Realistically... How fucked is the US?
Realistically... How fucked is the US?
(Disclaimer: I voted against Trump and anyone who supported him in my state.)
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.
Not just the US, the entire planet.
For example: Ukraine Gaza Taiwan South Korea
Ugh, just thinking about the ripple effect that this is going to cause is makes me want to curl up in a corner.
More fucked than BREXIT.
The US will continue ticking. Money keeps flowing, and greed will continue running rampant.
As someone making a bank and based on the projections, the Trump tax changes are going to pay well. Anyone making less than $100k, or living off of social security or retirement are going to really suffer.
The Trump tax breaks are going to fund a future international trip. And poor folks will starve.
Btw I voted for Kamala. And America voted for a old dude who struggles to form sentences.
Luckily the House of representatives have set up the rules such that they can call to change their majority leader whenever they disagree with each other, so very few actual policies will change. They might even fail to pass their own tax plan again, that would be nice.
What is fucked is USA's allies depending on support from NATO, USA's economy as Tariff season is here now, USA immigrants, and of course the Environment. Last time Trump was in he removed protections for forests and streams, and put a Coal Lobbyist in charge of the EPA.
The House isn't stuck with that though. They can amend the rules for the next session, and I'd imagine any speaker worth his salt would demand that rule be stricken because it is unworkable.
Luckily the House of representatives have set up the rules such that they can call to change their majority leader whenever they disagree with each other, so very few actual policies will change.
A bunch of things did get changed during the last presidency because of the Republican majority.
Healthcare, internet privacy, hell even how mail got delivered.
If it's not from policy changes, it's from gutting the department and putting in cronies willing to sabotage the industry. You brought up environment policies, yeah those are gonna die.
One of the biggest things is that the "deep state", an innocuous thing turned into a convenient boogeyman by trump, will be quietly destroyed. This is the thing that actually keep your mail arriving, your food edible and your children's toys not coated in lead. The "deep state", meaning actual subject matter experts doing their jobs throughout entire government for years, regardless of current administration, are all going to be replaced by kid rock and vaping young republicans fresh from dropping out of their second semester in at The University of Southern Alabama State.
That's who's going to be the dude inspecting your meat for e.coli and signing off on the clinical trials for your perception meds - Gunner, Hunter and Ryder.
Really don't think anyone is considering the reality of how deeply fucked we're going to be as we're all fixed fully on the front door for obvious signs of trouble (immediate societal decay), while these broken cartoon villains fill the crawlspace with fertilizer and gasoline and kick in the backdoor with flamethrowers in hand.
We're fucked, and we're going to be focused on monitoring the wrong indicators of how fucked, until it is just beyond any repair within any of our lifetimes. For example, you're going to have FIVE fundamentally broken people on the Supreme Court for the rest of your life. It's over.
Exactly. They seem to forget the regulations rhat were lifted for the railroad industry and the multiple train disasters as a result.
There is alot of things the government does for you that most people likely have never thought about. Take invasive species for instance; There are huge efforts to contain and eradicate a variety of invasive species. You've probably never heard about these efforts. But they are needed to maintain and protect both farmland and the ecology of the United States. If those efforts are defunded and those species are allowed to run rampant it'll be almost impossible to put that genie back in the bottle.
This is literally how we'll get to "but brawndo gots what plants crave?"
Your understanding of the deep state is incorrect. Look up Edward Snowden if you'd like to know more.
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.
Even if trump doesn't do everything in project 2025, the supreme court picks mean we're basically ultra fucked. Like, that's best case.
Between 2017 and 2021, things got pretty bad. Riots, wars, a plague, economic crash, and it ended with a mob breaking into the nation's capital and trashing the place.
Can't imagine a repeat will be better.
And most of America was like, let's do this again. Fucking idiots.
most of America
One American in five.
That was with moderates and non-partisan civil servants playing interference on his worst ideas.
You remember everything that came out about how people would ignore his orders until he forgot?
None of those people will be there
At some point he needs to be able to physically enact proposals. Like, it's one thing to say "Build a wall" and it's another to get the land rights, hire the contractors, do the work, maintain it on competition, etc, etc.
You can go down to the border now and you'll find this rink a dink bullshit that's falling over in a light breeze. Then you've got spools full of razor wire tossed into the steadily shallower Rip Grande. People got paid tens of millions to put that garbage in the ground. And that was under an ostensibly competent administration.
I agree we're going to get a ton of shit policy. Police violence under Trump is going to skyrocket. Vigilantee violence is going to jump. Border guard violence is going through the roof. But, like, is he going to build anything that can last? Or is he going to get the Americanized version of Neom? A bunch of scammers delivering invisible clothes to prance around in.
I guess we'll find out.
Wr can hope not to repeat the plague, but with Trump empowering anti-vaxxers, even that can't be taken for granted.
Oh yeah, we're absolutely getting a fucking measles epidemic before the end of his term.
To everyone in here saying that this is the end of democracy and this is the end times, what is stopping you from buying a gun and training with other liberals/leftists? Or are you just going to keel over and die?
