Guys, I’m British and the headlines from the USA are wild…. I thought America was the land of the free and the home of the brave? Why are you putting up with this?

How Many Signs Do We Need, Before we March in mass. That means not just a few in small towns but in major cities

It won’t happen until most people feel the current regime’s policies are directly hurting them significantly. Not the way it should be but the way it is

They don’t have eyes that see, they only glance. They don’t have hearts that care for others or this country, only out for themselves. They’re called Cowards.

W H Y

DOT already owned Union Stn? However, "real prize for President Donald Trump, who has been eager to redevelop all manner of federal properties, may be ... a desire to “leverage [Union Station’s] valuable commercial aspects.” " www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

We are under martial law. No other way to see it.

Will The Leader will make the trains run on time?

As long as the cars are full of his little tin soldiers.

National Socialism in America

So he's just targeting places with high union presence then? Federal government, railways, am I missing anywhere?

how! What are the causal mechanisms he’s using to do this? How illegal is it?

None. Very. Does he care? No.

Trump is playing Monopoly (and cheating, again)

Appalling! And likely illegal.

HE will NOT stop until HE is stopped. Wake UP

The election is gonna come, Trump is going to be impeached and removed - and Team Trump is going to hold DC - the WH and the Bill of Rights hostage.

The election is going to come? Maybe. Free and fair? Probably not. Trump is going to impeach and removed? Absolutely not. He could sexually abuse a toddler on livestream and MAGA will still back him and there is no way Congress will be under complete Democratic control.

I think he’s expecting a siege. I hope he’s not wrong.

Everyone in Europe thinks US trains are like 👇

They aren’t wrong.

What could possibly go wrong?

Is he going to make the trains run on time?

Amtrak will sue and win. Unless they bend? We shall see… Not every take over is a success…. Not every move; gets a check mate!

It’ll get worse before it gets better and we are who have to make it better.

Contra the ancient meme, he will not make the trains run on time (Mussolini didn't either!).

People, troops can embark, disembark there.

Like controlling an airport?

Trump - Mussolini comparisons anybody?

Hmm 🧐 Let’s See. @phillewis.bsky.social

We all know why he is disrupting DC.

" But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." -The Founders

here's the link apnews.com/article/trum... Trump extends control over Washington by taking management of Union Station away from Amtrak

Haha what the fuck

It’s for the thing you think it’s for.

Say what you want, but he made the trains run on time.

trump had zero to do with trains running on time. He probably can't even wipe his own ass

Why is he so fixated on Union Station?

Honestly only surprised he didn’t go after the Joseph R. Biden Jr. Station in Wilmington first!

He’s a lunatic with dementia…

Certainly plausible.

Union Station has been a de facto homeless shelter for years. Since it's in the Capitol's shadow it's probably the first thing that oligarchs think of when they think of poor people

I think that a lot of the people that work in Congress and then travel home on weekends pass through there.

You can certainly come across homeless people in Union Station, but I wouldn’t call it a de facto homeless shelter, at least during the day. It is more overrun by tourists meeting up for a tour or eating. Management relates to the leases for restaurants, stores, and gates and building maintenance.

Trying to guy Amtrak so he can privatize it?

Gut

😆

Biden liked trains. So now he'll destroy them just for spite.

Vance, miller and hegseth got heckled by protesters at union station the other day when they went to visit the national guard there. This is their revenge. abcnews.go.com/Politics/pro...

The three most vile people in the Trump admin - and that is a high bar.

That has to be it. Don't look for a deeper motive here. It is always revenge.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a government serving its people instead of promoting its agenda…

Because something something Biden something Amtrak

I wonder who he plans to put on those trains?

I think he’ll find pretty quickly?There’s no room. one of my best friends is a conductor for them on one of the “money loosing” cross country routes. THAT train that republicunts have screamed “no one rides” for years was oversold all summer… If those trains are full, you know the NEC is too.

trump trains. What could possibly go wrong?

