You know, DOGE, fascist president and corporations dictating what people can do, institutions being ruined, laws being ignored. Is there any way out of that or is it over? Is the USA done?
No, I don’t think so. Large portions of government like the CDC, USAID, FEMA and the IRS will take 20 years to rebuild, but the dialed in states like the West Coast will probably be largely fine. It’s just such an unnecessary waste of time, resources, and human lives.
Apparently some of us don’t remember our values unless they get their mouth curbstomped every 70 years and remember some serious pain and suffering. Then the majority of people start voting for people that weren’t dropped as babies and we will go back to a democracy again. Fuckin idiots.
In the meantime, enjoy the unencumbered spread of diseases like measles and HIV, preventable economic meltdowns from disassembling shit like the Fed, SEC and IRS and infrastructure stagnation due to gutting tax infrastructure and the firing of educated and experienced public workers that keep out road, bridges and internet working to say nothing of shit like sewers, water, power, rail, aviation, etc.
And just think, all of this rebuilding could have been prevented with one single vote for a normal candidate. We could have had 20 years of relative progress under our belt instead. 😊
We are about to become a cautionary tale other countries use to warn eachother not to go too hard into capitalism
I wont give a knee jerk response to it. a country the size, economy, and history of USA doesn’t get done for by one President. While Muskrump will cause plenty of institutional damage and suffering on American and global populace, USA will come out stronger and better nation at the end of this (whenever this ends). Case in point, Germany before WWII and Germany after WWII
“screwed” seems a little mild to describe it
No. It’s going to get worse for a while, maybe forever, but it won’t ever collapse until outside forces put boots on the ground. The thing about the USA is that it’s the United States, not singular state, so even if the Federal Entity is in turmoil or even collapses: the USA will continue operating at limited capacity.
The day that the USA is done will be the beginning of the third great war.
Well, it depends on how you define the USA. You mean the Republic of the United States of America? Yeah, no, that’s dead. It is currently dead. It died when the SCOTUS made the president functionally beyond criminal prosecution, and everyone has just kind of been playing weekend at Bernie’s since then (though the Trump administration is dropping the pretense pretty quickly). Don’t get me wrong, it’s been dying for a long time, but that was the exact moment it was declared dead. No matter what happens, the republic as we knew it is dead and is not coming back. Nobody believes in the constitution anymore; among our leadership there are only either those who are in a hurry to destroy it, or those who are unwilling to defend it. I think a lot of the American populace haven’t sincerely believed in the constitution as an effective charter for governance for a while, too. Imo, we’re less than a year from the legislature being dissolved in some fashion of another, unless they just hang on like some ceremonial vestigial organ.
What we get to decide now is what comes next. That’s what nobody’s sure about. Are we going to have a middle-east style theocratic government? Italian fascism? Maybe the military defends the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic and we re-form the republic? German fascism? Neofeudalism? Peaceful balkanization? Hot balkanization? COULD IT BE?! BY GOD, it’s the ghost of Lenin with a steel chair! Or maybe we’ll get something entirely new? It’s frankly impossible to guess while we’re living in it. I think cold balkanization is both the most likely and most optimistic scenario. IN THE MEANWHILE, yeah, you’re still going to see all the window trimmings of the USA; the maps will still say USA, we’ll at least nominally still have the things that make America America (like the constitution still sitting in its fancy protective case, as though the GOP didn’t just wipe Trump’s ass with it), it’ll all look weirdly normal while they make the republic’s corpse do a funny little jig.
I think cold balkanization is both the most likely and most optimistic scenario.
I’m curious why you think it’s most likely. Most optimistic, I agree.
Okay, here we go
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The US is fucking YUGE. Historically speaking, it’s very, very difficult to keep countries that span huge geographic areas together. There seems to be some fundamental limit of size per population that can be tolerated before your cultural and geographic differences start becoming significant enough to start forming separate identities. The US has like 14 such subregions, and each one has a little different idea of what “America” means to them. A strong single national identity is not the default case here, you’ve got to really work at it or have some big unifying cause, which we no longer have.
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We already have pre-fabricated governments in the form of state governments. State governments tend to be pretty strong, in the sense that they tend to have a whole lot of administrative capacity, much stronger imo than what I believe of European provincial governments. The whole original idea was that the states were mostly independent states joined together under a trade federation and its government. Of course, it hasn’t been that for a long time, but that’s the root that we grew up from.
