(Disclaimer: I voted against Trump and anyone who supported him in my state.)
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I feel like the U.S. is becoming similar to Russia. For example, we are seeing an autocratic strongman holding the highest office and only vaguely behaving within the democratic system, with a clear intent to rule unilaterally with a congress and Supreme Court that are less checks and more support for maintaining the power base. And as generations continue to experience this way of life, America as a society will forget what it was like for the past 250 years where both parties respected the system with peaceful transfer of power.
It’s sad, but fascinating in a kind of slow motion train crash to be alive for.
Fucked regardless but how fucked remains to be seen. Just as before, Trump will spend his presidency golfing, what really matters are his cabinet picks. Best case scenario is that just like 2016-2020 in-fighting and general incompetence make the administration a revolving door and keep the Christian Nationalist from realizing their darkest ambitions. Worst Case is that the Fascist have learned from their mistakes. I also think Trump either dying or being forced to step down (with a pardon of course) is a possibility that is on the table. Vance is a much more competent Fascist and this is definitely a worst case scenario.
Regardless, I think there are a few things that are guaranteed to happen:
- The dismantling of much of the Federal Government. Starve the Beast will finally come to fuition. The Department of Eduction, the FDA, The EPA, ect will become toothless if not entirely abolished. De-regulation will bring us back to early 20th century levels of consumer protection and quality control. Read “The Jungle” to get an idea. Public Health is going to tank dramatically.
- The little safety net Americans have will be pulled out from under them. Workers will be entirely beholden to their employers. The price of most consumer goods will surge, bankruptcy from healthcare cost will skyrocket, and homelessness will become even more common. Homelessness will become completely criminalized and the % of the American population imprisoned will make today’s prison population look small.
- The police and surveillance state will be expanded dramatically with the intent of targeting undesirables. Immigrants will be deported, while Trans people and political dissidents will be labeled as sexual criminals and will be eliminated. As time marches on more groups will be targets for the state. People around you will simply disappear sometimes, victims of secret police.
- An increase in media censorship by morality police. Pornography will be banned, and using that vague label media critical of the regime or expressing ideas against the regimes interest will be censored.
- The US will pull out of NATO and pursue a policy of isolation. Authoritarian and expansionist regimes around the world will be allowed to pursue their interests unchecked.
- A general brain-drain as educated people with the means to do so flee to Canada or Europe. As time passes it is likely that emigration from America will be made more difficult by the state, effectively stranding people here who didn’t get out soon enough.
- We will completely miss the window to do anything to avoid the worst-case scenarios for climate change. So it’s not just America that’s fucked here.
Smoke em while you got em, it’s about to get rough for everyone. We are in the death throes of the Neo-Liberal world order. Buy a firearm and get a vpn. Keep your vehicle as fueled as you can, and if you are able keep a sizable amount of cash stored somewhere safe. There’s never been a better time to go vegan and get in shape. Do what you can for the people you care about.
depends on how much of his immunity he chooses to exercise. also be intrtesting to see how many of the new repuglicans fall into line with his shit policy
It’s actually likely to be better as long as trump waddles on. He’s just so god damn bumbling that even with all the cards, he’ll find little ways to not get his shit done.
Mind you it won’t be enough, and it will be god damn fucking horrific. But decidedly less smooth while Narcissism Jones keeps grabby-handsing the wheel from his handlers and derailing his own goals.
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They’ll off him themselves by February and blame it on another nation to get their wartime economy and rights removal powers. And the people will buy merch.
It’s a double-edged sword, even for the GOP. Trump’s followers are a cult, and cultists follow one person. So without Trump as the godhead, there’s no one with enough (ugh) charisma and panache to unify the GOP rabble.
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Sure, but understand basic Followership: a cultist will allow any action, any cut, so long as they believe it ingratiates them with their Leader.
No culthead, no cult following. The GOP reverts to a mob.