I'm not a killer.
I already have guns, several of them.
🤝
The gun store closes before I get home from work. That's why I'm going tomorrow.
PM if you need recommendations
Good stuff! Join the SRA or John Brown Gun Club if in your area if you can.
If they can afford a gun they likely have one, but rather than forming sects and training it seems like the moral thing to do, causing the least amount of harm to anybody, is wait for the enemy to attack first, if they do attack.
Joining a small militant group or ecoterrorism sect not only brings personal risks but also runs the risk of harming innocents, and being manipulated by other interested parties who would like to see destruction on American shores.
Aren't bullets expensive though ;. ;
Depends on what you consider expensive. For general purpose training, 9mm rounds (pistol) are easily found at about 25c each and 5.56 (rifle) are found at about 40c each.
You first
It's exactly what I did the last time orange man was in office, so yes, me first. Now you. Let's hit the range together.
Some people are going to die-- mostly women. More people are going to have their lives turned upside-down, especially immigrants and ethnic and sexual minorities. Many immigrants, even legal ones, are going to be expelled. Corporations are going to run wild as regulation is abandoned. People are going to be bankrupted by predatory healthcare firms at a much higher rate than now. Every form of corporate pollution, adulteration, cheating and chicanery will be tolerated. The judiciary will be further corrupted. The US will not only withdraw from NATO, but will try to shut it down. Ukraine will be handed to Putin on a platter. Taiwan, the Baltics, Moldova and Poland will be left to fend for themselves. The ethnic cleansing in Gaza will transition even further to a full-scale genocide. Every aspect of government will be handed to corrupt, incompetent fanatics: kakistocracy all the way down. The impartiality of the civil service will be destroyed and the 19th-century spoils system reinstated. Social Security will be privatized and gutted. Obamacare will be eliminated. Congress will hold show trials of Trump's perceived enemies. Terrorist acts and sabotage of critical infrastructure will massively increase, and the clampdowns that follow will be used to further degrade what few rights we still have.
But at least you won't have Kamala's pantsuit to complain about.
All that, and you may have left out the most damaging of all.. Trump will likely pull the US out of Copenhagen, leaving no chance of limiting temps below 2C let alone getting anywhere near 1.5C. The excess deaths from this will likely dwarf COVID.
bro, i know all that stuff is bad, but have you heard her laugh? we made a solid choice.
(i hope i don't need the /s, but Poe's Law says i probably do)
Wait until he mobilizes the military into blue states to force compliance.
Probably less than he killed during the pandemic. Unless he uses nukes
Breathtakingly fucked. Wannabe dictator with a mandate from the dumbest mfers alive.
But take heart. The battle for the US is now a fight between the old guard Reaganite Republicans and the out&out Fascists. For the next 4 years at least the Dems are a complete non-factor. I hope the DNC is proud of their accomplishment.
All the worst possible things that could happen are now not just on the table but incredibly likely.
old guard Reaganite Republicans
So, the non-overt fascists?
Yes.
All they really care about is strengthening the oligarchy. Cutting taxes. Deregulation. If it benefits big business, they're for it. And that's where the conflict will arise. The loud and proud fascists want shit like mass deportations. The Reaganites know that's bad news for a lot of businesses. Construction, agriculture, etc.
Also now he's convinced that God specifically saved him from a bullet and chose him...
The orange shrivelled taco will probably keel over before his term ends. Just look at him, does this look like someone who might survive four more years?
What would happen afterwards with JD Vance at the helm I'm less clear.
Multiple regulatory bodies are going to get disbanded. The EPA is unlikely to survive, whole departments of the FDA are about to get gutted. Anything involving industrial safety is going to get its funding cut. Unconstitutional crackdowns on free and independent media is almost certain. Large scale damage to the functions of many government institutions can be expected. Massive economic damage due to reckless deregulation ( that's even before they start putting tariffs on everything and wind up in multiple simultaneous trade wars). Funding for education and infrastructure maintenance will be reduced to allow tax cuts for the already wealthy. Massive loss of global influence and a massive gain in influence by hostile autocratic nations is also something you can expect.
I could go on and on but even if you were to assume they weren't serious about project 2025 (if you haven't read that you should) it's real bad.
call me hopelessly naiive but just.. why? the why is what i can never wrap my head around? why do they want to destroy the country? do they hate it? and like.. why would people want to get rid of social security? do they just want people after 65 years old to.. die? why?? i'm so sad..
Yes. America has always been two countries. I hate the America they love and they hate the America we love. And the problem is that these Americas have always existed together. We’re the Union to their confederacy. We’re the premature anti fascists to their silver shirts.
Dictators only care about one thing: absolute power. They will destroy the country they take over to get that power and to keep it for as long as possible
Many believe they are saving the country by voting for Trump. Everyone sees that America is going downhill. Everything is more expensive, more uncertain, more precarious. Leftists blame corporations and corporate capture of government agencies. Right wingers think that more corporate power is good and if left unchecked, the "free market" (aka government rules that favor unchecked corporate malfeasance) will be better for America.
