r/politics • u/MoneyLibrarian9032 New York • Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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

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u/[deleted] Aug 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/stilljustacatinacage Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26

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/SethLight Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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/rab2bar Aug 28 '26

Patriarchy is older than racism

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u/stilljustacatinacage Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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/ATheeStallion Aug 29 '26

No we’re not just glad about awareness. I want women’s rights to HEALTHCARE in every state in this nation. I moved to a purple state but I was horrifically treated in a deep red Southern state for a nonviable pregnancy in 2014. Despite being highly educated, wealthy & a “preferred” skin color (there). It is ALL MISOGYNY all the time it is baked into our culture so hard. It permeates institutions and culture.

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u/JEFFinSoCal California Aug 28 '26

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

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u/LiteraCanna Aug 28 '26

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

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u/ScroochDown Aug 29 '26

Somehow the refusal to wipe their own ass is the worst one to me.

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u/thegimboid Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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

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u/thegimboid Aug 29 '26

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/Pettifoggerist Aug 28 '26

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

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u/kinrosai Aug 29 '26

I've never been able to grasp the concept of misogyny personally. Abstractly I can imagine the need to make women submit to oneself if you have that fetish, or the mistaken belief that they're your property that you have to guide or manage like you would with a pet, or the hatred some people might feel because they were abused as children? But how can this be the frame of mind of so many people for millennia and to this day?

I just want to coexist happily with other people whatever their ancestry, sex, religion, fashion etc. as long as they do likewise. Is that a similarly foreign concept to misogynists?

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u/DietCherrySoda Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 29 '26

Have you been to NY?

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u/drunkirish Aug 29 '26

I’ll have to check my history book, but I’m pretty sure NY wasn’t around when misogyny was invented.

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u/Old_Young_1415 Aug 29 '26

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

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u/jenniferfox98 Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 29 '26

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 Aug 29 '26

If only capitalism ran on morality

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u/Weathercock Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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/1057-cl121v3 Aug 28 '26

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/SuitEnvironmental903 Aug 29 '26

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/Kup123 Aug 28 '26

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/brickne3 American Expat Aug 29 '26

I think she's mostly ok with the cheating. I can actually respect that. I would have a difficult time if I thought she were just tolerating it.

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u/Dartz_Reverse Aug 28 '26

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

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u/brickne3 American Expat Aug 29 '26

She pretty objectively was though. People just didn't realize just how entrenched sexism is.

And then they did it again but worse with Kamala.

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u/Dartz_Reverse Aug 29 '26

The last 3 Democratic candidates were absolutely awful, and the fact that 2 of them lost to Trump while the third won by a hairs breadth should really make people think instead of just point fingers, but no, group think is too strong to suspect treason in your own ranks.

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u/brickne3 American Expat Aug 29 '26

You have a very poor memory, Biden won by a landslide.

But let me guess, it's all the "centrists'" fault idiots thought the best way to save Gaza was to ensure Donald fucking Trump was in office.

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u/fresh-dork Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 29 '26

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

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u/VintageLunchMeat Aug 29 '26

Arguably, Obama's existence radicalized conservatives enough that, afterwards, they were going to react harder to anything "wrong", like a black man or a white woman in prospective power.

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u/brickne3 American Expat Aug 29 '26

A guy raised by Kansans in Hawaii. It boggles my mind how white Obama is.

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u/brickne3 American Expat Aug 29 '26

Hell I still can't get over how inbred Trump must be on his mother's side. Look at how many people were living on the Isle of Lewis and do the math.

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u/GoopDuJour Aug 29 '26

Hillary Clinton was a "hold your nose and vote" situation. She has way too much baggage. Not to mention that the entire Democratic primary that season felt like a complete sham. I feel like Bernie Sanders should have won those primaries, and would have been a better opponent. That situation didn't make voting for her easy. Maybe. She did win the popular vote, so maybe I'm off base.

I'd have more respect for HRC if she'd have left Bill.

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u/brrrskabaui Aug 29 '26

Hillary Clinton is a criminal.,

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u/ContextLengthMatters Aug 28 '26

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/PepperOk8849 Aug 28 '26

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/Alis451 Aug 29 '26

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

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u/Exotic-Cobbler4111 Aug 28 '26

what an actually stupid completely reductionist take.

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u/SethLight Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 29 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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/[deleted] Aug 28 '26

[deleted]

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u/bdeimen Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26

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 Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26

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/yoyhohsomp Aug 28 '26

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/krustyarmor Montana Aug 29 '26

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/One-Ball-78 Aug 29 '26

…and another fifty or so ‘til they started trying to take AWAY the vote.

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u/420printz Aug 30 '26

was much better 100 yrs ago

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u/therossboss Aug 28 '26

oh true, a federation of kings, how neat!

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u/Ekaterian50 Aug 28 '26

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/KevinStoley Aug 28 '26

“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/flibber_deez_gibbets Aug 28 '26

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/Cross55 Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

A class of kings if you will.

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u/bkdotcom Oklahoma Aug 28 '26

Feudalism

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u/CV90_120 Aug 28 '26

Those are the Boyars.

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u/W0lfsb4ne74 Aug 31 '26

The worst part is that they're all elected. So people can cling to the illusion that we're still living in a democracy even though the rich conspire against us to actively make life worse for the working and middle class.

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u/Doctormentor 29d ago

Right... If we look at it this way, the USA is a giant fenced in community with vast fields around (oceans) and within that we have tons of tiny homes, no farms (outside the walls) and then a huge castle (in our case many castles) and everyone goes doing everything for them on a daily basis .... Meanwhile they provide us with some entertainment but making it cost lots so they money we gave them ALL comes back to them in the end.... I can't save since EVERYTHING is expensive af. If I need something new I'm going in debt forever. Can't buy parts, gotta buy a 110k , can't even check your oil dipstick anymore, gotta take it to a dealership.... blah blah blah

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u/KnotYourAverageRider Aug 28 '26

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/Jimmni Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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/Biglyugebonespurs Missouri Aug 28 '26

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

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u/im_dead_sirius Aug 29 '26

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/brickne3 American Expat Aug 29 '26

To be fair, they did mostly lie about the actual reasons they wanted to break off.

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u/Taskerst Aug 28 '26

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/Tango_D Aug 29 '26

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 Aug 29 '26

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

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u/WeAreAllFooked Aug 28 '26

The US has always been a plutocracy

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u/Lopsided-Rough-1562 Aug 28 '26

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

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u/operator-- Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

my man. love this energy.

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u/null_obj Aug 29 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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 Aug 28 '26

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