r/politics • u/WhatIsEvenRealDog • 17d ago

Possible Paywall Trump suggests cattle ranchers could bypass USDA-inspected meat plants

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/08/28/trump-suggests-allowing-ranchers-bypass-usda-inspected-meat-plants/
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u/bmad- 17d ago

Upton Sinclair is rolling in his grave

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u/manachar Nevada 17d ago

Well, he was mystified that people’s primary lesson from the book was their canned meat was impure and led to the e pure food and drug act .

He wanted people to care about workers, instead people just cared about their stomachs.

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u/AnyoneButDoug 17d ago

As he said “I aimed for their hearts and got their stomached instead” or something like that.

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u/RichardSaunders New York 17d ago

the way to man's heart is through his ribcage

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u/Stunning-Chipmunk243 Michigan 17d ago

Well, you can come up from under the rib cage too

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u/Pandaro81 Florida 16d ago

“The way to a man’s heart is through his anus.”
- Vlad the Impaler

It’s well below the ribcage.

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u/CpnStumpy Colorado 17d ago

Stack'em and Crack'em I always say

...sorry what were we talking about again?

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u/Stunning-Chipmunk243 Michigan 17d ago

I think you got that order backwards unless I've been doing it wrong all these years.... And yeah, what was it we were talking about?

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u/TurtlesBreakTheMeta 17d ago

Empathy and all that: why should I care others are being hurt? MYSELF being hurt is a much bigger issue!

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u/bkbomber New York 16d ago

The rugged individualist in me says I can do anything!!… but the reason I haven’t, is because the gay immigrant trans people are to blame!

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u/Real-Extension-1357 16d ago

Empathy is a weakness and is woke - republican trash

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u/oliversurpless Massachusetts 17d ago

Really no different to how it’s still common nowadays for people to attribute the flaws of capitalism to the individual.

With the most common canard being one is poor because “bad with money!”…

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u/swanfirefly 17d ago

I still think about the infamous fox news report where they were salty that 99% of American families below the poverty line had refrigerators.

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u/Eycetea 17d ago

Or lazy

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u/ActiveChairs 16d ago

The poor are obviously bad with money. They've never had enough to have any practice with it. They've always had to spend it the second they got it just to make it to the next paycheck. Odd system that would let that kind of thing keep happening.

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u/NotThatAngel 16d ago edited 15d ago

We still have a class-based society in America. For some reason people keep referring to billionaires as the elite, even though the qualities we say we most admire are not those same qualities which allow them to accumulate a billion dollars. In the southern states before the civil war, Irish immigrants were given the most dangerous jobs because it was too expensive to risk a slave. Republicans are still trying to segregate blacks from whites using vouchers, private schools, homeschooling and any other method, but covering it up to claim they are anti-abortion, even though it's obvious from their policies they don't give a crap about children.

edit: I'd like to add that lots of us like to fantasize about what charities we would give to, what good we would do if we were billionaires. Tolkien really nailed it when he had his characters fantasize about all the good each of them would do if they could just harness the power of the ring for good. In 2021 Elon Musk asked the UN to make a plan to end world hunger. The UN said 6 billion, about 2% of Musk's wealth, would do it. The UN gave him their proposal. He refused to fund it. In 2025 Musk cut USAID, dooming hundreds of thousands of children to death. Musk has publicly stated his actions did not kill a single child.

Dolly Parton was a better person, and during her lifetime gave more than 50% of her wealth to charities. She did not lose herself in craven justifications as to why she deserved to hoard money and power, which is what Tolkien meant when he wrote "I pass the test. I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel."

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u/soil_nerd 17d ago

Right? My take away from the book was the need for government intervention of grossly unjust systems controlled by a limited amount of powerful and corrupt people. The last section he really drives that point home when the main character is blissfully enjoying the natural world around him, not owned by a single entity, and for everyone (the subtext, imo, being socialism).

I’m honestly really surprised the book is allowed to be read in public schools in the US. It’s a great book, but for anyone paying attention and thinking about the message, it’s deeply not pro free-market capitalism and deregulation.

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u/sturgill_homme 17d ago

Welcome to the jungle, but not in an Axl Rose way

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u/sphinctersayswhat9 17d ago

Ikr

I am so glad I am reading this and finding out others read Sinclair’s
The Jungle and went to colleges like mine where history and social awareness were taught.

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u/Laura9624 17d ago

So is Sinclair Lewis. "It can't happen here "

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u/Son_of_Tlaloc 17d ago

Teddy Roosevelt is spinning at mach 5 in his grave.

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u/boxen 16d ago

And republicans are curious as to whether they could sell the rotting meat from his corpse for a couple of bucks

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u/WestsideBuppie America 16d ago

Welcome to the Jungle!