People vote for their economic interests, as best as they can understand them. Most on the right think that their economic interests are served by corporate deregulation and scapegoating of immigrants. However, within that context, this is also why removing social security is not realistic. That's a direct attack on people's benefits, which they are not in favor of. Right wing corporate types want to cut social security so they don't have to pay taxes, or there will be more money in the government coffers to give back to the corporations. But the majority of right wing people that the corporate types rely on for votes will never vote to repeal social security.
America has always been a white supremacist slave colony.
It will still be fucking over the entire planet.
The planner will never recover from his systematic sabotage of all efforts to save it. This is what scares me most. He lies through his teeth to make money, a lakey to soulless corporate mega entities and the entire human race will pay for this one man's greed, long after he has died. Our kids will pay for his opulence and that to me is so sad.
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
white Christian males are also susceptible to measles and pollution and severe storms
Inb4 Trump’s Nazi base on Venus.
Who cares, it's what they want and what they voted for, AGAIN. I'd be more concerned about the rest of the world. America can go off in a puff of smoke and it would be the best thing the ever did
Listen, I hate my country right now, and am disgusted by the people who live here...
That's it, that's the end of my sentence.
We should remember that most Americans still live in blue states with sane governments. The federal government can't just barge in and do whatever it wants, and if tries to do so, the social contract that binds the nation together is broken and secession becomes a real possibility. But that's unlikely because Trump is far too clueless to know about any of the problems he'll run into if he tries to implement any of his plans.
Which is fine for him because it was always a con anyway. He talks and acts out of his ass. What he will do is anyone's guess, but it'll at least be restrained by what's realistically possible.
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)
The Federal government CAN just barge in. We specifically designed the structure that way. Federal supercedes state.
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.
And what about the ones, like me, in red states? How fucked are we? (I know the answer and hence drunk and high rn)
Realistically people should start to self sort and leftists should start to purchase and train with guns if they don’t have them for their family’s protection.
Join us in the PNW! We have legal weed!
And what about project 2025. That total teeheee not our plan teeheee thing …
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.
anywhere from not really, to literally world war 3.
trump is a loose cannon.
We do not win here.
The US is just as fucked as everything and everyone else, which is 100%
Trump was pretty ineffective in his first term, largely because he did a terrible job of supporting people who really agreed with his agenda, and an even worse job of removing people from influential positions who didn't.
He said during his campaign that he knew much better who to trust, but now he's got Elon Musk and RFK Jr. prominently featured. I don't think he has learned anything, and I think he will be just as ineffective this time.
It's possible that some of the Republicans in Congress will support more of his agenda, but even there if they have to overcome the filibuster, I don't think mass deportation, a federal abortion ban, or most of the rest of the potential worst of it is in the cards.
I reckon that in all likelihood the Project 2025 folks will piss him off at some point and he'll just throw a tantrum and refuse to work with them. Doesn't mean he'll suddenly turn into a leftist, but if he doesn't play ball, they'll have trouble getting anything passed.
They'll kill off the filibuster as soon as it gets in their way. They don't care about tradition or institutional continuity. And anyway, the Democrats seldom resort to the filibuster, they just bend over.
Trump and Musk will have a power struggle within a few months. Trump hates the idea that someone's richer than him, and will want to humiliate him. Trump will dump RFK Jr too, as soon as Jr gets more publicity than Trump. What will be semi-permanent are the careerist shitstains like the Speaker, the God-botherers with their crusade against women, and the anti-immigrant scum.
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.
Until they kill him or use the 25th amendment to install Vance. Now that he’s won, you think the people around the useful idiot who have accepted all the Russian money will just let him fuck their plans up?
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.
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.
The Fifth Risk is a very good read for anyone who might be interested in a finer grained look into the lesser-known functions of our government 👍
Before, his power was checked by legislature....but now GOP has full control over the gov, and the supreme Court has 5 members nominated by Trump, soon to be 7.
Hand maidens tale seems possible. Destruction of the middle class through tariffs, union busting, tear down of heath coverage, teardown public schools, force colleges to abandon certain studies or no federal money....
Add in non stop fossil fuel promotion with drill baby drill attitudes, tear down NOAA and the nhc because strong hurricane news reinforces climate change.
I guarantee in 4 years Trump will try to name a successor instead of holding an election.
in 4 years Trump will try to name a successor
That would require the narcissist to not think he's still young and vibrant and will never die. He will go the same way his father did, being manipulated by the worst around him as he drifts into dementia. He will be propped up as a puppet as Reagan was.
Here's a horrifying thought: JD's Silicon Valley puppetmasters wait until Trump has served just over 2 years into his term, then invoke the 25th and install JD. In the meantime, the MAGA types work the system to ensure they can guarantee a Vance victory through whatever means necessary for the next 2 cycles (since his first abbreviated session won't count as an official term), or a total of 10 years, before most Americans even realize we have sleepwalked into a Vance dictatorship funded by and primarily benefiting oligarchs like Musk and Thiel
He will go the same way his father did, being manipulated by the worst around him as he drifts into dementia. He will be propped up as a puppet as Reagan was.
