Not really. Not to be dismissive of the harms of a 2nd term trump.
But you have to understand what American history has been.
People were literally enslaved in the early days, then the country was literally at war with itself over slavery. Then Jim Crow and Segregation. Black people were lynched. White mobs would kill black people.
Chinese people were targeted by the Chinese Exclusion Act and banned from entry, some were US Citizens too and they weren't except either.
The US had a major economic crash in 1929. Got into 2 world wars. American Citizens of Japanese ancestry were literally arrested and held in camps because of their ancestry. Went through cols war, the red scare, mccathyism. People randomly getting accused of being "communists" and arrested. Unions get cracked down. Protests were brutally suppressed, more violently than in modern day. Black people protesting for their rights and took a bus down south got burned. Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. literally got assassinated.
That is the American history.
And here we are, through such a shitty history, democracy survived, and voting rights expanded to so many people. First to Black people, then to Women.
Back then a majority of the population supported segregation, institutionalized racism. But today, a majority of people are okay with interracial marriage.
I have high hopes we can survive another trump term.
It won't be pleasent, but we'll survive.
It should be noted that through all this people fought for those rights. So don't fall asleep, dear America, because organizing even within small communities will make a difference.
If done correctly, massive change can happen. Dream big so that those who fear negotiate back down to the levels you'll accept.
The Beastie Boys certainly did.
I feel like a lot of people online need to read this comment, go outside, and live their life. This is not defeatist, and it's not unreal optimism. Thank you for this.
I think the problem here is the concurrent effects of climate change. The US couldn't have picked a worse time to move from flirting with facism to full-on marrying it.
You can deal with one crisis if you're coordinated enough but the chaos that's already occurring with the climate - and is set to become exponentially worse - doesn't give me much hope for a harmonious conclusion to this. Obviously, I hope I'm wrong and you're right.
The part about our history you're forgetting is that we never, through any of that, gleefully elected a guy that has made it abundantly clear he doesn't give a fuck about democracy and will work to subvert or destroy it if it doesn't suit him.
This is new territory.
And we're about to experience the deconstruction of things that will be very difficult to build back.
Your point is that we've been around for a few hundred years, so we can bounce back. But history would like to point out that nations that were around much longer than us have ceased to exist many times over.
I wish I had your optimism.
On the other hand, do keep in mind that mighty empires have fallen. We cannot say for sure that things will be fine just because in the past the USA has survived
Dont forget the trail of tears.
The US has been through a lot and will likely recover, but it would be nice to avoid making the same mistakes again. How many more people have to get hurt before humanity learns?
How do you replenish the oceans and maintain life for any ecosystem humanity lives off of? Most of America is set to be desert by 4 degrees c average warmth increase. You won't grow crops outdoors. We know we are guaranteed to blow past 1.5 now without being able to stop it as are actions are to late. Yet we are saying "drill baby drill". The topographical map will change drastically.
democracy survived
LMAO!!
Choosing between two candidate picked by lobbyists/corporations, and anyone else not having a slightest chance in hell isn't a democracy, but hey, you do you.
It's slightly better than China/Russia having a single candidate and everyone else is just for show.
It is a democracy.
Not a good type, but still a democracy.
Remember, Democracy and Autocracy isnt binary states of its either a Full Totalitarian Regime or a Full Direct Flawless Democracy.
There's a sliding scale in between.
We don't just go from Monarchies to a perfect Utopian Flawless Democratic system overnight. Change is incremental.
I do agree with the sentiment that 2 party system isn't really a good idea, that very much need to be changed.
But its not like the constitution says "The United States shall be a 2-party system", its an emergent property of First-Past-The-Post electoral systems. But unfortunately, human brains always look for the first thing they think of, I mean "Most Votes Win" sounds simple right. People never thought about the fact that "Most" doesn't mean majority, but by the time people realize, its too late, people go too used to it.
But its still a democracy, a very very flawed democracy. But if you argue that First-Past-The-Post isn't a democracy, then most of the world are living in dictatorships.
I share your broader view and cautious optimism. In fact I think that some of what we are seeing are death spasms of that white hegemony that used to lynch blacks at will. They lost their “hard” power long ago with the end of Jim Crow. And they have been losing their “soft” power ever since. Demographic trends point to white people in America eventually becoming a minority. Religion is also dying out. So much of what we see is a panic of a dying group that was once dominant. There is no way that’s ever going to be pretty, anywhere, at any time. But look at the trend behind it and it’s an encouraging one, even if the death spasms are incredibly difficult. TBH if the Democrats could just provide some real leadership into this future, America could flip into a totally different country, much like the liberal democracies of Europe (but way stronger) inside of 20 years. This is the reality that the old guard are scared shitless of, and why they are pulling out all the stops to go the other way.
one difference today is that govt/establishment/utra-rich have centralised way more power than anytime in human history.
add that with extreme surveillance & automated weaponry, “govt” can do basically anything they want. 1% can easily crush any opposition to them with no matter how strongly united the rest of us are. dnc just ignored its entire voter base to continue a genocide & support fracking while letting corporate greed run rampant for last 4 years.
with ai+drones it will become way worse. it’s not unimaginable what’s happening to palestinian will happen to the non-white population here in next 10-15 years.
From an outsider's perspective, I think a lot of people think you guys sailed past the point of no return back in the 80s.