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We have almost no history of state on state violence, and most Americans do share some sense of national identity. Maybe not a strong one anymore, but it’s there. I think most people would be pretty shocked about the idea of going to war with another state.
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This isn’t really an ideological separation, as much as the federal government is just, like, vanishing in a puff of smoke. There’s a lot of states where they’ve depended on the federal government’s administrative capacity to handle stuff, and that’s just going away in a real haphazard, scattershot way. At some point, these states will ask themselves “if we’re handling all this shit ourselves, what the hell are we sending the Fed tax dollars for?”
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maybe we’ll get something entirely new?
The French are on their fifth republic already. A new constitution with better guardrails and different voting system is possible. The USA has a very deeply ingrained idea of freedom and democracy and is unlikely to lose it completely. It might be a good idea to already start thinking about how that new constitution should look like.
Balkanization or a civil war before that happens is certainly in the cards.
Maybe the military
Trump will try and purge all non loyalist officers from the military. That could lead to a fracturing of the military. California for example has big navy, air force, and marines bases, as well as military industry. The states have national guards already and whole units could defect from the federal military to the guard.
If that leads to an internal cold war, balkanization, or a civil war remains to be seen. It will make the US far less able to project force internationally. Queue China taking Taiwan without much US intervention.
I think if there is a new Constitution, it would need to incorporate economic rights. People can’t abandon work to strike or protest, which negates the voice of the poor and working man alike. The wealthy can afford to voice their politics, which is likely the biggest reason why Yarvin’s Cabal succeeded. Ordinary people simply can’t dedicate the time to research nor influence politics.
Trump will try and purge all non loyalist officers from the military. That could lead to a fracturing of the military.
We should ask what happens when there are a large amount of military trained men that are suddenly let loose and returned to the population, but I can’t think of a single time that’s happened…
I mean, the American Constitution is dogshit. The people who wrote it didn’t even mean half of it, and the other half became out of date about when globalisation took off. It’s not surprising nobody wants to defend it, the U.S. Republic has been desperately, desperately overdue for a revision.
’s the ghost of Lenin with a steel chair! Or maybe we’ll get something entirely new? It’s frankly impossible to guess while we’re living in it. I think cold balkanization is both the most likely and most optimistic scenario. IN THE MEANWHILE, yeah, you’re still going to see all the window trimmings of the USA; the maps will still say USA, we’ll at least nominally still have the things that make America America (like the constitution still sitting in its fancy protective case, as though the GOP didn’t just wipe Trump’s ass with it), it’ll all look weirdly normal while they make the republic’s corpse do a funny little jig.
to date, that 400,000,000 pew-pew stick and freedom rod are proving super effective against tyranny. Civil was is becoming more and more likely though.
4 of the richest men in the world who own 7/10 of the most popular websites on the internet donated to and sat at The Presidents inauguration. They own the information pipeline and can literally control propaganda completely unchecked and unsupervised. Most of those gun toting freedom fighters use those platforms because it’s all they know. Their family is on it, their business is on it, their news comes from it, they get their daily dopamine kicks from it.
There isn’t going to be any Civil War. It’s just going to be a slow rotation into what Russia currently is now. Little by little by little, hardly noticable changes, over a long enough period of time (say 4 years or so), until one day they wake up and say “Well, it was better then but there’s nothing we can do about it now.” and go about their day.
The next war is going to be a war of ideas and a war of messaging. We can’t rely on online outreach and have to be proactive IRL spreading messages that it really is a class war. There’s no better time than now, no more apparent point in history than today, it’s just pulling those people away from the propaganda for them to realize it. Somehow, We The People, need to convince the Boiling Frogs.
y on online outreach and have to be proactive IRL spreading messages that it really is a class war. There’s no better time than now, no more apparent point in history than today, it’s just pulling those people away from the propaganda for them to realize it. Somehow, We The People, need to convince the Boiling Frogs.
If you look at the stats on what proportion of US population can read beyond 6th grade level you can predict that there’s nearly zero chance pulling these people out of their bubbles.
On civil war, if we were in the slow boil phase I’d agree with you, but the ghouls like stephen miller coming out the woodwork combined with a lot of people suddenly having a lot of free time (I mean fired), things are much more likely to turn heated.