We are in a whole different country now & it is not a better one.

Nationalisation ?

Privatisation and an inevitable rebrand, I'd guess.

You guys are jumping to him taking over the company itself, which is already a quasi arm of the government. It’s kind of a unique corporation, similar to Fannie Mae. That’s the best example I can think of. It would take an active Congress to privatize Amtrak. They were fully funded in the Big Ugly.

But if you want control ….

If he tries to do that, it’s going to be messy. Even though they do get government funding and they are government-created, they are still technically a private company. And they’ve long been Congress’ baby anyway. If he tries to do that, it’s going to be extremely messy.

And that’s not to say that it could never happen because well, there’s no rules anymore, but I’m not seeing it. I’d place betting odds that he up and dies a natural death before he gets to do that.

You could be right. Oddly enough, if he say placed private ownership in a few hands , he would effectively have Nationalisation with a cream off.

You’re kind of describing our present system when it comes to railroads. 90% of all tracks are privately owned and the bulk of that is held by just six companies - 4 US-Based and 2 Canadian-Based. Two of those four US companies are now trying to merge into a super-transcon company…

There is a point where there are say a handful of companies who are responsible for all productivity, which is effectively nationalisation. There are problems with this approach, as clearly they have no interest in the welfare of people or the planet.

There is just enough competition that we aren’t at the nationalization stage yet, but that could actually come if this merger goes through. I am a lifelong rail enthusiast. The private system is fascinating and entertaining, or it was. I’m in favor of actual nationalization now. Like everyone else.

But don’t you have to nationalise everything if you area dictator … goes with the territory. Just don’t tell the Oligarchs.

And he won’t even make the trains run on time

Meanwhile, Union Station 👇 bsky.app/profile/maud...

Love the senior women joining in the fun.

I'll never take a train to DC again. And neither should anyone else.

"at least Trump made the trains run on time" says the GOP as they fill the concentration camps.

They’re going to have to boot all the actual passengers first. Amtrak trains systemwide have been oversold all summer.

You think they'll hesitate to use the troops they intend to transport around the country -- likely heading straight to Chicago first -- to intimidate paying passengers into kicking rocks?

They’ll keep using air and road convoys to move troops around before they use the trains. The DOD does want Amtrak for true, extreme emergencies but they never really use it. Guy below me talking about homeless encampments might be on to something.

I'm going to guess this is due to the Veteran's encampment at Union Station.

*veterans

More like that's the excuse. It's more about another step to create a cordon around DC in advance of Trump's final push into dictatorship, to hinder any type of outside resistance from getting into the capital. They'll manufacture an excuse to barricade the roads when the time comes.

But they won't run on time.

Yep MAGA doing a bang up job in SE PA (SEPTA)

There won't be anybody left to make those trains run on time after a short while.

"at least Trump filled the concentration camps" says the GOP as they fill the concentration camps.

BTW, Mussolini did _not_ make the trains run on time. The professed value of fascism is a lie. It's a terrible and unproductive model for leadership.

the irony is, they'll probably get worse

To what possible end?

bsky.app/profile/dart...

As someone who regularly travels into Union Station, I predict this will be yet another shitshow

Is it because of the veterans' strike there?

He fears he will be physically removed so he is doing exactly what Hitler did in Berlin. HITLERS PLAYBOOK👇

We killed Hitler,why not any other dictator, especially in the states?

Government taking control of private companies. That sounds an awful lot like a right wing buzzword...

Trumpunism?

fascism?

why do people think communism is the only system that expropriates private property, for the love of god

True, Fascism does it as well.

we've had capitalist fascism for a while eminent domain (often involving governments taking property for, or on behalf of, private interests, ex: oil pipelines) and civil asset forfeiture ("authorities" charged with protecting property, not people, robbing people bc they can, and w/o consequences)

To be fair, the end result of capitalism tends to err FAR more to fascism.

Fascitalism!

Cold War propaganda is a hell of a drug.