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He seems to lack competence in many ways, but some of the guys around him are a whole lot more conniving and potentially effective.
It’s also not likely Trump feels any urge to hire a somewhat moderate(ish) cabinet of professionalls like he did last time. I assume he learned his lesson given that they all eventually turned on him.
So let’s see. I think he’s spent the past 4 years surrounding himself with some bad hombres, to borrow a saying, and now he’s ready to act with fewer guardrails.
I’m more scared of the JD Vance than Trump. He’s much worse
I’m worried about this too. It wouldn’t be surprising if Trump dies in the next four years. Vance is not qualified for the job. He’s smarter than Trump though so scheming would be much worse.
Vance himself is irrelevant, the problem is he’s an errand boy for the would-be technocracy.
The world is on the precipice of an unbreakable tyranny, and he wants to give the keys of power to the ones making the drone armies.
This is why I’ve argued that technology, in terms of actual benefit for people, peaked many years ago. I won’t try to pinpoint a date, but we have past peak technology from this perspective.
After that peak, advancements in technology have mostly just served as means to control the population or extract more from us (see enshittification) and have not been of benefit to the average person.
Technology allows for actual hard power to be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer. I don’t mean like a dictator with an army behind them, but a dictator and small group with enough tech to control everything. You are right, and it’s extremely concerning.
America has always been a white supremacist slave colony.
It will still be fucking over the entire planet.
Weirdly, it depends on how honest Trump is.
If he forgets about everything he talked at any part of the campaign, and just decide to maximize his tranquility during his term, not as bad as if he decides to keep his promises.
I’m hoping he just focuses on enriching himself. Clearing his convictions and then lining his pockets with more NFTs and corruption. That’ll keep him sufficiently occupied to not fuck too much with the lives of everyday people.
Yeah, but everyone else around him does have clear goals and plans that they do want to accomplish. And they’re prepared this time, whereas they were kinda caught by surprise in 2016.
The more golf he plays the less damage he can do
Every nation should be inviting him for state dinners, banquets, golf tournaments, the works. Collectively keep his ego constantly jerked off and away from any advisors. Keep that going for four years and we might just distract the child enough.
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Better than the alternative
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Then we are good.
Hopefully.
Slightly worse than with Harris. But the downward trend would never stop.
If you’re a white Christian male you are the shit.
Anyone else is losing rights
Also Trump will declare martial law after 4 years with presidential immunity and every position of power stacked with handpicked loyalists.
Unless there is a revolution of some kind the US will probably go the path of Nazi Germany after Hitler achieved total control
anywhere from not really, to literally world war 3.
trump is a loose cannon.
We do not win here.
Some of you people didn’t pay attention to the Congressional results and it shows.
What do you mean ? (The house is on track to be won by the gop. The senate is won by the gop. I just want to understand your point.)
“Not really” isn’t an option.
The question isn’t how fucked America is, that answer is some shade of “very.”
The question is who is going down with us.
Ha gotcha, thank you
Pretty fucked, but not as fucked as Ukraine, Palestine, Lebanon, or Taiwan.
NATO will be fucked for a while if the US withdraws, but other NATO countries may ramp up military spending over time.
This situation is a worldwide danger. The US is/was a world power, it has/had the largest national economy in the world, it has the largest military in the world.
Previously, we could be concerned that democratic countries (including the US) weren’t putting enough pressure on authoritarian countries (like Russia, China, and North Korea) to improve. Now we have to worry that the US will actually become a fully authoritarian country, like Russia or China.
On the bright side… the rest of the world is realizing that being reliant on one country for military power and maintaining stability was a terrible idea. The UN and NATO only have power if the countries are willing to enforce those decisions, and if the US doesn’t, there isn’t really a comparable backup option. The US military was always the elephant in the room keeping things generally less extreme just by its existence and not reacting impulsively.
Just to add, it was always the US strategy to have the western world dependent on it for defence, it gave them a lot of soft and hard power and allowed for unopposed imperialism in “less important” (with a lot of irony) parts of the world.