Reagan, he is the starting point of everything: the tax cut from 73% to 28%. USA never got back on track after this.
Nope. Johnson.
No, not that one.
Andrew Johnson.
So many ways it could have been better.
He could have punished the Southern Aristocracy for starting the civil war. He could have ensured that the evil that led us there was exterminated forever.
Failing that, they could have actually removed him via impeachment instead of falling just short. That would have at least established forever that the presidency is not some sacred "unimpeachable" office.
But Raygun did a great break dancing set in the Olympics.
Remember when the entire world was convinced there was absolutely no way Bush, an idiot, fascist, religious bigot, etc could get re-elected?
Nobody thought that at all. Most presidents sitting during outbreaks of war retain their positions. You'd have to have been in a complete echo chamber to believe this stance. The moment 9/11 happened, it solidified Bush's Second term in stone.
I assume you mean Jr. Because Sr wasn't the moron that Jr was.
Nucular. 🤦
9/11
What?!
The 80s were fucked, but if you're saying it was worse than the response to the Civil Rights movement...
McCarthyism...
Jim Crow...
Or the KKK destroying reconstruction...
Like, I could see saying that last one was the point, only if you start the clock immediately after resolving the civil war. Cause obviously a Civil War is what really happens after a point of no return. We lasted a couple years in between the two points.
For as fucked as the last 40 years has been, as far as America goes we're beating the average on basic human decency.
What's happening now isn't new, it's a slip backwards, which is unfortunately common when you try to fight fascism with moderate politics. It works for a little bit because they're coasting off the last people who really fought. But all moderate politcs really are, is giving fascist time to regroup in the shadows like fucking Sauron.
It's a cycle, and we live in a time when you can learn pretty much anything about history in a few minutes on Wikipedia
America can not afford for voters to stay ignorant. We need people who know what happened last time, what worked then, and what might work again. Stop acting like we live in unprecedented times, and start reading up on how fascism has been defeated historically.
Cuz we're up, like it or not shits getting real again. And the more people know what we're doing then better.
You mean the 1780s, right?
Yes.
In my opinion we've already passed the point of no return and recent events have just confirmed as much.
This isn't about having differing political opinions. A profoundly unfit, amoral criminal with a very public history of being an awful person came along and started spewing extremely dangerous rhetoric, some of which is almost verbatim to Hitler's, and our society ate it up and made him president in 2016. This man, who leads a party who courts racists/sexists for their votes, utterly failed his tenure as president, bombing his response to the greatest American crisis since WW2 and presiding over the highest White House administration turnover rate in U.S. history. Since then he has become a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, and illegally attempted to overturn our democratic institutions by various means.
This go around the American people were presented with a choice between that person, who only managed to make himself appear even more unfit during this campaign season, openly stated he is anti-worker rights, and is directly responsible for removing women's federally protected right to bodily autonomy, or a successful prosecutor with a doctorate in law, backed by a party that, despite misinformation, has a voting history proving they vote in favor of the average American FAR more than the opposing party....and Americans STILL managed to drop the ball and go with the CLEARLY worse choice. And when I say clearly, I'm talking about by every conceivable metric that exists in reality.
At this point it isn't about Democrat vs Republican or Trump vs Kamala or Biden. It's about the American people. We are not a society of intelligent voters. We have failed our responsibility as citizens in a democracy by being too lazy to learn and by allowing misinformation to mislead us and emotions to cloud our better judgement. We are not engaged in responsible involvement in our own politics. We gleefully elect people that only offer hate and fear and lies, despite how hard they try to prove how awful they are to us. And THAT is why we have passed the point of no return. If you remove the parties and the politicians out of the equation, you still have a society that fails at responsibly preserving a democracy. That gives in to hateful rhetoric and fear. That wants to get the better of the "others".
There is no happy ending for a society like that. A society like that can only decline. This was not an election about one political ideology against another. It was an election about morality. And we categorically failed that moral test.
There are excuses. We've been through a lot. Lots of people are desperate. Desperate people make bad decisions. But the bottom line is we don't live in a society with a majority of responsible adults making responsible, fact-based decisions about the most important things.
In the arc of history we may end up reaching a better place, but personally I believe we're embarking on a decline that will most likely last the rest of our lives. It simply isn't a problem that can be fixed short term. And we're about to experience a sort of deconstruction. A deconstruction of norms. A deconstruction of institutions. A deconstruction of education and safety nets. And those things take a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to build back, because it's easier to destroy than it is to create or maintain.
Buckle up. Try to find happiness where you can. It's probably not getting better anytime soon.
Progress isn't a straight line, and sometimes there are setbacks on the way. I'm disappointed, of course, but I'm optimistic that we'll manage.
And progress without testing it's resiliency against malicious actors will not last. As much as we hate Trump being elected and staffing clowns in each position, it will test what has been made so far. Row v. Wade, as we now know, should have been stronger. The Voting Rights Act too. The states that required the law to be fair have pulled back the law and reveal little has changed.
No one likes getting burned but fire is useful for showing us what burns easily and what withstands the heat. We will rebuild stronger and know what works.
I hope not. But I am fearful that the US electorate has not grasped yet what it threw away.
We don't know.
The US came back from a US president hiring private goons to spy on his political opponents.
The US came back from a US president illegally selling weapons to Iran to fund right wing militias in South America.
The US came back from a US cabinet member taking literal bribes from oil companies to give them oil drilling rights on federal land.