Union Station is directly owned by USDOT already. The government owns most of the shares of Amtrak. There is no expropriation of private property here.

Amtrak is partially private. You can't say it isn't.

No, I can’t say that it isn’t. But the President appoints the board, it was created by act of Congress and the government owns the majority of shares and owns all the preferred shares, and it requires annual government funding.

Govt owns 70%

cold war stupid

Are you sure people think that? I thought we were just pointing out the absurdity of conservatives being famously anti-communist and attacking everything Democrats ever did by calling it communism.

its cause capitalists always assume the fascists are on their side right up until they're stabbed in the back

They're the same side

That’s the point of the post.

No it doesn't.

God I fucking wish this was communism. I wish we could give our elites the Lenin and Mao treatment. But no, this is fascism. Learn the difference.

Washington Union Station is already owns by the USDOT. Amtrak and the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation hold leases. USDOT is taking direct control of the retail spaces, not overall station management.

And Amtrak is also owned by the government.

The word you're thinking of is Fascism, not Communism. You think it's Communism because of literal decades of right-wing propaganda

Its not a private company. It's a government owned service.

no this is nazi shit

State capitalism, a core tenant of fascism? That's what you're thinking of right? Surely you understand the difference between fascism and communism and aren't a big dumbass, yes?

Except it’s not? It’s literally fascism. There’s a lot more difference in how that works in communism versus what’s happening right now.

The government already owns Union Station and Amtrak.

And yet we’re not communist in this country. That’s kind of my point. There’s a lot of pretty blatant nuance between them.

And to put it bluntly, Fascism is FAR FAR worse than Communism.

There’s sufficient commonality that I would not agree. They’re both terrifyingly evil.

buddy communism is the communal ownership of the means of production, what you're scared of is actually nazi propaganda

I’m quite aware of what communism is. It also has always entailed a violent single-party dictatorship, mass incarceration, torture and genocide.

yeah that's the nazi propaganda i was talking about, that's actual halocaust denialism

No it hasn’t, though. And by that logic, you DO know that every instance of Capitalism has caused at LEAST two of those at any given time, right?

it really doesn't sound like you're aware of communism is, actually

Oh won’t someone think of the Nazis and landlords and bankers!

Communists are the reason we’re not speaking German right now dumbass

Amtrak is not a private company, it’s owned by the government.

A Union Station is owned by the USDOT.

fair point, forgot about that

That doesn't mean they can just take whatever from it.

It's fascism you cretin. Donald Trump is a fascist. Try reading literally a book.

It’s fascism Trump is a fascist

Amtrak is a publicly owned for-profit company

Unlike, say, the DPRK, "National Socialism" is not a misnomer. It is a specific variety of socialism associated with ethnostatism.

it's fascism buddy.

does everyone over the age of like 50 just not actually know what communism is? jfc

Government control and control by the people are two different things though. One tends to change into the other via corruption.

Its actually fascism dumb dumb

na, this is fascism.

Tapping the sign: bsky.app/profile/mata...

So now he wants to play trains?

A Mussolini like action. We can only hope it ends the same way.

Mussolini gonna make the metro run on time?

To think this was a joke a couple years ago 😮‍💨

I can remember my father saying that when the government ran anything, it would be worse ran than any private company. I wonder what he would say today.

After half a lifetime of watching uncritically watching fox news?

If there was anything to say but “arrrrgghhhh”, I’d say it. Oy.

Guys, calling this Communist is funny and ironic but it's actually fascism. K thanks. You may continue to meme about it because it makes me chuckle but none of this is out of keeping with fascism.

Disrepair? Union Station is so fancy, the Federalist Society rents it out for their Scalia gala.

Last year, right after the election, when I was there for the final run of the Capitol Limited (it became the new Floridian the next day).

Me tooo, only went to the first stop so I could take the metro back but it was neat..kinda sad.