I'm quite sure that this is already the case.
tear down NOAA
Fuuuccckkkk.... Add to the list of things I forgot... The AccuWeather guy is about to become even more wealthy....
The billionaire class are the only winners of this election, but then again when aren't they the winner? Money is literally power.
I guarantee in 4 years Trump will try to name a successor instead of holding an election.
No. He will not name a successor, he will remain president. Either he will eliminate elections or he will do like his idol, Putin. Arrest and murder anyone who dares oppose him.
He is an extreme narcissist and egotist. Like extreme extreme. He cannot see a future where he's not on the throne.
Trump had a Republican majority in the House and Senate when he entered office in 2017. They were incompetent, and it took them a while to get anything done.
They didn't have a Project 2025 game plan going in like they do now.
Yeah but he probably thought he was going to have 8 years in a row. Now he has bigger ass-kissers.
Add in non stop fossil fuel promotion with drill baby drill attitudes
Do you remember a few years ago when the orange idiot hugged a piece of coal and called it "beautiful clean coal"? Ugh, what a dip shit.
I guarantee in 4 years Trump will try to name a successor instead of holding an election.
And it'll certainly be one of his moronic children.
Goddamnitalltohell. I forgot we're going to have to subscribe to private disaster warning systems. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Perfectly describes everything they want to do.
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.
Honestly who knows, it's literally on the whims of the giant toddler and who he listens to last that afternoon.
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.
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
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.
I have spent all day crying and drafting escape plans since my life is now in extreme danger. I'm a Latina immigrant, trans, and drag-adjacent performer
Is that you Iniko?
You have my axe, for what it's worth. Godspeed.
Good luck and I wish you the safest journey to somewhere safe as possible.
If you’re in a blue state you will be much safer. If you’re not, see if you can relocate to one even if that means you sleep on someone’s couch for a while. I wish you the best.
keep in mind this opinion also promises that it can't be fixed, as the more blue voters that leave the red leaning states the more power those red leaning states have. Moving to a blue leaning state only removes the blue votes from the red leaning state in favor of increasing the power of an already blue state.
Of course if he somehow manages to find a way to do away with the election process this would be true, but currently the best bet overall is going to be stay in your state, honestly if you can lower solid blue districts in favor of saturating red districts that's the best option but that's a difficult task.
Our system does not operate under popular vote. It runs off the electoral college, its the main reason red states want to gerrymander the district lines to make all black areas be their own district, its less damage if every opponent is in the same district as it allows only one district to be in opposition instead of multiple.
I wish you luck and safety.
I hate that i'm saying this, but Canada or somewhere in the EU are probably your best bets. If Project 2025 goes according to plan we're going to see a great upheaval come Q1 2025 that probably clusterfucks everything.
Long term with christian school mandates via defunding education and funding vouchers will further create a hostile nation for anyone who does not conform to a heterosexual white nationalist christian identity.
If push comes to shove, I sincerely invite you to look at Mexico as an alternative as a trans Latina. Sure, your life won't be a luxury, but you'll be happy and free. You'd be surprised at how well we're doing now, how accepting the Mexican population is regarding important LGBT+ issues and what a bright future we have ahead of us.
What does your escape plan look like?
Edit: lmao people LARPing
Maybe not a great idea for some individuals to advertise their escape plans in open channels online?
Honestly, the internet doesn't feel "safe" anymore, in general. I've already stopped myself saying certain things a few times in the last 24 hours.
"Great Firewall of China" style internet incoming.
Put on your pirate hat and get while the gettings good. Sneakernets makin a comeback.
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.
Trump has never kept a promise in his life
Then we are good.
Hopefully.
The world is fucked. A climate change denier was elected to one of the most influential countries and we're already past mitigating some of the worst effects. There is no coming back.
Let me put it this way: we will see the true beginning of WW3 in the Baltics. Trump will predictably not act upon that and the response will be 100% up to Europe itself.
That response better be an armed one, and quick too, or we all better start practicing cyrillic here in W-europe.
Regardless if we are lucky, "only" tens of thousands will die. More likely it will be millions.
So yeah, Trump kinda bedazzled us there, no way around it. Won't be until the people who voted him in will start hurting personally that they'll finally realize they've been conned. But too little too late.
Won't be until the people who voted him in will start hurting personally that they'll finally realize they've been conned. But too little too late.
Cute that you think they won't just blame Mexicans when they do start hurting.
As long as they have a group to scapegoat
Oh he'd act. He'd assist Russia and be the other Axis power.
Germany's fatal mistake in WW2 was not being America instead.
Who, exactly, is to take its place along with the British Empire and USSR in holding back fascism?
Extremely, tarrifs will erase the middle class. All regulations will be repealed allowing even more corporate power and influence. We're about to experience the Gilded Age on crack mixed with the burning hells of our mother Earth scorned.
