Defamation.
Also, nice racist bias on that model (making her fatter).
I dunno about fatter, but it definitely made her darker. Oof.
What should we do? Can we get another maga guy to take a shot?
Honestly both might be a difference in when the shot was taken.
Its the same picture. One is edited.
That’s the entire subject of this post.
Cool. They look like slightly different angles.
Its cropped and edited… Feel free to read the article which covers this in its entirety.
Even just the headline should have been enough
I mean… One would hope, but clearly it wasn’t enough for some.
Yeah, it’s literally the opening words of the title.
Ohhh i see it now. The officer’s arm has the same shilloete on the window. Wow the model really edited the lady. Must have been a bias of the training data to put her more forward/in focus.
And darker.
Dystopian fiction: The regime alters photos to make people look happy and smiling, to hide their cruelty.
Dystopian reality: The regime alters photos to make people look sad and pained, to brag about their cruelty.
I know history is full of nasty little dictators and their lackeys but have any of them ever been this fucking childish?
Yes. But it’s so much easier to be a child and have that get out to the masses. It would take a lot of effort to doctor a photo and get it published 100 years ago.
I don’t know about childish but the Khmer Rouge was batshit insane, their way of “governing” was completely unsustainable.
Hitler was actually extremely childish as was his entire regime. The similarities are remarkable.
Henry VIII of England was basically what would happen if a pro American football player was a powerful king. He’s suspected to have had CTE.
Versailles was basically a cruel experiment on the mental health of trapped nobility and rulers, that involved basically nothing but petty social games for power and prestige, but no options to use them.
Rome had plenty of emperors like this including Caligula and Nero. Nero had a neck beard and unhealthy attachment to his mother. Meanwhile if half of what was written about Elagabulus is true then we have proof of how bad of an idea it is to give absolute power to a horny teenager with neither qualifications nor training.
Speaking of weird mommy issues, Wilhelm I of Prussia/Germany was a weird childish man whose family spat was the first world war. On the other side was Nicolas of Russia who wasn’t much better.
Also Ghaddafi was nuts, like in funny and horrifying ways, but definitely never matured after taking power young.
So yeah, I’m conflating kings, emperors, and dictators as all more or less the same, because they kinda are. Julius Caesar took the title of dictator, was assassinated to prevent him from being a king, and was invoked by the emperors. We have a modern tendency to think of dictators as people who came to power through coups or the military, which can lead towards more mature and sane figures, but we still use the term for the hereditary absolute ruler of North Korea (it’s a socialism themed monarchy) and we don’t use it to describe the huge portion of roman emperors who were generals installed by coup. Additionally, history indicates (to me at least) that you likely have to be a bit nuts and immature to overthrow an established republic, because of the behavior shown by citizens in a destabilizing republic.
I understand the urge to treat this administration as a freak of history, but they’re just too similar to the third reich to do so responsibly. And yeah those similarities include immaturity. It seems that a destabilizing republic is best hijacked by the narcissistic, and narcissists who are leaning into their disorder tend towards immaturity because growth often requires painful self reflection.
This is actually really scary. They’re modifying photos to manipulate and control people.
I mean, they’re also abducting children and murdering dissenters to control people…
The little things are more insidious.
What a joke of a country.
Feels bad, man
Really bad
Just a very unfunny one.
She should sue for defamation.
Now, I am not an expert of US law, but if American news has taught me anything, the only possible outcome of going through the courts is the following:
Court decides against the govt
Govt appeals to a higher courtHigher court decides against the govt
Govt appeals to a higher courtSupreme court decides Trump is God and all is well
The end.
Billions of dollars.
The altering of a photo is meant to distract you from the fact that they are arresting ordinary citizens who don’t have the financial means to legally protect themselves. It may seem like an irrelevant distinction based on everything else they do but this is an escalation.
the right can’t meme
It’s not so much that they can’t meme, it’s that they have only one joke: “Look how I can make this person fear me”.
They generally don’t have a language-based way of thinking, it’s why they just say shit. Call them weird narcissists? Guess what they’re going to be calling you next week. Say they’re violent? Guess what they’re going to be saying about the left tomorrow.
It’s all reactionaries and grifters who enable those reactive attitudes by showing them how to ignore criticism.
I would be far more optimistic if we just had a stupid population with misguided, reactionary tendencies. We can work with that. You can fix stupid. You can’t fix evil though, and the people leading our country’s stupid are pure evil. And they know it, which is why the whole slew of podcasters, AM radio hosts, FOX pundits and cabinet members weasel and worm around accountability all day, every day.
The Memes will Continue.
