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Trump Makes Crowd Swear Pledge of Allegiance to “Cheat Like Hell”
(newrepublic.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2026
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politics
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Sociologists find that universally, in countries with persistent corruption, the populace believes "everyone is doing it" -- and that therefore, they are being taken advantage of unless they do the same.
It's this pervasive sentiment that makes it so hard to break. It is a memetic social disease.
Isn't that why academic cheating is tolerated in some Asian countries?
The ones that cheated were caught and dealt with, the ones that didn't get caught just passed the exam.
Q: What do they call the person who graduated bottom of their class in medical school?
A: Doctor
What a wild thing to claim without evidence, while perpetuating the exact idea being talked against.
I was talking to an Indian immigrant here in Canada and he said they have a word for it and its part of the game. Like he got cheated out of a bunch of money into a shady real estate venture so he was able to get here. But then it all went south and lost his "investment" so he couldn't do what he wanted to here.
I thought he'd be way more upset and he just was like yeah, he got me good! I should've been thinking about being cheated but I'm glad to be here even if I now have no savings and limited options for work.
What a guy. I envy his outlook on life, honestly.
I'm curious what the word for it is.
Kalaka?
At some point corruption becomes so pervasive that it just becomes a fact of life. I've grown up in such a country and it's soul crushing. You go to a city clerk to get the most mundane paper? Better get them some coffee or your paper will get lost and mishandled that you get it too late. Going to the doctor to get checked out? Better get something for the receptionist or you'll be waiting to see the doctor for a long time, someone somehow was always scheduled ahead of you. Need to get your car's two year check-up done? Get a 6 pack of beer and the mechanic will overlook that wobbly wheel that you don't have the money to replace right now.
wE gO hIgH
That's also why the Republicans have been working so hard to convince people that "there's no difference between the two parties."
If there's no difference, there's no reason to oppose the corruption of Party A because Party B will do it too.
Exactly why eliminating their voting rights is the only way to fix this. They’ll continue to cheat as long as they can vote.
The fix isn't more cheating. Although some prison time for the worst offenders is appropriate.
No, the true fix is taxes on the rich until they no longer have the power to skew society.
And a national voting holiday, with a voting system that doesn't ever force you to chose the lesser evil.
Score, Approval, and STAR are three options that would actually do it. All three are cardinal voting systems. We all use variations of the three for low stakes decisions, but for some reason, we decided that the most broken Ordinal voting systems should be used for high stakes decisions.
Whose voting rights, exactly?
Problem is how do you police that and prevent that from being misused against people who aren't malignent shit heads that wish the worst for others?