You’re incredibly gullible then. You literally think that a billionaire donating to a foundation that he still controls and operates counts as giving his money away.

The Gated foundation is a PR and lobbying machine that’s clearly done its job in your case.

Is there a difference between someone like Jeff bezos and Bill Gates though?

Yes, Bill Gates has better PR. That’s literally it. He’s not actually trying to do good at this stage in his life. It’s a testament to the power of his wealth that you think otherwise.

I would say not all millionaires are bad because not all of them gain their wealth through exploitive practices. Plenty of them are just retirees that have worked all their lives and shouldn’t have to work anymore anyways.

On the other hand, it’s literally impossible to become a billionaire without exploiting a truly absurd number of people. It’s that scale of exploitation that makes billionaires categorically a plague on society. If you can’t see that then you’re certainly not left leaning in any sense.

The funny thing is that even the Gates Foundation is actively causing harm on a massive scale. It’s funding charter schools as a way to kill public education, pushing for circumcision in Africa without a meaningful scientific basis for such a program, or lobbying against vaccine patent waivers. People forget about that because it also is the PR arm of the Gates empire.

No no, I think they mean the Bill gates that lobbied heavily to keep RNA vaccine technology private despite the fact that it was developed using public money and could save millions of lives.

Oof I’ve been there. It’s rough having your worldview turned upside down. The lucky thing for you is that you’re not the first one to go through this.

I’d say before you go anywhere, try to understand why you believed in the Democratic Party in the first place. Books like Manufacturing Consent, podcasts like Citations Needed, or outlets like Fair.org can help. I think developing a critical lens for political media is a key step towards building a new understanding of the world.

Beyond that it’s important to understand that politics can’t be limited to how you vote. Change in the US has largely been a direct consequence of mass movements composed of well coordinated organizations. So, if you’re willing to put in real effort to participate and learn, join a member run political organization like DSA. That is if you’re open to democratic socialist political perspectives :P

Of course he will. Baiting the media to compare him to Hitler has been part of his campaign strategy since 2016. For anyone who doesn’t actually know any better, it makes the media appear unhinged.

He’s not a fascist but that doesn’t mean he’s really any better than one. The logic Biden is using to defend US support of genocide abroad is the same logic fascists use to oppress domestic populations. In either case, people are needlessly murdered. The only difference is where it’s taking place.

I believe so. However, the NSA’s mass surveillance programs still are authorized under section 702 of FISA which is another Bush era law.

I think it’s more a reflection of the media people consume. It’s easy for people to forget Bush’s war crimes when he’s been rehabilitated in part to make Trump look like an exceptional threat.

Bush sued to stop a recount in Florida that would have likely led to Gore winning the 2000 presidential election. A conservative Supreme Court majority sided with Bush and stopped the recount. It makes Trump’s whole “STOP THE COUNT!” look amateurish in comparison. Bush actually was able to stop the count and got away with it.

Gore didn’t want Americans to start questioning the legitimacy of our democracy so he conceded. The rally around the flag effect after 9/11 helped quash any further criticisms of how Bush came to office.

I think their administrations likely had equally bad intentions. The incompetence of Trump’s administration just means they acted more erratically. They were also much worse at getting press on their side and worse at covering up their actions.

They offered him up to be tried in a third country and were open to negotiating. That’s still offering him up. The invasion just ensured that the Taliban and even Al Queda had plenty of new recruits. Bin Laden also remained at large for almost another decade. I’d consider it an abject failure if it wasn’t clear that the Bush administration didn’t really give a damn about their stated objectives.

Instead they just wanted to extend the US’s military influence into Central Asia and make a quick buck of military contracts in the process.

I mean the Taliban literally offered up Bin Laden but Bush rejected the offer and instead chose to invade. 20 years later and hundreds of thousands there’s nothing to show for it. It’s not like there weren’t people critical of the invasion at the time.

Okay but Bush actually stole a presidential election.

Bush is objectively worse on every level. They’re both terrible and the people in their administrations were both soulless gouls. However, Bush’s administration was far more effective in carrying out their repugnant agenda.

People will say Trump tried to steal an election. That’s true. But Bush ACTUALLY stole the election in 2000. Bush also gave us 2 wars which killed in total over a million people and led to the rise of ISIS. Trump’s admin tried it’s best to get the US into a war with Iran but couldn’t make it happen. Bush’s administration also helped get the US into the Great Recession from which the American working class has never truly recovered. Trump doesn’t hold a candle to the kind of damage Bush inflicted on the US and world.

It’s amazing to be that anyone credulously believed that China was trying to secretly spy on the US using such a comically large balloon. It would be hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that the media frenzy surrounding it echos the claims that Iraq had WMDs. The US press didn’t question the military’s narrative then and it isn’t questioning it now.

Yes and no. Increased consumption can stimulate an economy but there are are some limitations. This is usually only true if the economy is simultaneously building a middle class. There are also hard limits on improvements to technology and resource extraction. As such capitalists can’t always find ways to entice people to consume more. That leaves them with raising prices and suppressing wages if they want to increase profits.

Companies are competing with each other to maximize profit. If there aren’t new markets for them to grow into, companies can only grow by reducing cost and bringing in more revenue. As such they make shittier products while also pushing prices as high as they can go. This is an unfortunate consequence of how capitalism works.