The US came back from a US president illegally firing a cabinet member and installing his own lackey.
But it didn't HAVE to.
I don't think there's really such a thing as a 'point of no return' for a Democracy. But it is possible to get to a point after which you don't return.
The next line of defense is 3/4 of state legislatures.
Nah.
That was Reagan. You're about 40 years late.
If you want to play that game, it was likely Nixon and the southern strategy.
But neither of those were point of no return. They were just foundational groundwork to set up this moment that likely is.
It's going to be a really shit 4 years. There could be a point of no return anytime along that based on a variety of issues, but IMO the most likely point of no return is if/when Trump moves to take a third term in '28. If that happens it's clearly dead no hope.
Just feels life another goal post moved... He literally worked to overthrow the American government and have his VP killed on live TV and was then clinched of dozens of felonies. . There can't always be a *"yeah, but if THIS next thing happens..."*I
He failed to overthrow the American government and have his VP killed. And the reason he wanted his VP killed was because he wouldn't help him overthrow the American government.
It's undeniable that some very powerful people want US democracy dead, but from that to the actual death of US democracy is a long way
No. Of course not!
Failing to Reject the Reagan Revolution, and mass embrace of the Jack Welsh style "trickle down" economics lie, by BOTH parties was the point of no return, almost half a century ago at this point. This car was already totaled.
Citizens United years later was just a victory lap by the owners pissing on the long dead corpse of the dream of societal equity.
Trump is just another symptom of that intransigent reality we all live in.
I'd say hope for collapse, as painful as it is, to have any hope for a better life for our children, maybe, but oligarch greed made climate change and at this point inevitable ecological collapse in the coming decades means there really isn't hope for a better society/civilization for generations(if they eventually develop technologies to better cope with the new hellish climate reality) if at all.
Why would US collapse though?
I am not following.
The current regime showing zero signs of distress, in fact they could extract even more and it seems plebs will accept it.
Half the country is doing OT on bootlicking and regime whore worshipping.
Most people on here too, and fedi is pretty redical by mainstream lol
In the near term, people increasingly not being able to afford basic necessities like housing and food will lead to increased societal violence, but that likely won't cause collapse.
Climate scientists are increasingly warning of ecological collapse, meaning core climate systems will fail, like the Atlantic Gulfstream which will cause global famine and destruction, and that might be the end of human civilization all together, we won't know until we do it within the next half century, and see the full extent of our fine work, a climate hostile to agriculture, dependable fresh water, possibly even standing structures not made of steel and concrete.
But man are we speeding towards that cliff for short-term private shareholder profit, wheeeee!
Right now my mind is at, "it very well could be, but time will tell".
Had Trump had the right people in places to make certain decisions, it could have very well ended in 2020 just as much. Well the world did change in a big way near the end of his term, with COVID, how he botched it and how he gave corporate handout after corporate handout which caused the inflation that Biden is being blamed for.
I've been still grasping for ways that the US still can be saved, which there are many, but they hinge on
1A. Trump going back on many of his worst promises and not doing them, because reneging is his thing, or
1B. Trump and his team being too incompetent to enact his agenda, or
1C. The backlash to Trump's unpopular moves creates disobedience within government, military and writ large, preventing him from enacting his agenda, and
- Democracy not being rigged during his tenure, avoiding where elections become just as meaningful as Russia's or China's during the 4 years.
A plurality of Americans gave Trump and Republican facsism basically all the dragon balls of power, so it's up to him pretty much whether he can use them and the most Americans can do is organize and resist.
I was as surprised and disappointed as anyone, and I think we WILL take a few more steps backwards over the next few years, but I don't expect an unstoppable fall into fascism.
Most of the votes for Trump weren't actually FOR Trump. They were against the current situation they are in. They see him as the revolution. The anti-politician that will bring real change. They think all his court battles are the "Man" trying to hold him down and keep him from disrupting a system that gave up on its people long ago.
Of course that's all bullshit, but, assuming that all "normal" people can see through his lies and that only evil, woman hating racists would support him, is a big part of why he was elected.
Trump denied Project 2025 because he knew most people wouldn't want it. (Honestly, I would be surprised if he even knew what was in it) If he lets the Christian nationalists push that whole agenda on day one, he'll become the oppressive government that is taking away their freedoms. And nothing is more important to Trump than making Trump look good.
I'm way more concerned with Vance. Like you say, Trump does what's best for Trump. If Vance becomes President for whatever reason then ideology takes center stage.
Vance and Bannon
I think the real answer is that we end up kind of like the UK -- going from the worlds ultra-dominant superpower to a sort of slow regression to the mean, as China, India and others take the spotlight.
When you look at what China is doing with their Belt and Road Initiative, and their move to dominate the transportation infrastructure of developing nations -- the US isn't anywhere near equipped to counter that. We're still in a cold war mentality thinking that we will dominate as the world's police force.
Meanwhile, all the actual economies will be run by Chinese companies operating with state support.
Yeah, I think this could be the end of free and fair elections in the U.S., and there's no coming back from that without a revolution. Don't get me wrong, I don't think most of us will directly be killed by this change; our lives will just be shittier. It'll be like living in Russia. Given how utterly incompetent the administration is looking, and the things they say they're going to do (mass deportation of a significant part of our workforce, blanket tariffs, gutting social safety-nets), we may speed-run an economic and societal collapse. That could sow the seeds for a horrible and bloody revolution.