The problem is who holds them. The majority are the ones that voted for this crap.
On civil war, if we were in the slow boil phase I’d agree with you, but the ghouls like stephen miller coming out the woodwork combined with a lot of people suddenly having a lot of free time (I mean fired), things are much more likely to turn heated.
they didn’t overthrow biden’s “tyranny” either. Instead of the overthrowing tyranny bullshit, guns have a great track record of killing kids and helping depressed men end it all.
Lol wut. It died a lot longer ago
Okay, I’m not trying to be shitty with you, I’m actually interested. Why don’t you make your case for when you think the US republic died?
I’d say it died when we accepted first past the post.
Citizens United would be a decent candidate. Once it was established that donations were protected political speech, it effectively legalized bribery, and made oligarchy essentially inevitable. Most of the missteps since then have been motivated by folks trying to simultaneously play to populist talking points but also placate billionaire donors. The left needed an actual positive message, like the kind Bernie Sanders was pushing, that would energize folks and unite the overeducated with the working class, but that was never going to be acceptable to the donor class, and so candidates like him always had to be shoved aside for someone who would clearly cater to corporate needs. And someone who would clearly cater to corporate needs was always going to be a really tough sell and not really a solution to the needs of the moment.
That doesn’t really account for the rise of the tech bro fascist accelerationists like Mencius Moldbug and the Dark Enlightenment, which is a big part of the current moment and accounts for how the far right was able to hoodwink some billionaires into voting for a social collapse that seems very likely to hurt them also. But Citizens United still seems like a fair candidate for a point at which some of the last paths away from this outcome were foreclosed.
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I think citizen’s united. The spirit was dead probably before I was born, but legalizing corruption made the full death inevitable.
Yes.
In the short term not much will change and no one will react. By the time they want to react, they’ll play into a fascist crackdown.
Look into the Business Plot. This is basically the result of a century of planning between business interests and religious fanatics with too much money.
As long as capitalism is propagandized as a good thing, civilization will continue to face this issue of the few exploiting the many.
Do you believe every human deserves the same rights and dignities? It’s not possible to make a cell phone without relying on slave labor in the supply chains.
Profit is unpaid labor. As long as we normalize giving at the profits to those that already have everything, civilisations will continue to implode until one makes a mistake of such hubris everyone dies. Look at PFAS. One day we will unleash something we can’t contain and we’ll be dead before we can detect it or treat it.
Our species simply will not survive because we’re too eager to shit where we sleep just so we don’t have to walk all the way to the bathroom.
Short answer? Yes. Long answer? Absolutely.
Yeah.
The silver lining here is that with now 8 years of abolishing civil/workers rights, technology and social development being suppressed and Americans falling so objectively behind in most measurable fields, hopefully Americans can get over their blatantly false sense of exceptionalism and become comfortable just being another part of the world.
Exceptionalism and nationalism has more to do with the propaganda people are being fed, and less with the actual reality they are living. It will take more than a hard downturn in quality-of-life I think.
Yeah. I think that Russians feel the same inside of their country, because they’re been fed with propaganda.
Yea. I’m sure they will be humbled like the people of North Korea, who think their supernatural leader invented hamburgers and the electric guitar.
North Koreans don’t think this. Everybody knows its bullshit. The point is not for people to believe in the bullshit, the point is normalizing the government to get away with obvious bullshit. And this pattern is not exclusive to North Korea at all.
How do you know everyone knows its bullshit?
When I was in the Russia – my last time was as late as 2019 – the shocking thing was to notice that people there really think their country is somehow a good and exemplatory place! At least in the Russia people should by all logic understand it’s all bullshit. But in practical terms they don’t. They go with it.
technology (…) being suppressed
What technology or technology development is being suppressed?
The USA are still leading in most technological fields and have a dominant position.
The US does not have a dominant position in:
microchips.
batteries.
solar.
material science.
fusion.
energy.
computer science.
automotive.
displays.
The list goes on.
If you still think the USA is leading in tech, you are sorely misinformed about the state of the technological world(to be fair, it Is startling how rapidly the US has fallen out of grace in many of these technological fields).
