Summary

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are falsely claiming that tens of millions of dead people collect Social Security to justify cutting “waste” and “fraud.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick echoed this, calling Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid “wrong” while supporting Musk’s plan to slash $1 trillion in spending.

Despite Trump’s public assurances, House Republicans’ budget proposals include deep cuts to these programs while prioritizing massive tax breaks for the wealthy.

Experts note improper Social Security payments are minimal, contradicting Musk’s claims.

      • leftytighty@slrpnk.net
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        1 day ago

        I’m tired of you “liberals” looking for every opportunity to punch left instead of facing your real enemies. You’re feeling smug because you did the one and only political action you’re aware of, which is to tick a box every few years.

        Every single bit of progress was led by people doing more, by people standing up, by people applying pressure between election days.

        I’d trade every liberal that’s now crying with their tail between their legs waiting for a chance to vote for those principled people who were applying real pressure to the government to resist genocide. Guess what: most of them also still voted blue.

        All of you “vote blue no matter who” dogs barking at anyone who even dared to demand better from the Democrats are why that party has become complacent and completely and utterly useless. If you were more like the ones wanting more, if you joined them years ago instead of allowing the bare minimum of being “less bad” to be the only fucking platform of the Democrats for my entire adult life, then there would have been a party worth voting for and a party that’s fighting back now.

        They’re lazy, out of touch, useless politicians, and YOU are to blame.

        • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I literally don’t know how to respond to the level of cognitive dissonance on display here. Not only have you guaranteed the people of Gaza willl not even have a home to go to, once trump gets on with moving them out, you’ve essentially handed Ukraine and it’s people to the Russians. Not to mention the loss of your healthcare, damage to your healthcare system, erosion of your education, damage to your judiciary, removal of lbgtq+ and racial equality rights, loss of geopolitical soft power, loss of data privacy as Elon runs amok though your public systems, erosion of trust with your allies, rampant pardons on literal insurrectionists, neutering of your governing and legislative bodies, rise of anti intellectualism, curbing of public discourse and media freedoms, and all this in the first 6 weeks.

          Well done, sir. I’m sure youre very proud of what you’ve accomplished.

          • TheresNodiee@lemm.ee
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            1 day ago

            The idea that Gaza would have been a-ok if Harris won is insane.

            A Democrat victory would have meant next to nothing to the Palestinian people. Dems don’t care about them either.

            It’s also a lie that pro-Palestine voters withheld their votes in any significant number as well. That’s just the MSM trying to pass the buck onto the left while ignoring the fact that the Dems have nobody to blame for their loss but themselves.

            You’re buying into propaganda from the Dems’s “good guy” billionaires.

            • leftytighty@slrpnk.net
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              22 hours ago

              Guy kicked off the thread by wishing bad things on genocide protestors, I find it hard to believe they care about these issues. In any other country they’d be a conservative

          • leftytighty@slrpnk.net
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            1 day ago

            how’d you know I’m Donald Trump? this is my alt. Idiot

            Just like the DNC and Democrat party leaders you think the solution is to blame progressives and keep attacking the left.

            Take some responsibility for your loss.

            • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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              16 hours ago

              How about they take responsibility for their choice? If a child makes a mistake, you teach them the bigger picture, but you always make them take responsibility. If you coddle them, they’ll never understand their actions, and you end up creating another trump, acting with impunity and expecting special treatment. Every. Time. Dem or republican, that’s not on.

              These morons need to understand that the world is a series of interconnected systems, and that their actions affect others. They’d rather burn down their country for the sake of their oversimplified world view and one trigger issue. They endanger others, so if others need to vent back at them, then boo fucking hoo.

        • Auli@lemmy.ca
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          1 day ago

          And what did those principled non voters achieve? Nothing and they have made the situation which they where protesting worse. Now Trump well own Gaza notice he never says America he says I well own it.

          • leftytighty@slrpnk.net
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            1 day ago

            when genocide is squarely in the middle of the overton window, maybe it was too late to act.

        • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          Then go do something, man.

          Sitting around and doing a “noble” nothing is not standing up or doing more. It’s doing EVEN LESS than voting. There is an absolutely real possibility that if everybody stays home it doesn’t shift D left, it just results in nothing besides Republican control.

          In that case though you wouldn’t have to worry about voting for palestinian genocide, because it would be over and done with. You could be not voting for climate denial or not voting for something else, posting on Lemmy about how righteous you are, and bottling your own farts to sniff later.

          I’m walking, stumping, and repping local elections and voting as far left as I can everywhere else. There is no far far left activity/activism you’re touting anywhere to be seen. What value do you add?

          • leftytighty@slrpnk.net
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            1 day ago

            wanna know what it might have looked like if millions of people that couldn’t stomach voting Democrat did so?

            every single election in my adult life.

            when genocide is in the overton window all you can do is brace for impact.

            USA is collapsing, and best we can do now is hope for a better future in its ashes. Delaying it for 20 years by letting the Democrats get away with more and more and more wasn’t gonna change that.

            • lady_maria@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              right. I’m sure your self-righteousness, apathy and inaction are going to be a great asset when it comes to building a “better future”.

              • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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                1 day ago

                Except that the result so far has only been the exact opposite of ‘building’ and ‘progress’.

              • leftytighty@slrpnk.net
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                1 day ago

                lol and maybe you can take 5 minutes to vote on the second worst suggestion for how things should be run when someone thinks about it for you

                • lady_maria@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  there are more ways to take action than to vote.

                  I’m just as dissolutioned with the voting system as you are, but I’m also aware that sitting around complaining and acting like you know better than everyone else is only obnoxious accomplishes nothing.

                  either do literally anything at all to contribute, or go find an empty room to whinge into. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the echo.

                  • leftytighty@slrpnk.net
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                    1 day ago

                    🤔 like protesting genocide and pressuring the party to select a progressive candidate? But that’s illegal and everyone that did that were secret Trump supporters. You’re just supposed to vote blue.

            • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              USA is collapsing, and best we can do now is hope for a better future in its ashes.

              Buddy, look at who are the other major players right now. Russia, China, and the EU. If you think for for a hot second that whatever rises out of this fire is going to be better, have I got news for you.

              • finder@lemmy.world
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                20 hours ago

                That is the objective for these types of people. A world where the EU and USA are isolated and China, Russia, Iran, etc. have free reign in ‘their’ backyards.

            • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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              1 day ago

              Seems to me like kind of a long pivot from

              Every single bit of progress was led by people doing more, by people standing up, by people applying pressure between election days.

              Why not just DO that?

              I don’t disagree that the shift in the Overton window is alarmingly far gone, that Dems are out of touch, or that the country is failing in real time. I disagree with the supercilious presentation of “political (in)action” by the people who ought to be easiest to motivate to go raise some hell.

              Instead of punching all the way right, you’re doing a big sad to your adjacent right in a huge lefty echo chamber. By letting perfect be the enemy of less worse we are only left with worse, and you still gotta live in it with us.

              • leftytighty@slrpnk.net
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                1 day ago

                I don’t disagree with you, my position is that I think people should have done damage mitigation by voting Harris in, but people that couldn’t stomach supporting genocide are not my enemy.

                I’m just betting that the people rushing to these threads to smugly feel superior for voting were also the ones trying to silence any opposition to Biden and Harris for their bad positions. The vibe in any discussion on Lemmy was “if you mention Palestine you’re a Trump supporter” and those same pieces of shit are now saying “told you so” as if the way forward is to do LESS resistance.

                That’s what I’m talking about. Congrats, you voted and lost. Maybe don’t fucking suppress actual progress the whole time between elections. If these people joined the left in holding Democrats accountable many elections ago, FUCKING GENOCIDE wouldn’t have been a background policy common to both parties.

                Now they’re still finger pointing at the people who actually demand more from their politicians.

                “Vote blue no matter who” got us here, THAT’S apathy.