Or, maybe I'm wrong and the important institutions will somehow hold against a christo-fascist party controlling all branches of the federal government and a president with immunity. If there are still are free and fair elections, then congress could block a lot of things in 2026, and start repairing some of the damage in 2028.
Still, it does not bode well that the U.S. elected these people in the first place, and at best, the U.S. will slowly crumble for decades.
Free and fair elections have never been anything but an ideal in this country. It started with voters were wealthy landowning men, often who owned slaves.
What we're seeing is years of undermined reforms by the momentarily wealthy after the previous empires in europe tore themselves apart.
Meh, I would've given 3/5 stars to U.S. democracy since the Voting Rights Act. Stars taken away for FPTP, gerrymandering, campaign finance, "lobbying," and the electoral college. I believe we're going to go to 0/5 stars with completely rigged elections rather than just manufacturing consent and lightly tipping the scales like they've been doing.
It’s my point of no return. Leaving in two weeks forever. Good luck.
Congratulations. Did you already have citizenship somewhere else?
Australia, thank God
Where ya goin? And why there?
I've been trying to figure out the most popular countries where people are fleeing to, but I couldn't figure out how to search for this.
It would seem that way. The people elected a guy that tried to overthrow democracy
How do you recover from that
You probably don't.
Even with a contentious subject like abortion. That's a disagreement about a specific topic. You can reach a middle ground. It's one of many topics to debate over and forge legislation regarding.
But the majority gleefully electing a guy that effectively looked us all straight in the face and said "I don't give a fuck about democracy and will attempt to subvert or overthrow it if it doesn't suit me"? Yeah, there's really no recovering from that. At least not without a long period of serious decline and suffering, followed by lots of struggle and death to earn back what we lose.
We disrespected the shit out of our democracy and everyone that fought/died for it. There's no way that ends well.
For democracy? Yes.
The longer the rubes hold on to this pipe dream that the dems can make a come back the further we will slip and longer it will take to recover. Unfortunately, I don't think democrat party members will ever give up on the democratic party and they will spend all their political goodwill investing in this farce of a party long after the elections are still free and fair.
Say, free and fair elections survive by some act of god. That doesn't change the fact the GOP can beat them handley in a free and fair election. The only thing trump needed to cement his win was the Supreme Court to sign off on everything. Given immunity all the road blocks trump had before have been lifted.
We have till January and you will see what the executive is actually capable of, with limp dick biden kicked to the curb.
The terror that will be trumps deportation methods will have your jaw drop and I'm not kidding. We tolerated kids in cages, Abu Ghraib is coming to America and our own sex trafficker and chief will begin some truly despicable shit. You better believe media capture is part of it because there is no way other country's will be let in on this side of the veil.
I'm not a doomer. It's not hyperbole. Im not an oracle and would pay with my own life just to be wrong.
I still am hopeful though that my countrymen can snap out of it and quit dismissing reality in real-time, allowing us an actual chance at resisting this upheaval. If we wait till the midterms though, this shit is cooked, packed, and on the shelf.
If you want to say, look at American history, I'd quickly defer you to the 90s. Whatever we might have once been we are no longer that. We are consumers educated by infomercials who only know reality TV and "influencers". Coke was the first plague, Springer the second. Followed by real world and road rules. All of this media "culture" stripped us of what it ever ment to be American. No one sits around and wanes intellectual about the founding fathers unless you're a fashie supreme court justice or Lin-Manuel Miranda. Today, in 2024, the Apprentice is more American than George Washington.
There was a time when a single black women sitting at the front of a bus could change a nation. Today Rosa would hit the front page of reddit on a Wednesday and fall off by the time Europeans woke up to see.
Some very profound points.
I think we were fucked once we had a window to all the world's knowledge in our pockets. The line was immediately blurred between having access to that knowledge and the capacity to truly know and process, to possess, that knowledge.
That used to be the casual dividing line between the adults that considered politics and the people puking up shrimp and strawberry wine at the jersey shore. Now the shrimp and strawberry people count fox-scented infotainment as "news" and really just as their sports team of choice - and they line the paths to polling stations holding automatic rifles. They feel emboldened by knowledge they don't actually possess but feel confidence in the fact that they "could look up whenever, just don't want to right now".
All the "Good Liars" clips are a front row seat on American democracy bleeding out.
The longer the rubes hold on to this pipe dream that the dems
That's how far I got before I could hear the aluminium hat.
-Denial <- you are here
-Anger
-Bargaining
-Depression
-Acceptance
It might be. Only time, and the actions of Americans themselves, will tell.
It's the biggest crisis in my lifetime. But we have survived other crisises, some-fucking-how, so maybe we'll luck our way out of this one too.
God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.
- Otto Von Bismarck
Yeah, we’re a strangely resilient nation. Things that topple other nations have been crises to us. This may be the end and this may be a disaster so great we dismantle the right wing media dominance or any number of things.
No. There were two ways the trump admin was going to go. He was either going to run an effective fascist regime, or become the ringmaster of the largest dipshit fucknugget circus. Seeing how things are going so far (and he isn't even the president yet) it's going to be the latter.
Sure, there will be long term damage that is going to take years, if not lifetimes of hard work and good policy to undo, but it can be undone. Assuming 2024 was a wake up call and people vote more effectively instead of throwing their voice away at propped up Russian disinfo candidates.
the problem is that people learned nothing. The pandemic gave trump a get out of jail free card, I guess, even though he fucked it up
That's up to Trump, because your vaunted checks and balances are gone.