They're done with the middle class here. They don't want to raise the poverty level worldwide, they want to bring us down to match the rest of the world. It's strip-mining time, we're too expensive for the international rich's tastes.
Time to stock up on the automatic rifles they want us all to have so much, and learn carpentry to build some guillotines.
Maybe the French will help us again, they've got some experience with this.
the French forgot about when to use guillotines decades ago
Tariffs will not only erase the middle class but also erase our topsoil like it's 1924 all over again if farmers aren't subsidized and everything is left to go fallow. In terms of dollars we're pretty even in terms of agricultural imports and exports, but in terms of acreage... We push a shitload of soy, corn, and wheat. We're more than a little fucked in lots of ways if we're hit with retaliatory tariffs, but the biggest one is if farmers don't have any reason to plant crops and don't have any money to do it, we're doomed for dustbowl days.
Don't even get me started on water, fluoride is one thing but if they start removing a lot of other stuff like phosphate and permanganate the entire country's municipal water supply will be as bad as Flint MI.
I'm hoping Trump doesn't pull off 95% of the stuff he talked about due to unbridled incompetence because if he still manages to pull off 80% of it we're gonna be fucked
No they'll keep things like the farm subsidies, may even expand them. The tariffs will leave those out. That's the socialism their base is 100% reliant on. They won't risk turning on the rural farmers until the end when it they're not a threat. They've already shown a complete willingness to ignore absolutely everything else until this point.
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
Glad you asked.
Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib had no problems keeping their jobs. It's almost like they are different from the all the losers in their party in some way (hint: it's nothing to do with race or gender).
We must come to the realization that America is deeply racist and sexist, incapable of electing a Black, Asian woman to its highest office because of our culture’s innate, widespread, and unreconciled bias and hatred.
If that's true, then why on earth would the DNC do everything in their power to ensure that was the only "choice" available to voters? Do they like losing?
Lol, "the fault is not hers"
Objectively, the standards applied to the two candidates is wildly different, I'm not sure why we blame anyone other than voters, at this point.
Well, they want to dismantle a lot of the stuff that protects the middle and working classes. The country will be fine. The people will suffer. Democracy? Judgement is reserved. If he follows through on his idea of a third term without a legitimate amendment to the Constitution then it's very very dead. But we won't know that for years.
Fuck you people will literally die.
Did you think by "suffer" I meant play with flowers? It's going to suck for people who aren't able bodied white men. But the country is going to be fine. It's a lot more resilient than people think it is.
It depends...
Do you think Jimmy Carter has seen the season 4 finale of Breaking Bad?
🛎️
The US? pretty fucking fucked. The World, so fucked it has no idea how truly fucking fucked it is yet.
7
I can't leave.
I have a child with an abusive, vindictive ex-spouse. Regardless of me having sole custody, I would still need to get both the court's permission and his permission just to move out of state, so god knows I will not be able to get out of the country.
I'm at a loss. I will not leave without my kid.
100% fucked, the USA is now going to join WW3 on the side of the bad guys and get rid of vaccines and the EPA and ACA and so many other things
the USA is now going to join WW3 on the side of the bad guys
What do you mean "join"?
The evil empire that militarily supports dictators across the global south to prevent economic development and keep cheap labor and resources flowing out are the bad guys, this hasn't and will not change short of a revolution or the empire's control collapsing.
We’ll be fine. Yes shit will be fucked up but democracy will not die. We’ll try again in 2028 and thankfully Trump is capped out after this. Maybe midterms will show some shift
trump just barely failed to steal it last time, this time he has the fucking supervillain crackpot team behind him.
If he wants to do it, all he has to do is make the call.
He has the executive, he has the house, he has the senate, he will most likely completely have the supreme court, there is literally nobody to tell him no anymore.
I hope you're right.
I took this attitude the first time Trump was elected, and boy was I wrong. Not this time. Now, I'm seriously considering what his options might be for eliminating the election in 2028. He needs to clean the military brass of people disloyal to him, which he can easily do as Commander in Chief. Once he's got a loyal military, there's virtually nothing he can't do; and this SCOTUS will let him do anything he wants, so long as it aligns with the view of Evangelical Christians, who have been wanting a theocracy for decades. He can conjure the specter of "Democrat corruption" to justify eliminating any opposition politicians as an official act, completely re-stock the FBI with loyalists to wage any legal battles he needs to make his actions seem legitimate and "official," and arrest any problematic judges under the same "corruption" myth so that he can then replace them with loyalists.
Honestly, we've seen this playbook before in countries that are now dictatorships and Trump has already made it quite clear he wants to be a dictator. There is absolutely no reason to be convinced this will not happen. It might not happen, but there's no reason to think definitely will not.
he doesnt even have to touch the military, just has to certify fraudulent voter slates, that's it.
Naive.
Edit: I’m guessing you’re a straight with male with no children or family who are lgbtq.
