this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
217 points (98.7% liked)

World News

53875 readers
2085 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

FOR NEARLY A YEAR, Canadians have been discussing the danger posed by the United States. The anxiety shows up everywhere—online forums, polling questions, and in the unusually blunt asides from officials. This is good. We need to get in the habit of having hard conversations about who threatens us, the extent of that threat, and what we can and must do if we are to survive as an independent country.

For CANADA, the diagnosis of the US administration is not academic. It is the difference between managing a relationship with a flawed but crucial ally and planning a campaign of resistance against a powerful neighbour no longer reliably constrained by its domestic institutions.

Unfortunately, we see signs of deference everywhere.

Congress has effectively abandoned its role in holding the president to account. It has failed to uphold its power of the purse on things like international development assistance, bowing to the administration’s decision to simply not spend the money. The loss of that funding has already led to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition. It has failed to uphold congressional power to declare war, ignoring military actions in the Caribbean that culminated in the unlawful capture of Venezuela’s authoritarian president. It declined to act when the administration sidestepped the Senate’s confirmation power by allowing Elon Musk to wield cabinet-level authority without ever being confirmed. Congress has also largely demurred in defence of its power to regulate import tariffs. It is, in effect, a presidential lapdog.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 34 points 20 hours ago (12 children)

Don't worry..... Our next president will be a center right candidate and be declared both a rabid leftist and simultaneously the saviour of democracy. They'll only predator drone strike a few weddings, thus securing their Nobel peace prize. Everything will return to normal, with just a little shift of the Overton window to the right. But hey, at least it won't be Trump and full on fascism......

All sarcasm aside, the older I get the more headlines give me dejavu. I can remember article like this after the Gulf war where I felt like other countries were actually stepping away from America's lead, and then the Clinton's rose to power to make things better. Then Bush v2 and Afghanistan and then Obama promised to make it all better. Now we have trump and I'm beginning to wonder what kind of centerist compromise the Democrats are cooking up.

History may not repeat itself but it sure does rhyme, and seemingly the tune it does it to just gets worse every iteration.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 11 points 20 hours ago (4 children)

Okay, but the reason we have centerist presidents is because that's as far left as the people running the government and the media were willing to go. The voters are a symptom of that. That's why they're going after schools, you can't have symptoms that are smart to what's going on. Read anything about inside Korea, and they really love their dear leader if they're young because it's like a religion.

[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 7 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

Okay, but the reason we have had centerist presidents is because that's as far left as the people running the government and the media were willing to go.

Eh... That's debatable. The modern democratic party being center right is kinda a byproduct of Thirdway politics. Which was largely popularized by the party leaders itself, specifically by the Clinton's.

Bill Clinton rose to power by advocating for compromise as a way to get through the growing gridlock in Congress. This worked for his career, but it gave the Republican party a huge amount of influence over defining what that middle ground was. They would work with Democratic candidates with policy that served their purposes and completely ignore the ones that served anyone left of center.

This had the overall effect of not only controlling policy in congress, but actually being able to vicariously control the opposition. As time went on the only people who reached seniority in the DNC were those who would compromise with the rnc to create a "mutually" beneficial policy.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 6 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Pretty sure that we're saying the same thing.

[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 7 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

My point of contention is largely that the issue isn't with the will of the voters, and that the direction of policy is largely directed from the top down.

Most American progressives are vastly more progressive than their representatives. It's just that the DNC's leadership is filled with thirdway democrats who refuse to support anyone left of center.

Edit: just reread you original comment. I misread it the first time round and thought you had said it was as far left as the people were willing to go. My bad.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 7 points 18 hours ago

It's all good. I do that a lot myself, lol. One thing trump has shown and been extremely transparent about, is that the billionaires don't give one shit about us and they run everything.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)