The US is either barely clinging to previous legacies of prowess in tech fields to match other countries or falling behind rapidly, and without innovative latitude, federal grants or funding for research, they’re falling behind even further.
the US does not have the technological edge it once did; scientists, officials from the department of defense, everybody in the know agrees and have been making public statements about how quickly the US is falling behind in critical scientific and technological fields.
The US is still leading in aerospace and defense. Boeing is in a slump, but military planes are top notch. SpaceX is a decade ahead of the global competition at least.
computer science
All the biggest and leading companies in that area are still based in the US. American companies dominate the market for software and internet services. The possibly most disruptive technology AI is also firmly in the hands of the USA.
You’re also missing biotechnology as another key sector, where the US is doing very well.
the US does not have the technological edge it once did;
That much is clear. It’s still doing very good though.
The amount of money spent on R&D is still huge in the USA and it attracts top minds from across the globe.
you first claimed that the US is still leading in most technological fields.
this is false, as I pointed out in my previous comment.
your new tack is the US “is still doing very good, though”
this is also incorrect, largely a belief based on past achievements and cultural stories.
“aerospace”:
a private company innovated aerospace technology despite the US government’s reluctance to invest in aerospace technology.
China has been investing in space, and are planning to build space stations and moon bases, and have been having regular launches.
“defense”: We are not ahead of the game anymore. US dod officials have been very clearly saying for Over a decade that the US might already be behind China in key areas of defense, AI weapons systems among those, despite spending 4 to 10 times as much on their defense budget.
“All the biggest and leading companies in that area are still based in the US.”
biggest? okay.
leading? in what world is Microsoft a leading technological innovator?
they cannot even compete with a free operating system despite decades of a head start and hundreds of billions more capital.
Apple? they haven’t been innovative in 15 years, depend on slave labor, and their newest phones aren’t even playing catch up with East Asian phones anymore, hardware or software.
“You’re also missing biotechnology…”
I wasn’t listing literally every field the US was failing in, I was refuting your false notion that the US was still leading in most technological fields.
“The possibly most disruptive technology AI is also firmly in the hands of the USA.”
not according to AI researchers, AI CEOs, computer scientists, and the US DOD.
and again, any prowess US companies had in AI was due to the mass exploitation of workers abroad.
“The amount of money spent on R&D is still huge in the USA”
it sure isn’t now, grants and federal funding have been cut by more than half since dumps took office.
“it attracts top minds from across the globe.”
this was true 20 years ago, as most of you are above assumptions were.
they are not true today.
The US is not leading in most, if any, technological fields, it’s not leading in manufacturing, it’s not leading in most sciences, and it has one of the most awful education systems in the world, not to mention the living affordability crisis going on.
If people can’t afford groceries or a simple apartment to live in, let alone education, none of which they can afford in the US anymore, and have not been able to for the last generation, innovation falls by the wayside.
as it has been for a long time.
and now, US “dominance” will continue to freefall for at least the next 4 years.
you can’t do science without funding and support, and dumps has taken that funding away, and importantly does not believe in science or the benefits of research and development.
The US population has not been invested in, and your industries are suffering for that.
meanwhile, other countries are investing record amounts and setting technological records in innovative technologies like solar that the US has no hope of catching up to in the near future.
I want to note that this is a good thing, this sort of disillusionment.
The US is not leading in fields that you recognize as critical.
it’s important to recognize how The US fell behind in these fields and what the US can do to catch up to other countries, or more hopefully, work with other countries to progress together, which may be their only practical choice anyway.
a private company innovated aerospace technology despite the US government’s reluctance to invest in aerospace technology.
Huh? The US government paying SpaceX made it possible to succeed in the first place. That’s literally the US investing in aerospace tech.
US dod officials have been very clearly saying for Over a decade that the US might already be behind China in key areas of defense
China is catching up, but still behind in defense and aerospace technology. The one area they are ahead is industrial capacity to build, especially ships. China builds a huge number of civilian and military ships.
despite spending 4 to 10 times as much on their defense budget
Wages, manufacturing, etc. are all far more expensive in the US. It’s also much easier and cheaper to copy someone else’s design than to discover and build for the first time.
they cannot even compete with a free operating system
Microsoft has good support for Linux nowadays with Windows services for Linux and Azure Linux for example. On the desktop Microsoft Windows is still leading in market share and Microsoft Office is dominating as well.
Where are the biggest Linux companies located?