Only part you got right is a straight male.
You are the naive one to think 1 moron can destroy America. Trump can not be a moron and a master manipulator at the same time. The reality is he is too stupid to break anything beyond what can’t be fixed. We will have to rebuild in 2028. Yes there will be hardships but nothing we can’t fix. The only thing he fumbled hard with was the COVID response. So here’s hoping we don’t have another pandemic
Remember all thay resistance he faced in 2016? Gone. That shit takes decades to build up and was out of steam four years ago.
After that I have no idea.
The truth is it's unlikely anything historically big is going to happen in the US. We saw what Trump did last time he was in office, and it was really bad, but it was recoverable. The fear isn't that it's likely, but that it's far from a non-zero chance, and there's very little we can do about it. That uncertainty is scary when we've had a relatively good time in recent decades.
Will we see a sudden shift toward a state where you can get jailed or murdered for being a dissident? Maybe, but probably not.
Will we see an escalation of the wars involving Israel, such that we see a WWIII and/or the first nuclear strike since WWII? Maybe, but probably not.
Will we see economic collapse causing widespread hunger and homelessness that we haven't seen since the Great Depression? Maybe, but probably not.
The only thing that's really a guarantee is that we're another four years away from dealing with climate change, and while that's massive for humanity down the line, individuals currently living in the US are probably going to be mostly fine. Not to say nobody will be affected - hurricanes, floods, fires, and so on - but it won't cause catastrophic failure of society in the near future.
We saw what Trump did last time he was in office, and it was really bad, but it was recoverable.
Except putting people in cages at the border and separating children from families. Many families still have not been reunited.
Except the million people that died from Covid-19 due to the government putting the economy over human lives.
Except the stuffing of judicial positions, including the supreme court, that same court that basically made him a king and free from any consequences from all the laws he broke.
Except for our air, land, food and water becoming more toxic and polluted due to Trump's rollback of EPA protections.
Except all the pregnant women who are dying or forced to carry their rapist's baby due to that packed court overturning roe v wade.
Except the people of color who rebelled and rioted during the george floyd protests but then the government showed up in unmarked vans and took people away, while the police shot more innocent people and busted heads, and almost nothing changed for the better regarding police violence.
Except the trans people who are now illegal in the state of Florida for having a driver's license that matches their gender identity, or the bounty on trans people in a town in Texas, or the governor of Texas trying to get lists of trans people to hunt down and prosecute. Or insurance companies refusing to cover trans-related healthcare. Or trans people being shunned by their peers and excluded from sports. Or the violence against LGBTQ people that's doubled in the last year. All enabled and emboldened by Trump and Trumpism.
I haven't recovered from any of this shit.
With or without Trump, the new normal is fascism in America. Every american needs to fight every bad policy, every bad law, every bad decision, every threat -- every day -- until there are no more fascists in power.
Let me be clear here. If we have a global nuclear war, that's not recoverable, because every human on earth will be dead. If we enter a fascist dictatorship with today's technology, that may not be recoverable, because we may see the permanent end of anything resembling a democracy.
I'm not saying there weren't horrific atrocities committed during Trump's reign. What I'm saying is that so far, there's a chance future generations can live better lives.
Counterpoint (and please, I am literally begging you to talk me off this cliff): Trump didn't know anything about being President the first time. I believe that he thought Presidents could do whatever they wanted. The team he had around him, while you can call them assholes and pieces of shit and every other name in the book, understood how the government and the Presidency worked and were able to reign him in.
All of those people are now gone and he will be surrounded by purely yes-men. He will promote the Generals who will be loyal to him, not the country or the Constitution. Couple that with the newfound Presidential immunity, and Trump has all but free reign to do whatever he wants. He will also appoint judges, like Aileen Cannon, who are loyal to him. Those judges, thanks to the Supreme Court overturning the Chevron deference, will now be the "experts" instead of federal agencies.
I do agree that there probably won't be a sudden shift, but there will be a shift and we will feel it in almost every aspect of our life. He supposedly promised to put RFK Jr in charge of numerous health agencies and campaigned on getting rid of the Department of Education. And I very much recall at least two instances where he said this is the last election you'll have to vote in. Is he going to find/create a way to suspend the 2028 election and stay in power? Who's going to stop him?
It is worse.
Trump started with either incompetent yes men who didn't know how to govern or competent yes men who tried controlling the damage that the President caused.
You now have a group of coordinated people who see Trump as willing to agree with whatever as long as he looks good enough.
On top of what you just mentioned, rather than Trump surrounding himself with incompetent toadies and yes-men, I think a lot of smarter, more powerful, and more dangerous people have taken the last 4 years to worm their way into his ranks.
He's established himself as a useful idiot. During his first 4 years we saw the idiot part glaringly. It was scary and embarrassing, but we scraped by and experienced a few years of relatively boring politics. My big worry is that we'll see the useful part exploited much more effectively this time around.
And I very much recall at least two instances where he said this is the last election you’ll have to vote in. Is he going to find/create a way to suspend the 2028 election and stay in power? Who’s going to stop him?