Think he's going to show restraint? Insight? Empathy?
Unless there's nuclear war, there's no such thing as the point of no return. Just a further slide into more egregious civil rights violations. Eventually it will get better, hopefully through democratic means and not violent ones.
You don't vote out a dictator. The only way out is through violent revolution.
Trump is the worst dictator ever, seeing as he literally got voted out last time and could do nothing about it.
The difference between recession and collapse is a bounce back on the other side.
Banking system is already vulnerable to real estate prices. Commercial real estate has been in zombie mode with banks hiding their losses on the sector. The US government has already unsustainable debt levels that can't afford major adventures or catastrophes. Adventures include mass deportations or wars. The problem with austerity measures for the non-oligarchs is strong degrowth and crime from multiplier effects.
While Trump is likely to be extremely divisive and angering socially, it is economics and geopolitics that will collapse the US. Deregulating banks is letting the fractional reserve system use a riskier lower fraction. Biden was very good at strengthening the subjugation of US colonies, but he pushed away majority of the world. There is major risk that Trump pushes away colonies without making the world more trusting of US. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/11/requiem-for-an-empire.html
What destroys America is the hubris of thinking it is winning, and that it can win over the world. Fighting China instead of getting cheap stuff is a mistake. Investing in dead ender climate terrorist energy is a mistake. Promising reindustrialization is a lie, and tariffs won't do it. It will bleed Americans dry while letting oligarchs pillage what's left.
Weaponizing AI to control population, and kill people is the new priority. Putting your hopes in DNC so that they can undo project 2025 is controlling you in a way that doesn't avert the path to collapse in any way.
The only escape is UBI and peace. Not something a Israel supremacist neocon DNC wants, because UBI is power redistribution instead of wealth redistribution. The binary of AI and automation is either cooperation where abundance and the profits from abundance can be shared, or extermination of useless riff raff that dares to whine about oligarchy and empire.
Investing in dead ender climate terrorist energy is a mistake.
I hope that's not your opinion of nuclear energy. People criticizing it miss the fact that a grid has to support some baseline.
All things are good and needed, which are not about burning fossil fuels (and sometimes even those, if getting "greener" energy somewhere pollutes more than just taking a canister of gasoline or diesel fuel). And the more diverse energy supply is, the smaller is each particular environmental impact, be it from greenhouse gases, lithium, ruining watersheds when building hydroelectric stations, similar impacts of wind farms, oil spills, escaping gases, toxic liquids, plastics, ... .
People miss that nuance. You make humanity sustainable again by diversifying as much as possible, so that any particular kind of harm would be minimized, and so that no particular industry would possess strategic power. Not by dividing energy into holy and unholy and burning witches. It's just math.
Promising reindustrialization is a lie, and tariffs won’t do it. It will bleed Americans dry while letting oligarchs pillage what’s left.
Promising won't because promising ain't doing.
But input is leverage, and leverage is power. Look how "free" input from corporations into Linux gave them control over it. So if reindustrialization really-really happens, it will improve politics of your country. It's the way it works. When you live off cheap Chinese labor, your economy depends less on your own.
Weaponizing AI to control population, and kill people is the new priority. Putting your hopes in DNC so that they can undo project 2025 is controlling you in a way that doesn’t avert the path to collapse in any way.
Agreed.
The only escape is UBI and peace. Not something a Israel supremacist neocon DNC wants, because UBI is power redistribution instead of wealth redistribution. The binary of AI and automation is either cooperation where abundance and the profits from abundance can be shared, or extermination of useless riff raff that dares to whine about oligarchy and empire.
I personally have doubts about UBI. It requires fiscal discipline that no recent US government had. Otherwise it speeds up inflation. Not significantly if we compare it to corporate bailouts, but still.
Peace is always good. But war is a symptom of problems that still would exist if there were no war.
I've recently watched an interview by Bill Joy (the Sun founder) where he mentions how clear water access has done much more to reduce mortality in the world than antibiotics. I think it's the same with accessible good automation vs "AI" and other hype phenomena. I think non-oligopolized tech industry and non-oligopolized Web would do hell of a lot more for all kinds of abundance than any new magic wand like "AI".
Investing in dead ender climate terrorist energy is a mistake.
Nuclear energy is not quite climate terrorism, because it is clean, but it's purpose is to serve climate terrorists and warmongers instead of being a climate solution. It takes too long to build out, and is too expensive. Baseload was never a necessity. It usually made a giant continuous operating plant the cheapest energy. Batteries and transitioning existing FF plants for standby/peaker use is far cheaper than nuclear, and renewables, batteries, and hydrogen can achieve 100% clean energy with 0 additional nuclear. The insurmountable problem with deciding that you need extra GW of baseload in 15 years, is that you need to suppress renewables to still need it by then. Uninsurable and unbankable, and always overbudget in part because political bribes, in a collapsing corrupt dystopia, is only path to building any.
When you live off cheap Chinese labor, your economy depends less on your own.