Apple? they haven’t been innovative in 15 years, depend on slave labor
Apple’s AR/VR is innovative, if not particularly successful in the market. Their M-series chips are among the best chip available. Very fast with low power use.
Apple makes their products in same factories (Foxconn etc) as other companies. So the labor conditions aren’t unique to Apple at all.
it’s not leading in manufacturing, it’s not leading in most sciences, and it has one of the most awful education systems in the world, not to mention the living affordability crisis going on.
I mostly agree. The quality of the US education system is similar to the health care system. The US has some of the best education and health care in the world. However, it’s neither cheap nor affordable for the majority of the population.
you can’t do science without funding and support, and dumps has taken that funding away, and importantly does not believe in science or the benefits of research and development.
I agree mostly. Regarding funding under Trump, we will see. Elon Musk certainly know about R&D costs and benefits and is influential.
meanwhile, other countries are investing record amounts and setting technological records in innovative technologies like solar that the US has no hope of catching up to in the near future.
Yes, other countries are catching up steadily overall and are ahead in some areas, especially China.
“China is catching up, but still behind in defense and aerospace technology”
this is a fiction, according to US defense officials, but if we pretended it was true, it doesn’t change the original point, that the US is falling behind in most technological fields.
you’ll notice that I didn’t mention aerospace in my original top of the dome list.
it looks like you’re agreeing with all my other points though, so I don’t have much else to say except that the important American fiction to dispel is this:
“other countries are catching up steadily overall and are ahead in some areas, especially China.”
10 years ago? you could argue that other countries were playing catch up in most technological fields.
now?
The US is behind in nearly every technological field and especially now is uninterested in catching up to the rest of the world.
The US population cannot afford to live and is critically undereducated, and are about to have four more years of withheld R&D funding and catastrophic isolationist policy.
That’s the reality on the ground now.
any “we’re not doing so bad” mentality simply is not correct anymore, and it’s important to recognize the reason behind and the rate at which the US is failing to advance in critical fields.
You’re not going to be able to swerve back onto the road by pretending the guardrails you’re grinding against aren’t there.
Nah there’s still plenty of cognitive dissonance to go around
Yes but we should still make them pay for every inch they take.
Not even close to being done. Right now the biggest changes are a reduction in non law enforcement/immigration government staff and contracts being paid out. The biggest thing coming down the pipeline is Trump clearly wants to free himself of the courts and congress. But it’s far too early to say he’s won that. And even that wouldn’t be the end of things. In the US the states have a lot of autonomy. They are actually the ones responsible for holding elections. So let’s look at a worst case scenario, where he tries to say we shouldn’t have elections.
The first thing that’s going to happen is all the blue states are going to tell him to fuck off and hold them anyways. The second thing that’s going to happen is some red states will also do so, although they’ll likely be less coarse with the language. Then a few more red states will be pressured into having elections by massive protests of people angry they can’t vote anymore. Then while Trump is having a fit because there’s no real way for him to stop this process, we get to learn about a fun feature of the US Congress. There is no law requiring it to meet in D.C. Trump would likely try to claim whatever is left over is the real congress, but without having been elected the Constitution is clear that those states forfeit representation until they hold an election.
So we’d be left with a House that is majority anti-Trump, after all, he tried to make them irrelevant at best. In the Senate we’d likely be looking at something of an even split in 2026. There’s probably 5-7ish red states that would hold elections anyways and combined with the blue states and senate democrats leaving DC they would be able to convene elsewhere with a majority to declare rules of the Senate without Trump’s interference. The new Congress would likely swiftly vote to impeach Trump. The remnants of the old one would protest this but they don’t have any legal power. Only the backing of Trump and propaganda power.
This leaves Vance with a choice. This would be by design because our democratic party leaders only appear to be stupid when convenient. Vance can throw his weight behind Trump and get impeached himself or he can order Trump removed from the White House thus acknowledging the primacy of Congress. If he chooses the first option then Congress simply repeats the process and the presidency goes to the next person in line, the speaker of the house. Yes, Congress can effectively vote one of it’s own members into the White House at any time. This president then declares an emergency and orders the military to secure DC. The military loves process, and loves the Constitution. It is highly likely this order would be followed.