That's why I said it's possible, I just don't think it's probable. People are loyal to Trump until they're not. Nobody's loyal to him because they like him or they think he's a good guy, or because they think he'll bring the country prosperity. They're loyal because they think they can get something out of it. Most people aren't in a position where they're willing to give up literally everything to help this particular asshole become a dictator. Those that are are typically incompetent - see anything and everything related to stealing the 2020 election. They tried a LOT of things, but nothing came even close to working.
So they'll try again, and I don't think anybody's doubting that. And I don't think our institutions are particularly strong, but they're probably strong enough to stop that kind of incompetence from leading to a dictatorship.
Finally a level-headed take. The world isn't ending overnight, it'll just get shittier
Pretty fucked. I'm already weighing my options here now that this has happened. My gf is a Brazilian here on a education visa, will Trump deport her? Maybe. If she goes back to see family during the summer will she be allowed back in? I don't have much faith she will be. My cousin is trans and in a red state now, he's very much at risk. My other cousin is queer and also at risk. If my dad wasn't already dead his disability money will have dried up, not to mention his medications and treatments would've been unaffordable more than they already were. Thank fuck I don't have or want kids so they don't have to grow up in this shit hole of a country, if there's even a livable planet left with Trump deregulating and adding to the climate crisis.
We're about to be bent over the table with no lube
With AMOC collapse underway, the entire planet is fucked. Hope this helps
Slightly worse than with Harris. But the downward trend would never stop.
On a scale from 1 to 10 its about 12 now.
BTW, 90 seconds to midnight!!!!!! Hell yeaaaaah!
I was talking about your Russian statement. Lool
Probably fine
most problems are state level problems, so generally unaffected, but any interstate, constitutional amd international problem is up in the air
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.
Let’s be real we are fucked no matter who the president is. With or without him the world is headed down the toilet.
There was a slim sliver of hope left that we might reduce the acceleration towards the planet becoming largely uninhabitable for most people, but that is gone now, many of the brakes we had before are about to come off
Y'all realize there are three branches of US government right?
Trump commands only one. And he isn't an actual monarch or dictator. He won't be allowed to over step too much.
Either he's going to be rained in or section four of the 25th amendment will be instituted.
The other branches are now controlled by the same far right groups who largely fall in line with what Trump (or his masters) demand. There are no checks and balances now. Congress will propose and pass any legislation he wants and the supreme court will find no fault with the legislation. The public does not have to go along with anything. They have now given full control to the far right who is in lock step with their plan to dismantle the US government and rebuild it to suit their own whims. The guardrails are gone, there is no protection now.
Y'all realize there are three branches of US government right?
yes
Trump commands only one.
for now.
And he isn't an actual monarch or dictator.
not yet.
He won't be allowed to over step too much.
like last time?
Either he's going to be rained in or section four of the 25th amendment will be instituted.
by whom? the magat controlled senate? maybe the magat controlled congress? oh no, it would have to be the magat controlled Supreme Court! maybe the magat controlled justice department? shit... well we can always count on Jack Smith... he's getting fired, you say? out of a cannon, you say?
well, when shit really hits the fan, I guess we can just ask NATO or the EU for help....
Republicans have majority in senate. Conservatives control 2/3 branches and are coming for the house
Nothing will happen. We'll all get up in the morning, maybe eat some breakfast, go to work, come home, play with the kids, eat some dinner, may shag your wife/husband, go to bed. Repeat. I can't wait for four years to fly and be just as boring as the last four years.
surprise pregnancy, wife suffers from complications, isn't allowed to abort, dies painfully
surprise pregnancy
or rape. even incest. better not live in a red state if you have ovaries.
That could have happened in specific states anytime in the last 2.5 years. That's not specific to the next four years.
Oh, my sweet sweet summer child...
Actually, maybe that's what life will be like for a white, upper middle class, cisgender-heterosexual married male in his late 30s-40s, but for anyone who isn't that... oh boy are we fucked.
Well, I guess you better hurry up and become those things.
Someone joke bet $500 Michigan will be blue with a +4% lead so I think I'll joke bet $500 it will just be a repeat of 2016-2020 except 1.5x worse and then by next election maybe the DNC will learn to run a normal primary again and promote a popular candidate who actually promises to meet constituents' demands instead of ignoring them.
Also someone on this community asked what everyone would do if Trump won and I said I'd probably make a collage of a years worth of my comments telling people ignoring genocide would cost Democrats the election.
So I guess I might go do that now and say "I told you so" to everyone who told me I was wrong.
I wrote that Biden dropping out of the race would be a big mistake. My "I told you so" is worth about as much as yours.
The ONLY thing I know for certain after this clusterfuck is that Biden would have lost by even more.
