Donald Trump has said that he will withhold funding for New York City if presumptive Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani becomes mayor after November’s general election and doesn’t do the “right thing.”

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    12 days ago

    Oh but blue states not giving federal taxes over is “starting a civil war.”

    The civil war is already happening. Wake the fuck up people.

    • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Or it’s not, and that’s the problem. The organised rightwing forces of state repression can easily push around a left that’s been trained and groomed to function as entirely beholden to corporate sponsors and big money donors.

      …to the point it’s now visible and blatant that the establishment left cannot stand and legitimately claim even the possibility they are the solution.

      Because the solution is something more revolutionary that will cause bloodshed and more regular interruptions to people’s daily lives.

      So of course, keep your head down, hope none of this effects you. Ignore that it already has. The dems will fix it later, ect…

      It’s understandable to ignore the civil war even though it’s not rational to.

      Terrorists (freedom fighters) are made as needed, they’re not born ready. Trump’s administration will be looking to stay under that threshold.

        • Kirp123@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          I had the same reaction. The US has two parties, a far right one and a center right one. There are some center left members in the Democratic Party but the rest of the party sure tries to smother them any chance they get.

      • Tinidril@midwest.social
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        12 days ago

        rightwing forces of state repression can easily push around a left that’s been trained and groomed to function as entirely beholden to corporate sponsors and big money donors.

        That’s not a “left” at all. There are traditionally three groups that vie for power, royalty, merchants, and the people. The left serves the people, Democrats serve the merchants, and Republicans are the royalists.

        The Democrats may represent the left some day, but it’s not who they are right now.

  • BigDiction@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Mamdani won a mayoral primary, hasn’t even been elected yet and the hype on all sides is enormous.

    Really hope New Yorkers dig in and back this dude.

      • phx@lemmy.ca
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        11 days ago

        Hopefully he also makes more friends and helps gain momentum to get the rest of the goons out in other jurisdictions

    • Tinidril@midwest.social
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      12 days ago

      I predict Mamdani and Trump will have similar arcs through the media landscape. The media hated Trump but just couldn’t stop paying attention to him, even though every time they attacked him it only made him stronger. Now they are all bending the knee to him.

      The same exact thing is happening with Mamdani, but this time for all the best reasons. Mamdani’s campaign might easily become a nationwide avalanche.

      • jivandabeast@lemmy.browntown.dev
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        12 days ago

        might easily become a nationwide avalanche

        Anecdotally, I have fairly non-political coworkers in other states that are hyping up Mamdani. His reach across Gen Z is honestly insane and people are even making TikTok/Instagram hype edits of him all the time

      • hraegsvelmir@ani.social
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        11 days ago

        I kind of doubt that Zohran will have the same arc, since he’s campaigning directly against the vested interests of the owners of our major media outlets. I could see him becoming an outside force too large for them to ignore, who ultimately forces them to change tactics, though.

        At the moment, he’s an outlier of a candidate for them to try and beat down, and the mainstream media will fight tooth and nail to keep him that way, since him inspiring a broader insurgency of proper leftwing candidates to challenge “progressive” establishment Dems represents an existential crisis for them.

        A successful term as mayor for Zohran could well sound the death knell for them if it leads to either a Tea Party style takeover of the Democrats, or produces enough momentum to lead to a proper third party that unseats the Democrats from their position as the GOP-lite party of controlled opposition. Imagine what could happen if those media organizations had to face a properly funded public broadcasting service, for example, that gained broad purchase amongst the public.

      • Corn@lemmy.ml
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        12 days ago

        Why would liberal media ever bow to a socialist? The capitalists will always understand socialism as a greater threat than fascism.

        • Tinidril@midwest.social
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          12 days ago

          For the same reason they speak in reverence of Martin Luther King Jr. and pretend that liberals didn’t hate his guts back in the day.

          On a long enough time scale the left always wins, and liberals always pretend that they backed the left the whole time and claim the victory for themselves.

          “A liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that’s going on right now.”

  • megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    12 days ago

    Lmao, damn, trump seems really scared of this guy.

    All the conservatives seem really scared of this guy.

    Wonder why republicans might be scared of Democratic candidates left of dead center. Almost like a real alternative not slobbering out neoliberal, Chicago school of economics, nonsense could sweep them in a lot of traditional safe seats.

    Or at least be really hard to rally their base against if their base actually hears what the policies are.

  • Maeve@kbin.earth
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    12 days ago

    Just FYI: withholding money is financial abuse, a favorite tactic of abusers, since it leaves no visible marks until significant damage is done.

    • Ænima@feddit.online
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      12 days ago

      I’m so tired of people not telling this old bunch of shit sacks to fuck off. I’d have so much respect for any threatened tRump victim if they just told him the fuck off after shits like that.

    • Cenzorrll@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Threatening to withhold money from a place that gives you the most money doesn’t seem like a smart idea.

      If New York and California don’t give them their money, the Federal Government isn’t going to have money to withhold.

      • Maeve@kbin.earth
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        11 days ago

        That’s what abusers do, too. They will cut their own throats to make you squirm.