However all would not be well, it’s not a fairy tale. It would likely be the start of an American Insurgency that would take decades to root out. It would certainly be the end of the US as the hegemonic world power. Our Aircraft Carriers would rust in port and our projection of soft and hard power over the world would wither. But we would still be here, just much diminished and never the same in our lifetimes. This is certainly scary but if we all do our part this is as close as we would come to losing our democracy. Far more insidious is the threat of slowly revoking the right to vote. They’d start by raising the age, then by requiring you to not have any debt of specific kinds, then by making harsh punishments for illegally voting, and other such things until voting is effectively restricted to land owners. Certain factions would like to get it to white christian male landowners but that’s probably a decade or more down that line if at all.
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Why wouldn’t he just send in the military?
2028 isn’t enough time to purge and train enough people to make the military loyal to him. He would be mid project on that at best and the states could effectively counter him into a stand still with their national guard. This would make many people stay home, but the determined voters are likely to be anti-trump because that’s the change incentive. Loyalists will feel like the elections don’t matter.
What’s stopping SCOTUS from declaring the elections invalid?
The states. SCOTUS is only relevant as long as they have reputation of being an impartial arbiter of Constitutional Law. That opinion is already in the trash heap. They could not make such a decision today, or after 4 more years unless they spend the next 4 years setting themselves as at least a mild opposition in a long game. But they haven’t shown that kind of patience.
What happens in Trump surrounds himself with thousands of armed loyalists in DC?
We select a new capital and wish him the best of luck dealing with DC. There is no law requiring DC be the Capital. The Constitution doesn’t even require the states to give up a district, it only provides the legal possibility. There’s no need to engage in that kind of a conflict. Such a group would be arrested bit by bit by Maryland, Virginia, and Federal authorities until it could be resolved swiftly.
The flaw with this scenario is that it assumes Trump would try to simply cancel the elections. Instead, he would be more likely to regulate them in a way that makes unseating him impossible. For example, federal regulations might be implemented that required states to use voting machines, voting machines that are produced by corrupted companies. He just straight up steals the election through rigged voting machines. Or they mess with registrations and voter purges to a level more than the amount that already got Trump elected this time. See the SAVE Act..
Or alternatively, the election systems themselves will be unaffected. However, the candidates will be carefully managed. Any Democratic candidate that would present a significant threat to MAGA will be arrested on trumped-up charges. The courts will miraculously cease to give the Democratic candidate the same leeway they did to Trump when they “didn’t want to interfere with the election.” Or he’ll manipulate the Democratic elites so much that they end up electing someone even more conservative. They end up running Ted Cruz or something insane like that.
Remember, even the citizens of the Soviet Union got to have elections.
He can certainly try, but he can’t pass laws about elections without Congress, which brings the filibuster into play.
Arresting the party leaders of the opposition also generally doesn’t work if you do it more than once or the situation is already very politicized.
At the end of the day it’s going to require us to be in the streets no matter what he tries. Our state leaders need to see that they have support to stand up to Trump.
The problem that I keep seeing here is people saying “well, he can’t do that.”
Stop that. He can do it because nobody’s going to stop him. I mean, you surely don’t expect that little shit Mike Johnson to tell Daddy Trump no. The constitution itself isn’t going to rise up out of its case like Godzilla and crush him. The judiciary isn’t going to come and enforce their decision in person. That just leaves the military. They’re either going to coup him, or not, and I’m expecting the latter case.
That’s not what I’m saying. The entire point here is that he does not have the physical power to interfere in state elections without an act of Congress. The states would arrest any federal agents trying to do so. This isn’t a “gentleman’s agreement” that nobody is enforcing.
Does he not have a way to replace the state agents with ones that will do his bidding?
No, in the USA States have a limited form of sovereignty. They elect their own officials and hold all powers not expressly given to the Federal Government. So while the President has some law enforcement agents, most of them are actually employed by the State Governors and Counties/Cities. The Governors have a Secretary of State that is also elected who are responsible for running all elections in the state.
So if Trump tried to make an Executive Order that only Republicans could vote, (this is meant to be an extreme example, it would backfire hilariously in real life), the states could legally ignore it. However if Congress passed that as a law and the Supreme Court upheld it then the states would be legally bound to prevent anyone not registered as a Republican from voting for federal offices.