One of the reasons the US can't reindustrialize or even build affordable housing, is tariffs on steel/metals and lumber. Forces high material prices in addition to labour. For cars, China's advantage is not just steel, and factory building, it is automation. Robotics gets developed close to where the customers are, and US industrialization is going to rely on minimal labour to have a chance. While the US is deeply committed to its oligarchy, inviting Chinese expertise in key industries, with their robotics, is a path to a future relevant America. Instead of tariffs, strategic reserves of domestically purchased steel/metal, solar, batteries that may be sold to US industry at a loss, is a path to having domestic supply resilience while encouraging FDI for abundance purposes.
I personally have doubts about UBI. It requires fiscal discipline that no recent US government had. Otherwise it speeds up inflation. Not significantly if we compare it to corporate bailouts, but still.
Inflation is a market adjustment between supply and demand. You can escape inflation by substituting goods, and you only lose from inflation if 1. you have too much cash, or 2. your income rises slower than inflation. Slavery is good anti-inflation policy that provides high productivity. If inflation is your most important consideration in life, then slavery is excellent path for reducing it. UBI by empowering people to work less if they want to, means that everyone gets 5 recruiter calls per day, and has a very easy time of finding a good paying job if they want it, and there is huge demand for labour because everyone has more money to buy stuff, and you need to work/sell to them to take their money and trickle it back up to the employers.
So UBI is a massive economic/prosperity boost above and beyond inflation. Eliminates poverty and crime, reduces the need for savings, and so multiplies more money into economy, and importantly disempowers "false promise/prophet heroes" trying to tell you Israel first with "working class angle" politicians vs "pro oligarchy slavery full employment" angle. UBI lowers deficits and debt, because it is just tax credits between rich and poor, without making rich any poorer. Significant program cuts means less "tax collection". More program cuts means higher UBI. Politicians can no longer lie their way past even an idiocracy that understands "I like money".
clear water access has done much more to reduce mortality in the world than antibiotics. I think it’s the same with accessible good automation vs “AI”
An AI developer can make more money from a pro-Empire AI than a humanist AI. The Empire can also JFK/MLK the humanist, or threaten it with compliance to the empire's regulations of preventing humanity from prospering on national security grounds. It would be treason if your AI suggests the empire is not pure good, and Israel has done something wrong, and contradicts the CIA/media disinformation plan. As Netanyahu says, if you don't kill everyone Netanyahu wants dead, then Iran wins. You want to support anti-semitic Iranian/China/Russian/DPRK agent AI development? Netanyahu will say you need one of his pagers.
Absolutely not. It’s the moment where everyone digs in harder.
Ask anyone with skin darker than yours, or whose sexuality or gender was once or still is illegal. You don’t fuckin give up
Outside perspective: It doesn't have to be. It is the moment democracy, its values and its people are tested. The path towards open dictatorship and/or fascism is not set in stone. What is clear is that some setbacks, even catastrophic setbacks, are unavoidable. But as a whole the free-fall can be avoided and you can bounce back from setbacks, even if it takes time. This is actually somewhat universal, since it's not only the U.S. which is sliding more and more towards fascistic or anti-democratic tendencies. It's just that, like with so many other things, everything does seem to be bigger in the U.S. (and Texas).
Although I'm sure a lot are feeling economic pain and/or are generally under stress and uncertainty (IIRC 50% of households struggle to make an unplanned $1000 expense), and I don't expect it to get better under the new administration, the U.S. is still a federated system. If you look at what affects your daily lives directly, a lot more is done on a local and state level, than on the federal level.
From where I'm standing, organizing with like-minded people in your community around issues is the most promising way to go. Unfortunately the issues are back to basics issues like human rights and democratic principles, but that's where we are. This entails more than just protesting, but actively pressuring elected officials around legislation proposals. Suggest ballot measures (find out how such a measure gets to the ballot in the first place, because it's very different depending on where you are). And of course having people run for office and for the others to support them to get in, and get the anti-democratic forces out, once it is time. Don't succumb to the nationalization of local elections. People can be reached way better and more directly on the local level, when they can see it directly affecting their lives and talking to the people responsible directly than for anything happening in Washington D.C. Counter the anti-democracy spewing media outlets with true alternatives (maybe there's an entrepreneurial-minded person wanting to found a cooperative media outlet).
It sounds like a lot to do. But you are more, than you think. Even the disillusioned might be good allies. Take yes for an answer. And more people than you might expect have been part of 'the struggle' for a long time. Welcome them. And yes: Coordinate with and support other local actions.
Another view on what will happen with the federal institutions: Although Trump will put more loyalists than ever in powerful stations, there will remain many (even among the loyalists) who profit from the system's status quo. This includes the Supreme Court justices and ironically corporate goons. So in furthering their own advantage, they might resist things leading to an overall degradation. Of course they will go along with and actively lobby for anything that gives them more power at the expense of the general populace, but that is already the case. Again, if you make unlikely allies on single issues: Take yes for an answer.
Bottom line: Democracy and basic rights are ideas, made by humans. And they can only survive, as long as we believe in and fight for them. Always keep the belief, always keep on fighting. If you hit your head and fall down: Get back up. As the saying goes: This is a marathon, not a sprint. All the best!
You seem confident that there will be more elections. The dictator already promised that there won’t be.
You seem absolutely sure that this will materialize and that its implication means that you have no scope of action. Again, with enough institutionalists in important positions, even if he tries, it would be difficult for him to actually get rid of federal, let alone local and state elections. What is much more likely is that he will make it easier to skew or how he might call it "rig" elections. You know, like voter suppression and gerrymandering on steroids. So what I've written still holds: On a local and state level (or even federal level), pressure your elected officials and organize around the protection of voting rights. Be an active part of the legislative process. Democracy isn't making a cross every four years. And she's calling on all of us.