Gosh, what a dump. ;)

Sorry 🍊💩 wants to run your company, Amtrak. You'd better get your bankruptcy papers drafted. Only thing 🍊💩 knows is how to run a company into the ground.

Congress gave them full funding, somehow, in the big ugly.

#ETTD

Scamtrak

Is this part of their move to make DC a "network state". the tech bros would consider that a real FU to government and crown jewel if they could seize Washington.

Well well well who would have thought the rotting orange monster would be the first communist president of the United States.

This is fascism, not communism. Under communism, the people and workers own railroads. Not the government. This is not communism

Under real life communism the people and workers own the railroads through a collective organization called the government which is entirely controlled by a dictator or oligarchy. When the dust settles there's not much functional difference, just an aesthetic one.

I think the functional difference is that under communism people's lives gets better while under fascism the society and its people rot 👍

Except they don't.

Yeah lives don't improve under communism if you ignore improved literacy rates, wealth inequality, life span, gender and sex equality... etc

Life didn't improve for the 20 million people Stalin murdered in the purges. Didn't improve for the million murdered during China's Cultural Revolution.

And what of the millions killed under capitalism throughout world history?

Those people all sucked.

Wonderful, a world where everyone is living an equally bad life. If you're referring to the USSR, life expectancy and literacy rates increased relative to the also-authoritarian Russia that came before, but not relative to western countries.

Cuba and China had life expectancy and literacy rates that had/have surpassed America. (Especially China, although admittedly it is hardly communist these days)

When comparing literacy rates between the US and developing countries, you have to be very careful. Since "able to read" literacy is already near-100% in the US, the numbers you see reported are based on ability to read at a certain level, not the ability to read at all.

Life expectancy, it turns out, is also more complicated than it might seem, but that's a much larger topic. The better question is probably, would you prefer an extra 6 months of expected survival time at birth, or a higher quality of life for the entire time you are alive?

But I agree that these are the aesthetics of fascism, not of communism.

This is quite literally something out of the fascist playbook. You are an idiot and are literally falling for the right-wing propaganda about Communism that's been going on since McCarthy.

Wtaf?

😳

Amtrak, for context, spent multiple years fighting a legal battle to take over Union Station from inept landlords. Now the world's most inept landlord snatched it in a moment.

Looks like Penn Station is next on the list for a Trump transportation hub takeover. Don’t be fooled that Amtrak is in control here. media.amtrak.com/2025/08/u-s-...

Whattttt! So the trains won’t run on time now?!!!

As if they did to begin with… this ain’t Italy.

What about the veterans group that was doing a sit-in protest at Union Station?

Bingo

Fucking fuck 😓

His actions have objectively made DC more unsafe for residents by drastically increasing the number of interactions between citizenry and law enforcement. Can’t even walk or drive to a McDonald’s in DC without getting stopped by cops. Also can’t stand outside your own home.

#unionstation #washingtondc #Trump #amtrak #Republicans #MAGA #veterans #nationalguard #usmilitary #whitehouse Trump Union Station Takeover in 90 seconds Watch / Comment / Share / Subscribe for FREE www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTIg...

Anyone else see a Mussolini-style propaganda campaign coming?

It's already here

Troops deployed against US citizens, marching under a SECOND flag with his face on it

🤢

I'm gonna vomit

What are you talking about, these are all Trump's original ideas that he wrote about in his book, Mein Kampf. He'd never steal somebody else's ideas.

The government starved Amtrak to what it is today. It could be a clean, efficient, and affordable way to travel the country, but NO, we can’t have our tax dollars go to that. I just returned from Switzerland and traveling on their public transportation (trains, buses, and boats) was a delight.

You can technically make that argument, but they were born starved from the get-go. The original plan in 1971 was for them to only operate for a few years. OPEC threw a wrench in that so they survived to today… but you are correct. They have never gotten what they need for a credible system.

