RE: https://mastodon.social/@RonSupportsYou/116329501515336365

Padma Lakshmi shared her view of #BirthrightCitizenship, a case that the #SupremeCourt will discuss today. It is a right that Trump wants to end for the children of immigrants (for people including Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio is silent about this issue). Padma's persuasive comments can be found at this link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/opinion/padma-lakshmi-birthright-citizenship-food.html
copy: @renewedresistance #HumanRights #politics

“Gas prices? What gas prices?”

Even without insane and illegal wars, the thing about any dependency, including car dependency, is that once you’re dependent, they can do whatever they want with the prices.

Real freedom is choices. Better cities create choices. Graphic via the Urban Truth Collective. Check out our website here:
https://www.urbantruthcollective.com/#UrbanTruth

People - and by "people" I of course include myself - keep saying "The cruelty is the point. The cruelty is the point." And yes, that is of course true. But we have got to stop repeating that catechism as if it is in any way a meaningful examination of the cruelty of MAGA as a system of oppression.

What cruelty is, is easy. It requires no thought, no nuanced examination of the world, no effort whatsoever on the part of the MAGA operative. Consider every major inflection point in the last 10 years. When MAGA was given the choice between:

- Supporting black lives, or cruelty. They chose cruelty.
- Existing near immigrants, or cruelty. They chose cruelty.
- Uplifting a woman's right to her own body, or cruelty. They chose cruelty.
- Affirming trans identities, or cruelty. They chose cruelty.
- Listening to our allies, or cruelty. They chose cruelty.

What this should tell us is that cruelty isn't some byproduct of a grand master plan to inflict as much harm on others as possible. These are not the actions of a strategist. These are the actions of an illiterate, deeply uncurious child choosing harm at every opportunity because he thinks it is fun. Cruelty isn't the point of the policy. The policy itself is cruelty.

We have got to start understanding and acknowledging the distinction between those two if we are to fight this.

Trump did not want to talk about the Epstein files, so he started a war with Iran.

Now he no longer wants to talk about his war with Iran, so now we are back to "Beautiful Ballroom the likes of which you have never seen" etc., etc.