Sidenote: For everything that man says, you can find a clip of him saying the absolute opposite. So watch what he and his lackeys do, not what he says.
Sure the US may be past it's glory days. Hell even the Rand Corporation (who write a bunch of stuff for govt leaders and other high ups) says it's been trending downhill since some point in the early 2000s. They didn't mention 9/11 but it seems like a good historical milestone.
Essentially the paper says the last 200 years have been an anomaly and we're slowly sliding back to historical norms. They call it the neomedieval era and it's not just the US.
Neo Feudalism is upon us, the frog got to comfortable in this warm water... Now it is too late.
The trend is set and reversal is not on the menu.
Best you can do is quit being poor, otherwise you gonna get progressively more fucked each year.
Yeah pretty much. We're 2-3 generations deep into a cultural expectation that "some one else" will deal with all these problems.
The constant threat of this being "the most important election of our lives", when the party making that argument campaigned as if the outcomes were irrelevant (because from their privileged perspective, the outcomes are irrelevant).
Back during covid a boat got turned a bit sideways in a canal and it seemed like the whole world economy was going to collapse. The system we have is actually incredibly fragile and built largely on trust, both in one another but also in institutions and systems. Not only the US, but western Europe is about to get smacked up-side the head by the 2x4 of failing to maintain a civil society (US at fault within its borders, EU at fault beyond its borders).
Assuming you are talking about who won the US presidential election. Happened 8 years ago too, it wasn't the end of America then. It won't be the end of America now.
8 years ago, the GOP wasn't crammed with MAGA, the judiciary wasn't crammed with MAGA, and the executive wasn't going to be crammed with MAGA.
I think you are assuming wrong...
It ain't end of America either way, just plebs getting fucked harder every passing year
It WAS the end for a lot of people. Not everyone survived the last Trump regime.
Be prepared for the doomers to tell you why you are wrong. God speed, brother.
It's the point of no return for something, but I suspect there's still a future to fight for. Anyone pushing a full doomer view is trying to suppress you. In case the worst happens, you should try to build a community around yourself and support other people. Join a mutual aid group if you can (or start one). If you grow produce or something, talk to your neighbors and exchange resources.
If we build a strong foundation, nothing that happens can break us. In the worst case, they'll try to break us and break themselves upon us. We need to be strong so we can come back stronger in the future.
Every minute is a death and a rebirth.
Anyone pushing a full doomer view is trying to suppress you.
This is so stupid. Can't we just be really fucking discouraged because the reality of the situation is mind-bogglingly grim?
I sure as fuck am. That being said, before I check out of this world, I guarantee you I will wear a rich man's skin as a suit. They will not just get off without any consequences for the horrors they have created.
Don't believe there really is an absolute point of no return without the plot of Genesis of the Daleks happening. The future is long, and we don't know how the next four to eight years will play out, but dictatorships have risen and fallen before. Spain was a fascist dictatorship for decades, now it isn't. Also, lots of people died in the meantime and not all vestiges of the dictatorship are gone.
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It's unlikely.
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That's hard to impossible to answer in the moment but easier for historians to determine in retrospect.
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Did Britain or Rome know the moments when Pax Britannia or Pax Romana had hit their tipping point to decline? I doubt it.
I think the tipping point will only be observable through the lens of history many years from now with a subject heading of: This event was the beginning of the end of Pax Americana.
The exact point will be the advent of the internet.
USA was still very much on the rise at the advent of the internet. If you define the advent of the internet to be Arpanet, then that was 1969, the same year the USA landed on the moon. If you define the advent of the internet to be the first use of the World Wide Web that would be 1989 the same year the Berlin wall came down and 3 years before the Soviet Union collapsed, which was arguably the most powerful the USA has ever been as it was before China's rise.
its going to be a shit 32 years.
I think it's possibly the end of Western democracy. If Russia and China stroll through Europe with Trump's help, that's pretty much it, no?
Naw this is ridiculous.
Everyone knows it started in the 70s and we’ve been headed down hill ever since. Reality is this country died 60 years ago. It’s just taking awhile for the wheels to fall off the bus.
What democracy? The US never had democracy
No. It will be bad and might set us back a few decades, but we will fight back or die trying.
So i agree that the second Trump administration is going to suck in most every way possible, like the first one but worse because they're prepared this time.
BUT
I think people overrate a government's ability to influence the conditions in a given country. I think a country is made what it is by history, geography, technology, sociology, ideology, economics, and the accumulation of small decisions over centuries.
If the Trump administration wants to end democracy in the US, or if a hypothetical based administration were to attempt a switch to ranked choice voting, both ideals would be impossible to implement because our ideals are limited by practical reality. Both would fail regardless of being good or bad changes, because radical change is really hard when the conditions aren't met for it, especially when it's opposed by the rest of the country. If the country just isn't ready to transition to fascism right now, there's not much that Trump can do to make it.
We talk a lot about how powerful people changed the world, but i think far more often they're just the embodiment of a societal trend, and they couldn't change the world if they weren't. Change isn't done by powerful people but deeper movements in humanity, with powerful people riding them like a wave.
