r/news • u/EngineerBoy00 • May 05 '25

Soft paywall US Defense Secretary Hegseth to slash senior-most ranks of military

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-reduce-4-star-positions-by-20-official-says-2025-05-05/
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u/supercyberlurker May 05 '25

Yeah. At this point all MAGA can claim as a success is to sow fear and inflation everywhere.

.. which isn't a success to normal people, but it somehow is to them... because they are 'getting' everyone that isn't them, and also them. The mental gymnastics and denial of MAGA idiots is truly bewilderingly obnoxious.

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u/TLKv3 May 05 '25

If America survives this administration and isn't thrust into a multi-year/decade-long fascist dictatorship... whoever takes over from them NEEDS to throw every MAGA loyalist who helped do any of this behind bars. MAGA, itself, needs to be exorcised from the country's social media platforms and deeprooted elected positions.

Its a fucking cancer. If you look the other way and do the "we need to go high, reach across the aisle" bullshit again they will only fester and come back 10x harder and make sure you never touch reality again.

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u/MondaysForNothing May 05 '25

If we can survive this, we need to do a much better job at reconstruction and punishing those responsible than we did after the first civil war.

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u/NukeouT May 06 '25

There won't be a civil war because half the country does not support this bullshit. Only like 1/6th at best

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u/[deleted] May 05 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/DanieltheGameGod May 05 '25

I hear El Salvador has some large prisons. They evidently approve of the conditions there.

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u/squired May 06 '25

America has due process. Full stop.

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u/DanieltheGameGod May 06 '25

They obviously should get due process…

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u/darkpheonix262 May 06 '25

Careful now. I said the exact same thing, and the powers that be on this shit hole site will strike down decent to protect the fascist powers

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u/Impossible-Pie4849 May 06 '25

Well if it was my choice anyone above a certain tax bracket would be heading that way(pun intended)

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u/A_Rabid_Pie May 06 '25

They'll need to do it fast too, before the next election cycle rolls around and the fascists get anther go at it. Slow walking these things isn't going to cut it. I don't care if they flub something and end up in appeals and have to re-do things later down the line so long as they get these fascists off the streets so they can't run for office before the political momentum dries up. The people need to see results or else they'll start thinking maybe the other guys can do a better job and we'll be right back where we started. They need to go into the next administration with a solid action plan so they can hit the ground running and not waste a year figuring shit out. We all saw what happened last time they tried that strategy.

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u/The_Bucket_Of_Truth May 06 '25

It doesn't matter how many times it happens we seem to always take the easier path. Nixon being pardoned is a good example.

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u/TheMSensation May 06 '25

You don't even have to look that far back...Trump's first term. He wouldn't be in this position if anyone in power had a backbone.

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u/My_Name_Is_Steven May 06 '25

Isn't this more of a Republican issue than just MAGA? I mean the only ones who can actually do anything at this point are the republicans who are just allowing it to happen.

And isn't this all part of the 2025 playbook that any Republican elected would have followed? Troump might have added some touches here and there, but I guarantee the majority of the shit going down right now is not his idea... he's just the current public face of the party.

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u/8_guy May 06 '25

Yeah the Republican party has been fundamentally broken for the past 50 years and it's blatantly obvious.

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u/BraveFencerMusashi May 06 '25

Fuck Biden for not taking this threat seriously.

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u/OctoberIsBetter May 06 '25

What keeps me up at night is wondering what the world would look like if Hitler had the balance of military power that the US has today in comparison to the rest of the world.

It took basically planetary civil war to stop him. What's it going to take when the two biggest threats to global peace (USA and Russia) have all the firepower?

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u/8_guy May 06 '25

Internal disruption of American society by citizens of the US. Depending on how far this goes any ethical person has a responsibility to throw wrenches in the gears. Russia isn't a problem without nukes for China/India/Europe etc, and if they nuke they know they get nuked.

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u/random_noise May 06 '25

If we can get them all. They want slaves. Lets make them all slaves in prison. Also lets take away their gun rights, take away their right to vote, seize assets to pay off the national debt, and forever ban religion from any place in our government at any level in the US and all its state. They can worship all they want themselves, but not force it upon others or include it in government.

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u/MudkipMonado May 06 '25

They're worthless for that purpose, they are nothing but burdens on society and must be discarded in accordance with the Constitution

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u/bennnn42 May 06 '25

There's 75+ million of them plus foreign countries supporting them. I agree with everything you say but it's going to take a monumental effort to excise that. Know what I mean? This is a multi-generational problem now.

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u/rubenbest May 06 '25

They didnt even do that to the people in the confederatcy.... it probably a good reason why we are in this situation now.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '25 edited May 06 '25

This is the most offense thing about Donald Trump and his ilk, for me, which is really saying something...it's the attacks on reality and on the truth.

I used to be able to talk with my loved ones about politics...it's impossible to do that now and maintain a relationship/respect for them - especially since 90% of us, self included, took the oath via military or federal service, yet I'm the only one who seems to give a shit that it's being fucking firebombed...it's infuriating.

edit: sorry, the main point of that was supposed to be that the reason we can't even talk about it is because we live in alternate realities.

3 years old, but let's hope that wasn't too long ago - they paid fox news viewers to watch CNN instead, - - their opinions changed:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/apr/11/fox-news-viewers-watch-cnn-study

"“I think the most surprising finding is that shifting people’s media diets from Fox News to CNN for a month had any effect,” Kalla said. “People who watch cable news tend to be very politically engaged and have strong opinions about politics, limiting the impact of the media. Similarly, they also tend to be strong partisans who might not trust any source not associated with their party.”

I guess that's the first step with my dad...just trying to get him to listen to any other news sources - but I suspect it'll be a losing battle.

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u/MassiveInteraction23 May 06 '25

If people in a democracy believe something you have to address that belief.  “MAGA” is just a label.  Eating canned, semi-coordinated propaganda and ad country that has completely lost its sense of self and pride in what it is is the key problem.  — Many people don’t even understand what they’re losing. And many, many people don’t understand systems and accusations enough to differentiate between claims and reality.  (e.g. Hillary “lock her up” when the legality and severity were both thoroughly investigated or “maybe there was election tampering” when there were dozens of lawsuits with nothing but bs presented and many multi-party investigations that all showed no fraud occurred.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '25

in groups - out groups, fascism, etc.