The thing is the Republicans don’t have enough of a majority to just pass any law they want. So it’s very unlikely there will be an extreme voting law in the next 2 years. So if federal agents showed up trying to enforce an Executive Order from Trump it is highly likely they would be arrested by the state or city police for interfering in voting.
if Trump tried to make an Executive Order that only Republicans could vote
The way authoritarians have done this before is arrest enough of opposition party members. Other ways of blocking members of Congress to show up for a vote could be travel restrictions due to a state of emergency because of a terror attack for example. You can combine this with other methods.
You might have 5 arrested on made up charges, 4 can’t leave their home because of protestors blocking them, 3 are blackmailed, 2 are bribed to stay away, 1 is murdered. This could even start with one or two members of congress getting murdered. Then a state of emergency is called including. Tragically not all members can make it in time to vote in the emergency session.
if federal agents showed up trying to enforce an Executive Order from Trump it is highly likely they would be arrested by the state or city police for interfering in voting.
Trump doesn’t need to succeed in all states with this or even send in federal agents. There are enough state governments run by MAGAs, who will fall in line.
Things don’t need to be properly done. Some chaos as cover and the slightest plausible deniability is enough.
So you end up with some kind of election reform, that’s not accepted by all states. This means the president can declare a further emergency and suspend elections until further notice. Alternatively only elections run according to the new rules are accepted by the federal government. Non compliant states can hold elections, but they will be declared invalid by the supreme court.
Thank you for this. It’s so easy to feel hopeless in the face of everything that’s happening, which is exactly what they want.
Yeah, there’s still quite a few good paths here. I can’t guarantee we do what’s needed but I can show how if we demand it from our leaders and publicly support them it becomes really hard for Trump and friends to reach their goals.
I really only lurk on Lemmy, but I felt the need to comment. Thank you for writing this. I’ve been stressed out since the EO was announced. I felt like we were doomed, but this gives me some hope. Even if this doesn’t happen, I feel better knowing there is still a way to possibly course correct.
This is actually one of the more pessimistic courses. It’s probable that Trump gets enough push back that his legacy consists of massively handicapping the civil service, screwing up the economy and our alliances, and then peacefully transferring power to a democratic party president.
One of the other things we need to do is seriously organize to support a more left candidate in the 2028 primaries. Part of this shock and awe is meant to make us give up, not only resisting Trump but also in organizing within the Democratic party.
is seriously organize to support a more left candidate
Americans need to start organizing the network for a general strike and start writing a new constitution.
A new constitution is a really bad idea until we can do a lot more organizing. Conservatives have been practicing for a convention for at least 20 years. If we called one right now they’d steamroll the liberals and we’d have an actual king again.
You seem far more hopeful than me, and far more intelligent, so I am going to try and hold on to a sliver of hope.
I’m probably not smarter than you, this is just in my field of study. And to throw a little water on it, it depends on people doing things. We can all sit on our couch and watch the ministry of newspeak broadcasts or we can be in the streets. Our leaders are humans and we can’t expect them to act in a way that endangers themselves without visible support. But it actually takes a heck of a lot to kill a country. We aren’t anywhere near that point yet. Get mad, get in the streets.
Historically, it has to get worse before it gets better. It’s gonna suck for a while, but I have faith that humanity will come to it’s senses when things start getting bad enough. I hope this whole mess will be the catalyst that leads to great change in humanity in the future.
How is humanity not in its senses?
Intensionally, the USA is going to lose its status as a hyperpower. Europe is going to decouple from American defense policy to the point where I can see American military bases close in Europe. An anti-Chinese military alliance will function with or without the USA anchored by India and Japan, but I see that force yielding some territory to China in the near term. There will probably be an increase in the number of wars in general as regions go into conflict without an American threat to maintain borders. Nothing the USA does is likely going to fix this.
Domestically, the administration is the greatest threat to the republic since the Civil War. If Trump is able to be pushed out in the future, there is going to need to be a major re-evaluation of how the American federal government works. This is going to require constitutional changes and the removal of major powers that the President has collected as the federal government grew.
Orwell just got the year wrong.
Trumpism isn’t Orwellian, it doesn’t need to be.
American here. Maybe I’m going through the five stages of grief and now I’m at acceptance.
Everything in your first paragraph sounds accurate and maybe something that probably needed to happen. America as the World Police is/has been a problem. There were some positives, but a lot of negatives.
