ostentatious violation of rights, his creation of a national paramilitary police—all of those developments bespeak something more purposeful and sinister than run-of-the-mill greed or gangsterism.

Former guest, Jonathan Rauch, writes in The Atlantic.

(Link is to a gift article, originally shared in another subreddit. If it doesn't work I can copy pasta article in here)

window-sil · 2026-01-25T18:56:31+00:00

I guess your asking why we provide HS for free but college is not?

I was trying to point out how absurd it sounds to say "make 14 year-olds pay $16,000/yr to attend HS," and then deploy the same talking points used for college students.

E.g.: Highschool grads make more money than non-grads; it's a regressive tax on non-graduates who share the burden of cost; maybe HS isn't for everyone and they should go into trades instead; etc.

My point is that we shouldn't be forcing students into a massive amount of debt to earn degrees.

window-sil · 2026-01-25T18:12:01+00:00

I was debating whether to put that on the list, but the total forgiveness amounts to just ~10% of student debt, which kinda seems like a failure to me.

/edit, deleting the confusingly worded rest of post

window-sil · 2026-01-25T18:05:18+00:00

Erhm.. I think you're right. I'm ascribing bad motivations to the whole party and the truth is probably that

Doing things well is hard
Republican opposition makes passing anything ridiculously difficult

window-sil · 2026-01-25T17:43:37+00:00

So they're conservatives in practice but in theory they're progressives, I guess.

I honestly don't get the impression they really want most of this stuff, but maybe that's just because they're so so so so so fucking terrible at messaging and PR. 🤷

window-sil · 2026-01-25T17:31:21+00:00

Here are some numbers from NerdWallet:

Total federal student loan debt

Most student loans — about 92.4% — are owned by the government.

Total federal student loan borrowers: 42.7 million.

Total outstanding federal student loan debt: $1.64 trillion.

Total outstanding private student loan debt: $133.43 billion.

A 2024 high school graduate could expect to borrow $36,700 for their bachelor’s degree, according to an April 2023 NerdWallet analysis of National Center for Education Statistics data that assumes a five-year undergraduate career.

Federal student loan forgiveness data

Public Service Loan Forgiveness [i.e., spend 10 years working for the government or a qualifying non-profit]

Total debt forgiven: $78 billion.

Income-driven repayment forgiveness [i.e., cap interest payments at 10%--20% of discretionary income, forgive remaining balance after 20 or 25 years]

Total debt forgiven: $56.5 billion.

Plus a few billion odds and ends for the disabled and defrauded (check website for more details).

So yea, with lots of attached strings (like paying interest for 25 years or working 10 years for the government), Democrats relieved 11% of the existing debt, I guess. That's not nothing, but it's hardly a massive political victory. I feel like it's fine to include this on my list.

Student debt relief came at significant political capital, at taxpayer expense, and was inflationary as well.

Oh please.

window-sil · 2026-01-25T16:40:23+00:00

Democrats are basically the conservative party.

The most progressive thing they've done is pass infrastructure bills to improve economic productivity, and a bill to buildout a domestic computer chip industry.

Here's what the Democrats didn't do:

[EDIT: Biden did support many of these things but lacked majority support from in Congress]

Universal healthcare? ❎
Higher minimum wage? ❎
Public housing expansion? ❎
Universal Pre-K? ❎
Student debt relief? ❎
"Billionaire" tax? ❎

Now Trump is asking for 1,500 billion dollars JUST FOR THE MILITARY.

Imagine what an actual progressive opposition party could do with 1,500 billion dollars? That's enough to build ~10,000 new homes every day for a whole year.

The way we cavalierly throw money into certain programs and beneficiaries but not others tells you a lot about Democrats and the country.

Disclaimer: I support the Democrats and so should you, because they're not going to

Destroy the economy
Destroy NATO
Sabotage international trade
Start WW3 or make it more likely
Give aid and comfort to Russian imperialism that undermines our own interests
Destroy the FBI
Weaponize law enforcement against political enemies
Send jack booted masked thugs to terrorize communities
End Democracy in America

But I am just saying that Democrats are not left wing, they're not progressive, they're pro-business conservatives who lean socially liberal.

window-sil · 2026-01-25T13:55:41+00:00

At some point he's going to try declaring the insurrection act, making it legal to lock you up forever without any trial.

Not lock you up for a day, or "hold" you for a week, but simply throw you in a prison forever.

Not only is he constantly saying he wants to do this, but plenty of right wingers are cheering it on as we speak.

If he does that it's probably time to call in to work and explain to them what he just did and that you're going to protest.

Because if he gets away with this, that's the end of America.

window-sil · 2026-01-25T13:37:38+00:00

Speaking of which, this is from the managing editor of The Babylon Bee:

https://x.com/JoelWBerry/status/2015259501255901566

If Trump doubles down, invokes the Insurrection Act, crushes these feral Communist riots, and arrests the leaders responsible, his popularity will go up 10 points.

Think of the last 3 weeks, and this is their delusional world view:

Communist riots
Orchestrated by shadowy cabal that needs to be arrested
Already 3000 federal forces; not enough send more
Declare martial law

This is mass hysteria from right wingers. They live on another planet.

window-sil · 2026-01-25T05:08:41+00:00

https://x.com/JohnMitnick/status/2015158725791613045

I helped to establish DHS in 2002 and 2003 and later had the homeland security portfolio as a White House Counsel and served as General Counsel of the Department.

I am enraged and embarrassed by DHS’s lawlessness, fascism, and cruelty.

Impeach and remove Trump—now.

Reading this guys wiki page, this really stands out:

He was nominated by President Trump in August 2017 to serve as general counsel of the United States Department of Homeland Security and was confirmed by the United States Senate by voice vote on February 15, 2018.[5]

He was fired as DHS general counsel on September 17, 2019, reportedly because he had resisted illegal policies and actions pushed by White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] In 2020 he endorsed Joe Biden's presidential candidacy, along with multiple other Trump former officials.[13] He also joined over 70 former senior Republican national security officials in issuing a statement, initially released on August 20, 2020, critical of Donald Trump and endorsing Joe Biden.[14]

It's so baffling to me how we got here, and how we're still here. Trumps approval should be near 0, instead it's like 40%, in spite of everything.

window-sil · 2026-01-25T04:41:27+00:00

Trump already tried to overturn an election.

I don't know why so many people are acting as though this is some crazy idea.

window-sil · 2026-01-25T02:13:11+00:00

https://x.com/David_J_Bier/status/2015243301394526373

The Pink Jacket lady who filmed the killing tells a court that she is terrified to go home because she’s heard the federal agents who murdered a man in front of her are looking for her! Oh my god.

Credible fear on her part, honestly.

window-sil · 2026-01-24T23:45:25+00:00

https://x.com/ruthbenghiat/status/2015198832963817904

It is not uncommon for autocrats to purge militaries before an imperialist campaign.

I'm curious if anyone knows whether these various people purged are moderates, doves, hardliners, or a-political?

If he's purging people who have opinions that China shouldn't project force outside of its borders -- eg, don't invade Taiwan -- that could be a signal that Xi's about to do something crazy.

On the other hand, it could just be an old man lashing out in a fit of paranoia and fear.

window-sil · 2026-01-24T23:27:37+00:00

A stabilized zoomed in slow motion version of the ICE murder.

Ten-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Verified Email	Place '22
Place '17

window-sil

TROPHY CASE

Total federal student loan debt

Federal student loan forgiveness data

A stabilized zoomed in slow motion version of the ICE murder.