This started way back with railroad oligarchs & then to car manufacturers. I.E. Henry Ford. There was no way that wealthy white guys were going to let public transportation develop

Railroads in the Golden Age provided really great public transportation, even though it wasn’t public in the modern sense that we know it today. The auto manufacturers are largely responsible for the decimation of our passenger rail system. Interestingly, not ford though. He liked trains.

There’s also the problem of private fright companies buying up the majority of the railroad lines. The only tracks not owned by freight companies are in the North Corridor. And even that has four different owners. I’d argue that’s a larger reason for the decimation.

It has two owners. Amtrak owns the majority of it, and Metro North owns a section in New York and Connecticut. Also freight railroads didn’t just buy up the tracks, they’ve always owned them. That’s been a fixture of our rail system pretty much since the beginning - 200 years in 2027.

There’s kind of a big difference between the US & Switzerland though….

There is but that doesn't mean we can't come up with solutions that work for us. We don't. It's never a priority.

I agree. But it’s not nearly as simple as saying “hey, let’s be like Switzerland”

Switzerland is great but I understand the US size limitations. I live in WI. What would have improved things for my state, a high speed system that would link Milwaukee to Madison, was killed by Scott Walker in 2010. Projects like this could lead to more links to cities in the region and beyond.

Unless there are plans to immediately expand, I’m not sure that spending a hundreds of millions of dollars to build a train track to replace an hours drive with a 45 minute train trip makes a ton of financial sense. Now if you run the track to Minneapolis, Chicago, Des Moines, Iowa City, St Louis…

The difference is they actually care about the quality of their citizen’s lives. Yes, the US is vast, but there are plenty of opportunities to link major cities with clean, efficient rail services.

Sure, and the fact that it’s the size of Vermont & New Hampshire with only a couple primary population centers is meaningless.

See what happens when you elect a dictator

‘Illegally taking control’

Great, now the place will be covered in gold leaf, the trains won't run on time, and the bathrooms will be dirty.

Who said they run on time to begin with? I’m a very proud guest rewards member, but even I have to concede. The private ownership of our national rail. Network has meant that they’ve never been reliable to begin with.

He thinks he’s fucking Casey Jones now.

He doesn’t even like trains. They scare Republicans.

Why does it feel like he wants to control the way people may run away?

Should be another illegal taking, amirite?

Was there in June. Clean, modern. Bought a jacket in the Uniglo there. He'll F it up. This is a man who bankrupted casinos.

Yeah, I was just there a few days ago. It was FINE.

I use it to get to conventions, it's a great place..hope it stays that way

Actually had great customer service in both Uniglo and the Subway there. Not always the case in DC. The station itself was spotless and the mens room clean. I was impressed.

Yeah, same. I went to that Uniqlo and I went to Pret. It was all great. Bathroom was clean. Everything has gone smoothly (I go down there every couple of months). No complaints

But why? He hates trains.

And yet, troops must have efficient transport.

Is he going to have the national guard cleaning up graffiti now

That would be better than having them just stand around ... Patching potholes and fixing broken sidewalks would make the city safer too. I'm just saying.

I mean, maybe! bsky.app/profile/brad...

Next they will be harvesting crops

Well, some of them anyway.

I'm thinking they'd all be used for that. After a point, the peons will be used for everything. He's racist AF but he's also a classist ... and they are here to serve him.

bsky.app/profile/chur...

Who is John Galt? Dagney Taggert would be appalled.

➡️epstein

Don't remember things getting better AT ALL after trains were commandeered last time

He’s not taking over the trains. Just the stations. For the executive branch to take over management of Amtrak would be a pretty thorny thing to do. The way they are set up is a little bit unique, and they are more the domain of Congress than the presidency.

Congress?? Who dis?

Did they need the garbage cans changed or something?

Is he going to use trains to take illegals to privately owns prisons or concentration camps? This reminds me of another time in history this might have happened. Just can’t put my finger on it.

The Fat Controller will make the trains very sad.

He’s just starting to take us over’ WASHING DC should be a state!