The sooner America gets off the stage, the better. We don’t deserve the recognition. We can’t even feed our own people and yet wield tremendous influence internationally, and maybe it’s a positive thing that it ends soon.
My only concern is that I expect an increase in international conflict as the American security guarantee is gone. The only remaining countries capable of projecting power internationally can’t do it on nearly the scale of the USA. I expect a lot of wars until new spheres of influence get established.
My global political history isn’t great, and maybe others can correct me here, but it doesn’t feel like the US has had much of a stabilising effect in the last 30 years.
There’s plenty of conflicts that just don’t make the news that the US just isn’t interested in. Poor places with no oil or other resources. Presently Burma comes to mind. There always seems to be somewhere in Africa, last decade there was genocide in Congo IIRC.
Also it’s not really clear whether their involvement in the middle east over the last few decades was positive or negative.
It’s nice to have them hovering around South China Sea to keep China in check I guess.
The USA definitely went crazy after 9/11 and has done destabilizing things to the international community. I’m not denying that.
However, the USA has a big stick that has been able to keep most borders frozen. Without the threat of American intervention, I can see a lot of wars between countries start because war became an option.
And this could come to pass with a peaceful China.
The USA put a stop to the wars on the Balkans in the 1990s: Bosnia, Kosovo.
Saddam Hussein is another one. Without the USA, he might have continued his expansion after Kuwait into Syria for example.
Latin America has had no major wars, only guerrillas and such for a long time.
The USA made peace between Egypt and Israel possible, a cornerstone for stability in the region.
The USA also kept Europe together with NATO.
Pax Americana is a thing for sure.
an increase
People in the Middle East are really not seen as people.
This is including the Middle East.
China is focusing on itself, maybe that’s what the US and Europe should do for a while.
With Belt and Road, and all the colonialist projects China is doing in Africa, I would absolutely not say that “China is focusing on itself”. Or, at least: Even if it’s mainly focusing on itself, there is a very noteworthy imperial and colonial project going on.
What’s wrong with building infrastructure? Nothing stopping the West from offering an alternative development plan. Countries go with China’s because it is a better deal with fewer strings attached.
Instead when the US invaded Iraq it destroyed its infrastructure and opposed any plan to rebuild Iraq. China now is helping rebuild Iraq. Just one example of plenty.
Then again given the crumbling state of US infrastructure, it should really focus on itself. It brought a lot destruction (see: Gaza) and very little building to the rest of the world even when they broke it (see: Iraq).
China is building military infrastructure on contested islands in the south china sea with the goal of controlling the whole area firmly including the first island chain and Taiwan.
Countries go with China’s because it is a better deal with fewer strings attached.
There’s also no historical baggage with Chinese colonialism in Africa. Fewer strings also means China doesn’t care about democracy, human rights, and such.
Nothing’s wrong with building infrastructure. Why would it be?
What’s wrong is the financing scheme that makes the infrastructure effectively Chinese national property. And when China can decide how and when a country’s infrastructure can be used, China gets a lot of influence in that country’s domestic politics. And it does use that influence.
USA destroying Iraq doesn’t make China any less colonial. China helping rebuild Iraq in a way that will make Iraq a vassal of China… That does make China more colonial.
USA should absolutely focus on itself. And it will do it much more than before, because now that it has decided to cut its international soft power, it does not really have other options, does it? :)
This is going to require constitutional changes
I think it’s going to require a new constitution. The American constitution was pretty good for a first try at modern democracy, but it has weaknesses. Look to European constitutions for inspiration regarding balance of power, parliamentary systems, electoral systems, basic rights. A less powerful president and a voting system that doesn’t lead to two parties might be prudent for example.
Having term limits on politicians (including judges) would be key. At some point, an old person simply can’t relate to the world that younger people grew up in. More importantly, they either become angry codgers (Republicans) or domesticated sheep (Geronocrats), which is innately an imbalance in political influence. An assertive person, in most situations, gets a bigger piece of the pie, be it political, fiscal, sexual, or some other thing.
Term limits have a huge downside. The politician will need a job afterwards and is thus more motivated to give political favors for job security afterwards. Your goal would also be achieved via an age limit like 70.
It also takes a while for a newly elected representative to understand how the political apparatus works, who is who and so on. Lobbyists and bureaucrats don’t have term limits though and have a much easier influencing the newcomer. Experience matters in every profession including politics.