    • Photuris@lemmy.ml
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      12 days ago

      For real. Imagine successful infrastructure and social welfare programs being carried out at the city level, with little or no involvement or oversight from the state or federal governments.

      Decentralization is what Republicans claim to be all about. Of course it’s a bullshit claim.

      • Kirp123@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        Small government only when the conservatives institute Christianity in school, ban abortion and sexual education and rob their constituents of everything they have.

        Big government when conservatives need to oppress minorities, fight wars in the Middle East and deport people.

    • Almacca@aussie.zone
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      12 days ago

      The problem at this point isn’t Republican hypocrisy, this is a known thing, it’s every institution that supposedly has the duty to put checks and balances on it not doing that. Congress, the courts and the press are all complicit at this point. It’s not leaving the people many options.

      • Anas@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        You can check the mod logs for that, but in this case, the entire account’s comments appear to have been removed.

  • takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    12 days ago

    This shows that waiting to 2026 and hoping that Dems will take over Congress is really pointless. They won’t acknowledge and certify any results that aren’t their people.

    At this point we either fight or accept end of US as a democracy.

    • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
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      12 days ago

      We do not fight on their terms.

      They want battles in the streets. They want explosives, dead feds and cops.

      They want 258,000,000 dead Americans. They don’t give two shits what side it’s on.

      A Mayoral election giving the elite this much terror is extremely telling. The GOP didn’t work the top down, they worked the bottom up. Local governments, states, and the branches of the Federal government.

      If NYC can get this guy elected, then the doubt that fascists need to instill in the idea of democracy gets bolstered, and they have to do things that will be even more unpopular than kidnapping immigrants.

    • Ryktes@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      At this point we either fight or accept end of US as a democracy.

      I really wish we could stop all the pussyfooting and just get to the actual open conflict portion on the program already. It’s obviously what both sides want at this point, let’s cut the shit and just do the fuckin thing already.

      • salacious_coaster@infosec.pub
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        12 days ago

        A frequent occurrence with forced regime change is trading out one evil for one or more worse evils. Check out Sudan’s history. It’s not at all easy to build a democracy, so the establishment is rightly hesitant to just scrap this one, as direly troubled as it is.

        Odds are we’re just going to coast BAU into oblivion.

  • BigMacHole@sopuli.xyz
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    12 days ago

    This Mamdani guy is BAD NEWS! He wants to GIVE YOU BACK your Tax Dollars in the Form of Food and Healthcare and Transportation! That’s LUDICROUS! DO the Right Thing New York and Elect the Politician who will CONTINUE GIVING YOUR TAX DOLLARS TO THE BILLIONAIRES DESTROYING YOUR DAILY WAY OF LIFE!

  • YoiksAndAway@lemmy.zip
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    12 days ago

    And we’re right back to election interference. I wonder if something will be done about it this time.

  • ABetterTomorrow@sh.itjust.works
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    12 days ago

    Good thing New York doesn’t need it and provides money for the federal government. It’s more like New York will stop till they get their shit together.

    • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Another way to escalate this situation is to raise the taxes on billionaires enough to account for the missing revenue from the federal government. Itemize it and call it the “Trump tax”.

    • Auli@lemmy.ca
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      12 days ago

      What does New York pay to the Feds? Dr into people pay taxes and that goes to the Feds? So how can a city or state stop that.

      • FatCrab@slrpnk.net
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        11 days ago

        There are two different thoughts on how how to do this. Restructure federal tax so that it is paid to the state along with your state income and then the state simply withholds from the fed. The other is that states simply refuse to enforce any sort of federal collection or enforcement of unpaid taxes.

    • VitoRobles@lemmy.today
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      11 days ago

      That would only work with like-minded politicians. Old Democrats have spent more energy complaining about Mamdani in the past month than Trump’s current presidential run.

      • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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        11 days ago

        I actually think that conservative journals like the WSJ have created the appearance that Democrats are anti-Mamdani, in an attempt to “divide and conquer” democrats.

        i actually see a surprisingly positive response to Mamdani from democratic movements all across the US.

        • Lucelu2@lemmy.zip
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          11 days ago

          Hey, I am an old Xer and have come to the realization that the reason we lost last election (other than the cheating but decentralized voting almost always wins over cheating)… is because we listened to those “Never Trump Republicans” and embraced the Cheneys and others. That was exactly the wrong tack. We should have embraced instead the Bernie/AOC and Elizabeth faction. That would have communicated to the people that we actually cared about their life circumstances in this post-Covid, war infected supply chain challenged economy. Let the New Economics/Distributist peeps inform us with some resilient strategies. We are Fucking Tired of the Old Ideas.

        • Lexi Sneptaur@pawb.social
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          11 days ago

          Bingo. The media is entirely captured, obviously, and people don’t understand what’s really going on as a result.

      • Lucelu2@lemmy.zip
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        11 days ago

        So… what you are saying is that it is time to separate the wheat from the chaff. Those old fuckers need to retire and try to still appear wise… they are fucking failures and should know it.

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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    12 days ago

    This sounds like more of the “socialism never works [because conservatives/capitalists sabotage it]”

      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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        12 days ago

        Ok then no system works because any system can be sabotaged. Democracy can be subverted in various ways. Making a sandwich can be ruined by any number of methods. That’s not a useful way to look at the world.