Him dropping out wasn't his biggest mistake. Him choosing to drop out months after the primary process was his biggest downfall. He basically fucked the democratic party because he couldn't swallow his ego and drop out when it was clear his popularity among the country was dwindling even in the party itself. Every advisor he had said "hey you likely shouldn't run again" but he stayed, Hell fucking Obama even told him "yo you aren't going to win this". His stubbornness to run for a second term is what killed the chances of a democratic win here.
additional note: I don't blame him though, like I could not imagine working my entire life up to that moment, and then having to say "I wasn't the change I wanted to be I need to let someone else take the reins", it must have been such a blow to his self confidence. The fact that he dropped out at all was a show of strength. I don't think him dropping out at the point he was in changed the outcome overall, the damage in my eyes was done as soon as he decided to continue with the primaries knowing he was losing support
I'm fairly certain Biden would have done the same if not worse considering his lower popularity that resulted in Democrats switching to Harris.
Had they planned this out and done a primary, there'd probably be a new candidate who would have done better and possibly won.
Of course that would involve letting people decide their candidate which is a big no no and too expensive to rig and risk losing anyway just like Hillary's campaign.
I hate that this is true, just for 2 reasons: he is male and white
Realistically... what do you expect to be radically different this time in comparison to the four years Trump has already been president?
Last time, I don't think Trump was expecting to win. He ended up needing to scrape together a cabinet, and a bunch of those officials were old-school Republicans who chafed at all the crazy stuff he wanted to do.
This time, the Heritage Foundation is preparing him, and the new Senate will rubber-stamp all his appointments. He will pick people who intend to "dismantle the administrative state". Grover Norquist famously wanted to make Government so small he could drown it in fhe bathtub. He might get his wish.
100% his plan the first time was to lose, talk a lot of shit and complain. Sell a bunch of merchandise and try it again over and over, grifting millions from idiots.
You can see it immediately when he wins. Both his and Melania's expressions when they get the news show that winning wasn't the plan. It's also why he immediately started talking about fraud. He didn't have any prepared talking points for winning, they were all based on losing and using that to power his next scams.
They're organized, have begun implementing the government takeover that they've worked towards since Reagan, and he's officially been given immunity for anything he wants to do by the Supreme Court before entering office.
All of these plans have nothing to do with Trump, they've been being laid since Reagan and Nixon. Trump just stumbled on them, openly exposing them to the world because he's such an extreme narcissist he MUST brag about anything he even thinks gives him power. We stopped it the first time, and had a chance to correct, but enough of the population has been drinking the Republican propaganda Kool-aid through Fix News since it's inception. Fox News was started explicitly as a response to Nixon's impeachment to provide an open partisan propaganda network for the Republican party. Nixon was going to be just fine until the media started educating the electorate, who demanded something be done. Congress was completely fine with Watergate until that point.
We never recovered from the first time
Project 2025. Complete control of all branches of government. A Supreme Court that says he can do whatever he wants. I'm sorry to be pessimistic, but we're absolutely fucked.
I'm not as doomer as everyone else for the short term. It's the long term I'm worried about. He might get 2 more scotus members, and he's going to do everything in his power to undercut any attempt to tackle climate change. And that includes his scotus picks who will almost certainly declare any needed attention to address climate change as unconstitutional.
RIP Elana and Sonia
Trump doesn’t actually think he’d be president the first time and never planned for it. They’ve had since then to prepare this time.
There are less adults/competent/people with any morals in the room now. Swap John Kelly and some of the slightly more upstanding members of his inner circle for RFK Jr and some of the worst of the worst
Project 2025. They exposed their plan and now thry will implement it, and nithing can stop them.
Not much will change, this guy has been president before, he spend more time on the golf course then in the oval office.
I expect lots of embarrassing speeches and truths/tweets, but other then that the purple party autocrats will be running the country like they always do.
They have project 2025 now with hundreds of people ready to jump into government and make it happen
When he won before, he was outside the Republican party establishment and just put his own unprepared cronies in charge.
He's also not going to even try to do half the things he said because he's a pathological liar
He doesn't have to. He doesn't have to do much. Though since he now has unfettered opportunity, I think he will. The groundwork is laid for theocrats to run everything down to the dark confines of the womb.
Last time he was in office housing assistance programs were gutted so that will most likely change
Right now, this is what I am telling myself. Let's just hope he is only as bad as he was the first go around, and not as bad as he has been claiming he will be on the campaign trail. He is the lyingest sack of shit to ever hold office. Let's cross our fingers he was lying about most of the shit he promised his cult.
The headline in this comment is the 29 downvotes.
This is why I like you, Lemmy.
Yes, there's an awful lot of hysteria about Trump, when in reality he's just a shit president.
There is some panicking prompted by the horrible things he's promised to do but probably can't, but:
-He got Roe v. Wade overturned, stripping rights from Americans while also being responsible for a 3% increase in infant mortality in the US, the first significant increase in decades
-about as many people died of COVID as voted for Jill Stein, and while Trump isn't responsible for all their deaths he significantly worsened the problem.
So I'd say beyond shit
yeah, they are just being hysterical, it is not as if he publicly encouraged and condoned terrorism, right, comrade?