The jolly old USSR was as half-assed as the Trump DOJ. There’s a famous case of someone being airbrushed out of a group photo, but they couldn’t be bothered to get rid of his shoes.
Ignoring the fakery, I don’t see how the alteration makes her less sympathetic. I would also be distressed if being frog-marched by facists for the crime of being born autistic.
All this propaganda does, is cement my decision to fight. The Trump Regime and Dogey Americans, are enemies of any decent human being, and must be destroyed.
They think they are portraying the subject as ‘weak’. It’s for their racist base to feel like ‘right on, we made a weak black leftist woman cry, like they all deserve’'.
It was never about making her less sympathetic, but a celebration of hurting the ‘correct’ people to get hurt.
It’s not JUST for thier base.
For anyone pondering joining such actions, these would be leaders.
If you’re thinking of joining, and the leaders look “weak”, it might not inspire much faith. You might decide to hold back.
The truth is, she looked calm and collected, confident in her decisions and actions. She looks like a leader. She looks like someone worth following. That type of imagery is dangerous if you’re trying to suppress action.
So, in short, it’s an attempt at active suppression, not just a “treat” for thier own. It’s the modern equivalent of going on about how short Napoleon is. It’s an attempt to diminish those they’re afraid of to try and keep others from following them.
This comment deserves to be its own post.
It’s also meant to say “look see we can make them regret it” as well as to draw into the paternal metaphor they keep using. Those weird comments they keep making about “daddy” being home to punish dissenters, feels very in line with this. The idea being that they’re trying to depict themselves as tough but necessary, and opposition as the same as a child misbehaving because of unenforced boundaries. In this regard they’re depicting her as crying to treat her like a child who has been spanked, and as such (in their eyes) one who will in the future respect their authority and eventually thank them for it.
They need to maintain the narrative that the protesters to contain both hardened rebels, and primarily be ordinary people who just don’t understand discipline and the need to enforce the rules.
Now he’s hurting the people he needs to be hurting! I still cannot afford jack squat, and don’t have a job or health care, but at least he’s punching down, thank goodness!
It’s not meant for you. They actually don’t care how it makes you feel. It’s for their racist, fascist loving voters. They love this.
An ICE pastor is the craziest part of this story… has the cunt ever read his supposedly favourite book?
Fascism loves using religion to enforce it’s will.
Most religious institutions are authoritarian by nature. So no surprise there.
Just the Old Testament. Yahweh is bit of a dick in that half, from what I recall. Gaslighting some dude to sacrifice his child, I think?
Well in that particular case he stopped him last second like ‘oh man, you were actually gonna go through with it, nah bro just joking you don’t gotta kill your kid.’ But in other instances he fully destroyed cities, the world, and just killed random people cause they didn’t do what he said.
The original “just testing if you love me” trashy girl
YHWH is the archetype of a controlling, abusive father.
The other highly informative part is the Book of Job, where God and Satan are hanging out and making wagers on how severely they can fuck with some decent, honest guy before he loses it.
The opening verse of Highway 61 Revisted should be added to the Bible. It’s more insightful and better-written than most of the canonical parts. I’d also throw in Dante’s Inferno and Paradiso. I’m in two minds about adding Milton, though.
Nineteen Eighty-Four?
They are more on the exploiting side of religion.
Oh well Biden and Harris would just been more of the same so whatever.
Harris adviser says VP ran ‘flawless’ campaign, GOP campaign managers candid on primary missteps
Damn, I guess people were just too stupid to vote for the most qualified candidate to ever run for office and the country deserves what it gets. Maybe four more years of fascist tyranny will teach people to vote correctly next time. Or maybe we just won’t have elections anymore, because stupid idiot Americans aren’t responsible enough to manage their own country.
The important thing to remember is that it’s never the fault of the people in power. It’s always the gross, dumb, smelly voters who can’t pick the Lesser Of Two Evils often enough.
The important thing to remember is that it’s never the fault of the people in power. It’s always the gross, dumb, smelly voters who can’t pick the Lesser Of Two Evils often enough.
It’s both. I’m not going to pretend that people voting against their own self interests isn’t a problem. If people actually voted in a way that would help them we’d have a lot more Dems than Republicans in the USA.
It’s stupid to pretend we don’t live in a first past the post system where most voters are going to vote straight D or straight R. Voting 3rd party is just shredding your vote in almost all cases.
I’m not going to pretend that people voting against their own self interests isn’t a problem
The problem with “lesser evil” politics is that neither candidate represents your interests.
You had a corporate Democrat running against a fascist Republican. This after four years of liberals breaking their campaign promises, fattening the wallets of Techbro AnCaps, and beating up civil rights protestors on national TV.
