They would have the added benefit of not having another set of oligarchs behind them hoping that this current set of far shittier oligarchs gets removed.

Bernie doesn’t need the billionaire class, he showed that by the grassroots donors that supported his 2016 campaign.

If they actually broke off and formed the Solidarity Party that sought to pick the best platforms from both the D and R parties and pursued policies of wealth redistribution and breaking down barriers to a true free market system, they would win.

Do they manufacture turntables?

build the walls back better

Well that’s just not ambitious enough. You need to wallpaper a room with minimalist coffee table books

Is there a form of government that is inclusive? Seems to me that the practice of working to ensure that underserved demographics are represented runs counter to the thinking of the average power hungry dickhead who gravitates toward politics

I get it now, 10000 Mexican troops on the US border with Mexico, 1000 times more fentanyl seized along the Southern border, so that means ten Canadians deployed along the Northern border. Easy!

Nah, keep shtum on that one until people in the US start to flip out

And the angel of the lord came unto me Snatching me up from my place of slumber And took me on high and higher still Until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own Midwest And as we descended cries of impending doom rose from the soil One thousand nay a million voices full of fear And terror possessed me then And I begged Angel of the Lord what are these tortured screams? And the angel said unto me These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots! You see, Reverend Maynard Tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat Like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared "Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!

Frig off Ricky!

Honest question, in the pre-Trump days people rightly pointed out that the "ruling class " (Koch brothers, Adelsons, Soros, Bloomberg, etc. etc.) would try to buy influence in their preferred party but also donated to the “other side”.

Those people were called oligarchs.

Now that Trump has taken the reins, the term has turned toward him. If you look at the donors in 2024, the top six or so donated to the Republican party (Elon tops that list) but it’s not THAT far off from previous years.

Aside from the obvious (Trump being a dangerous radical, to put it mildly) has anything changed in the way influence is bought and sold, or is the increased use of “oligarchy” more of a tactic to try and mitigate the damage that Trump can do by calling it out as loudly as possible?

I’m Canadian, and I’ve heard the term oligarchy thrown around in reference to American politics for many years, but never do often nor so forcefully as in the past two months.

May the sod never be in your collar

Something like that I’m not good at this

Otto pilot

Right, well, best shellac the paper mache and get going

Reddit is where I’ve seen it. Usually for pithy remarks about the comments in a given thread

Sixty percent of the time

Hate to break it to you, but everyone in the world is either above or below ±35° latitude.

Holy crap when I saw the headline at first I thought it was an obit

Good question. Not OP. I think there’s a better chance of independent films being shared on free platforms than the government doing a better job at providing an equitable solution. I’m sure there are models out there that would apply to filmmaking that could replicate the success of say, Mark Normand releasing a special on YouTube instead of going with a paid app. Every actor, key grip, gopher, director, producer, etc. gets a percentage of advertising revenue forever. I’m sure there are flaws with that, but something like that.

As people get accustomed to crap, there will be more money in crap than in great films, so the crap will start to become the norm, and it will become very difficult to find quality.