If NATO fades into oblivion, that would be a great opportunity for European countries to make a news defense organization where a single country like Hungary or Turkey can’t play their political games.
Technically the EU already is an defence organisation (Lisbon accords), even with a stronger mutual assistance clause than NATO. What is different is that there is no integrated command structure. But that is currently rapidly changing, Germany and the Netherlands already are fully integrated (more than NATO standards are), the Baltics are making great progress.
There is at least a chance
Huh, that’s fascinating. I wasn’t aware, but that’s cool to hear, despite how frustrating and depressing the motivation for it may be
I expect that the EU is going to have to claim defence competencies to continue the Union’s defense. There are way too many small countries in NATO that can’t contribute meaningfully to a military beyond some basic battalions and the EU needs something more robust than France and Poland.
It’s fucked. But it’s been fucked for a long time. You just didn’t see it until the other day. It’s like the foaming at the mouth from rabies. By the time you get that far, it’s too late. But that animal bite months ago, and itching and fever were the warning signs, and everybody ignored it.
It depends…
Do you think Jimmy Carter has seen the season 4 finale of Breaking Bad?
🛎️
We’re going to have a great 4 years. The first 2 will be amazing if we actually get a super majority.
The first year will be him living off Bidens reduction of inflation. EVERY policy Trump has discussed increases prices. So we will have hyper inflation.
Name One policy he has discussed that will cut costs in his 4 years please.
Well he’s going to try to lower energy prices and cut taxes on paychecks as much as possible plus cut taxes on social security. So that’s multiple things in one little sentence lol
The lowest energy costs are in solar and renewables, which he has promised to slash all investments that Biden put into place for those. So energy costs would go up long term…not down. Also the impact on the environment will be more for fossil fuels so it will cost more to clean up long term. (more expensive, not cheaper)
As for cutting taxes on Social Security, what is it going to do? He’s also mentioned cut backs to social security, but we haven’t seen any numbers for it, so we don’t know yet. We do know Obama tried to up the the salary limit for minimum wage for overtime requirements from 23,000 to over 47k but the courts blocked it. Then Trump set it at 35k. Biden has upped it to 55,000. Trump has said he wants to bring that back down. You know, because all those hard working Americans who make 40k a year don’t deserve to make overtime I guess.
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The Federal government CAN just barge in. We specifically designed the structure that way. Federal supercedes state.
And what about project 2025. That total teeheee not our plan teeheee thing …
I’d love be as optimistic as you but unless Trump changes his mind the US will get a brainwormed fanatical anti-vaccier in charge of deciding which vaccines are safe to use. Even if the states don’t cooperate with trump’s agenda there are so many long standing federal institutions which till now you’ve never needed to think about that are about to get wrecked.
Federal laws trump state laws every time, those blue states will be just as shit as the red states in no time
Support from local and state governments does make a difference though. While federal agencies can still enforce these laws, local/state agencies could look the other way. Cannabis is still federally illegal, but some states have basically said “no thanks, we’re good as long as you stick to our rules on it.”
It comes down to how much state governments want to go to bat for their constituencies and how much the federal government wants to press the issue. All else being equal, I’d rather be in a state that stands up for my rights than one that doesn’t.
As somebody who has lived through the end of a democracy, trust me when I say the federal government will steamroll through local and state governments
Where, if you don’t mind me asking?
Sorry, I’m not going to give details for my own safety
Totally fair
My so called blue state of California just voted against minimum wage increase, against rent control, against banning slavery, and for increasing the war on drugs. At least this time we narrowly voted to approve gay marriage (unlike last time where we banned it)
He will absolutely move the military into a blue state to force compliance. This is how the next civil war will start. Red Force and blue resistance.
And what about the ones, like me, in red states? How fucked are we? (I know the answer and hence drunk and high rn)
Join us in the PNW! We have legal weed!
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