  • Dicska@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    He is copying Orbán in Hungary. He also “starved” the capital city because they elected an opposition mayor. The city is near bankruptcy at the moment. But hey, mini Trump also wanted to ban the Pride march there last Saturday, and as a result he made it the biggest mass event of the past 10 years.

    So if things happen similarly, Trump might be able to actually do this, but it might just ruin his chances at the next election - provided there will be another one, according to him.

  • RmDebArc_5@sh.itjust.works
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    12 days ago

    Can someone share some insight with us non Americans, how close are you to a civil war? Between the LA protests and this it seems very imminent

      • fitgse@sh.itjust.works
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        12 days ago

        Except we can barely afford the bread and circuses right now. This is true of people like me that 5 years ago thought they were doing really well…

        • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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          12 days ago

          Even impoverished Americans have a relatively high standard of living, globally speaking. People are struggling, but they generally have a roof over their heads and don’t have to eat their pets. We’re not where we should be by any measure, but we’re also nowhere near the levels of desperation that push people to armed revolt.

    • xyzzy@lemm.ee
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      Not very close, despite the online rhetoric. Life continues and our feudal lords play their games.

      If things continue to get worse and another lunatic succeeds Trump, I think talk of secession will start to gain more traction in the West. But even then, it would take something really major (and not something the Lemmy politics crowd considers major, but something that actually snaps average liberals out of their comas) to garner enough support for it to actually occur.

      Western secession would be an uphill battle; it’s just as likely we’d lose an armed conflict with the rest of the country, and an all-out war would be absolutely terrifying.

      • formulaBonk@lemm.ee
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        12 days ago

        I mean they’re arresting citizens with brown skin now so not too long before being a democratic registered voter is a crime.

        • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
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          12 days ago

          It will come, a lot of us are anticipating it. For now the important thing is that we cannot give them reason to start massacring people.

          The fascist uses debate to waste time. The resistance uses that time to waste the fascist’s time. The regime got a lot done in 6 months, but we’re still on here communicating freely. I can still go to the store, buy candles, paper, glass bottles, foam, gasoline, storm matches, lighters, nails, hammers, tape, twine (which actually makes me wonder why do I not have rope?).

          The problem with the fascist mindset is that it will reach a point where they see everyone as a threat. And the goal is for everyone to be a threat by then.

    • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Not anywhere close, in my opinion. People have these ideas that only right wingers have guns and red state vs. blue state but my conservative relatives who live in the country and hunt are afraid to go to cities. They ask me all the time if I’m nervous living in one and there’s a school bus stop by my house where kids get dropped off.

      A related point is that in the last Civil War, there was a somewhat blurry but pretty clear regional divide. Now, it’s an urban vs. rural divide. I live in Orleans Parish (aka county) in Louisiana and we went 82% for Harris/Waltz, roughly the same as Manhattan. I’m pretty sure California had more Trump voters than Texas. If a gun brawl breaks out, it’s going be local and contained.

      Also, what’s Meal Team Six gonna do in a real battle? Most Trump voters are like 60+ years old and watch Fox News all day. Nobody wants the smoke.

    • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
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      I am very skeptical of the notion we are anywhere near an actual shooting war despite all the turmoil. Both sides would have waaaay too much to lose, especially red states, which derive huge amounts of funding from blue states (basically, blue states provide federal revenue while red states tend to use it up).

      At the moment at least, people have too high a degree of comfort to actually get off their asses and start physically fighting. Things would probably have to get a lot worse before we really see that happen.

      • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
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        12 days ago

        Still seem very unlikely to start a war (plus, given his track record of would-be assassins, they’d probably be right wing anyhow).

        • ZagamTheVile@lemmy.world
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          That won’t matter. It could be Don Jr doing it live and on camera and it would still get spun an an anti-fa trans brown immigrant leftist plot and a certin 40% would believe it with their orange little hearts.

          • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
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            12 days ago

            Not so sure about that, some certainly would, but even if it was disregarded by everyone, people are way too comfortable and complacent to give up their relative safety to start an actual war.

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      I think people are more pissed off and divided than they have been in a very long time. It’s hard to say how close we are to a civil war, though. There’s been a lot of propaganda for a long time saying “violence is not the answer” (even though sometimes it is), and “violence has no place in our system of government” (even though the government abuses its own monopoly on violence to imprison and kill innocent, peaceful people).

      It feels like the media in the US is less reliable than it’s ever been in my lifetime, and would probably suppress as much as possible any information that would support open rebellion.

    • meco03211@lemmy.world
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      I predict with immigration crack downs we’ll eventually see some more resistance to that. At some point, either by ambush or chance occurrence, ICE agents will be attacked and possibly killed. Trump will horrifically overstep in his response. Then it will just be escalating responses.

    • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
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      There will be no war because there’s no one to fight it. The organizations that an armed resistance might coalesce around simply don’t exist, and Trump’s camp is entrenched enough to easily strangle any nascent movement in the crib as soon as it begins to arm itself.