It’s stupid to pretend we don’t live in a first past the post system where most voters are going to vote straight D or straight R.
It’s stupid to close off your primary so an unpopular incumbent in a dementia spiral doesn’t have to campaign against another wave of progressive outsiders.
When Henry Cuellar or Jim Justice or Kristen Sinema are the Ds on my ballot, it isn’t even FPTP. It’s a forgone conclusion I’m getting fucked from either side.
Three weeks after doomsday, yeah her campaign manager’s gonna say something nice. What is this supposed to show, anyway?
Did they get caught giving away the dark secret that they did their best to run a successful campaign?
Her primary problem was going for the left’s vote when the left doesn’t vote.
The only way to fix it is to go further right and pick up the voters who are disillusioned by Trump in 2028.
the left doesn’t vote
Terrible news for the Mamdani campaign.
The only way to fix it is to go further right
Can’t wait for Pete Buttigieg to campaign on doubling the ICE budget.
39% of NYC’s registered voters turned out to vote in the last mayor election and he got slightly more then fifty percent of the vote.
I don’t think that’s the gotcha you’re going for.
That’s not “the left”, just voter apathy.
Mamdani was the first to get more than a million votes in a mayoral election since the 60’s. The 2021 turnout was less than 25%, 2017 was barely above 25%, etc. It has been more than 2 decades since there has been a level of turnout like was seen with Mamdani.
It is, in fact, quite a “gotcha”.
Mamdani barely got more votes than Trump did in NYC in 2024.
He won with about 19.5% of the registered voters.
With 6 other people to vote for, and the biggest mayoral election turnout in decades…
Again, voter apathy <> “the left”.
Voter Turnout Highest in Half Century as Mamdani Phenomenon Galvanizes Electorate
Still waiting to hear about all those voters who stayed home because Sliwa wasn’t conservative enough.
the left doesn’t vote
Terrible news for the Mamdani campaign.
Pretty much apples-to-apples comparison. They’ve got you there SMCF. It’s an accepted maxim that national Presidential races are exactly the same as mayoral races in NYC.
Well on Lemmy, people think the Mayor of NYC determines foreign policy regarding Israel, so…
Wait till you find out how many states Bernie Sanders won
Not enough to win the primary?
More than enough to win some of the biggest states in the country.
But presumably without any leftist voters?
Counting a lot more than eight
Stop asking the Baileys, Chuck. They’re full of shit.
But Harris wouldn’t say the words I wanted hear! How could I vote when she won’t tell me the thing?!1 ThiS Is All HeR fAuLt
What do you mean Harris literally said “ceasefire?”
She didn’t order the IDF to stand down though. So, fascism I guess.
I know sometimes I feel like the only sane liberal on a site full of progressives.
Honestly I’m so far left of left, I don’t belong here. But I didn’t fall for the obvious whataboutGaza campaign, and voted D to stop trump.
Aha! So you admit you love genocide and have no moral compass whatsoever!
You’re an embarrassment to purity-test political nut-scratching! Can you just imagine, for ONE second what would have happened if Harris had won?? It’s too terrifying to contemplate!
Those weren’t progressives. Those were right-wing concern trolls cosplaying as leftists.
Very professional and mature. This is what everyone expects from a government institution.
It’s like fucking 4chan is running the goddamned country.
So let me tell you a little bit about the people he hired…
Y’ever heard of Qanon?
Or Gamergate, for that matter.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/23/us/gamergate-harassment-reddit-twitter-cec
It’s almost like you are ALLOWING 4chan to run your goddamned country.
Thinking anyone against this administration is ‘allowing’ it to happen is a childish understanding of the modern police state and civil wars.
To be “against” something requires action. You aren’t against. You’re neutral at best, hoping someone else fixes the problem.
You don’t know me. I’d wager you don’t know any of the people you hurl such a poor excuse for an activist comment at.
I’m willing to bet that I’ve done more to fight back against fascism this week than you have your whole life and I wasn’t even born in the US.
Me, the other day: “They’ve finally done it. They’ve finally hit rock botto…wait, nope, I was wrong.”
Me, yesterday: “They’ve finally done it. They’ve finally hit rock botto…wait, nope, I was wrong.”
Me, this morning: “They’ve finally done it. They’ve finally hit rock botto…wait, nope, I was wrong.”
Me, tomorrow: “They’ve finally done it. They’ve finally hit rock botto…wait, nope, I was wrong.”
Etc, etc, and fucking, etc.
Trump has been doing that every day since 2016. Every day he says the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and every next day he keeps trumping [bazinga] himself.