As to where the deeper movements in humanity are leading us right now, i refuse to guess, trying to predict the future is the best way to look like an idiot
or if a hypothetical based administration were to attempt a switch to ranked choice voting
There are states that have already passed electoral reform. Voting is controlled at the state level, so waiting for miraculous federal reform is unnecessary.
I choose to believe that we are not. The true fight for our democracy by the working/middle class hasn't even started yet. Some think it won't. I choose to believe that good will again triumph and life is roller coaster of good and bad.
Will it start any time soon? It's only going to get harder and harder to resist, from now on.
Yeah, people really don't understand how powerful a surveillance state can be when it focuses it's eye on you. It's not safe to talk about resistance around basically anything internet connected with a microphone.
Let's try this: https://magic-8ball.com/
The true fight for our democracy by the working/middle class hasn't even started yet.
Seems like we'll need to form our own political party if we want any representation because we're certainly not getting it from either one of these two dominate parties.
Count me the fuck in. I'll grab my pitchfork.
Every moment is a point of no return, unfortunately.
I'm 14 and this is deep?
🤣 yes
One definition of a collapse is a sudden drastic reduction in the complexity of a thing.
I'm not sure whether we're going to have a societal collapse or a slow decline, but either way the US is in a downward spiral. I think Trump increases the likelihood of us going into the collapse trajectory.
All that said, on the other side of a collapse, there is some room for hope. The incendiary portion of the collapse will definitely suck to live through (if you're lucky enough to do so), but our country could probably use some simplification long-term because the people within it largely cannot navigate a country this byzantine. A lot of this country's systems are too complex for an average person to understand let alone administer.
Most of these complexities were probably birthed via intentional decisions by the system creators, and others were a product of unintended consequences. I think the gap in education between our commoners and "the elite" -- to borrow a tired trope -- also played a part here.
No matter how we arrived at this point, I don't think the current population can actually operate these systems anymore and long-term one way or another our people require a drastic reduction in the complexity of our society.
There is another path in which the United States invests more in education and scales up the average intelligence of its citizens so that they can handle the complexity of modern life, understand nuance, do research, and create better policy....but at this point I think we're frankly too far fucked to ever go down that path.
Doubt it.
The rest of the world isn't lucky enough to never have to hear about the perpetual US election cycle again, and frankly there's just too much money in it for them to give it up.
It'll be a fucking clown show for the next four years though.
The US has had presidents who were literally more evil than Mr. Burns.
They haven't been a real democracy (where the will of the majority influences policy) in decades, if ever.Climate change is still the thing that's most likely to fuck us all, and it's not like the US were actually helpful in that regard under Democratic leadership.
We’ll be fine. It will be a hard 4 years but based on last time trump will spend a fuck load of money to keep the masses happy. 2028 and on are going to be harder because trump will get some bullshit tax cuts passed that will target the middle class when he’s out of office.
We won't be fine, this is meaningfully different
According to history? Yes, but I guess there's a chance that the USA will beat the odds
May I suggest that you give Vlad Vexler's youtube a listen? He describes this as a period of dlweaking democracy, but explains why all is not lost.
Democracy dlweaks in darkness
Is thia Democracy in the room with us right now?
Nobody can predict the future. That being said, I am no longer optimistic.
Why do we call it united?
Last I checked the math books, 50 is Divided.
I always did find it amusing that they are called the United States when it seems like it's constantly teetering on brink of another civil war.
Heard that!
I'm a united individual of one, can't help where I was born..
teetering on brink of another civil war
Shit has to get much, much, much worse before people are willing to take up arms against their own family member 'en mass. A civil war isn't one in which you fight a far away enemy, a civil war is one in which many of your family members and friends are on the opposite side. We are nowhere near a civil war, not even close.
Remember that time we as a country condoned owning people as property? No matter how bad shit gets in the next four years, there's no point of no return
Mass deportations sweeping up agricultural workers will need to be replaced when a national emergency is declared because crops can't be harvested. President declares the crops can be harvested by prison populations...what's the word for captives forced to labor for no pay indefinitely?
Slavery. Notably not the same thing as chattel slavery. I'm not saying we can't get worse than we are right now, what I am saying is that no matter how bad things get, we can come back from it. Hell, Germany came back from being controlled by the actual Nazi party.
I know someone is gonna reply saying how awful life was in Germany for several decades between Nazi rule and modern Germany, and I'll note again that I never said life can't get worse, I only said there's no point of no return for a country.
Earth will not care. Life on earth may suffer, but Earth will not care.
Then I guess we shouldn't worry about Earth, because it'll be fine.
The save the earth movement isn't about earth, it's about humanity.
Maybe. US history is full of crazy fucked up shit that the nation has made its way through thus far. This kind of situation hasn't really happened in the US before though, and historically these kinds of situations do not work out well. We are past the point of no return in that the status quo Washington Consensus or whatever you want to call the previous era is gone now, whatever is coming is something new and different and the US role and position in the world are never going back to what they were before. Really I would say this process started with Bush II but there is no reversing it now that Trump has won a convincing electoral victory. Whether we're past the point of no return for the US constitutional order isn't really clear yet but it's not looking good.
Appreciate your measured response. I'm wondering how long it will take folks to stop coping out of self preservation and say out loud that this isn't anything we've seen before - it's brand new and can go as far as has been threatened.
Could be, but we have thought that before.
As others have stated, this is an entirely new depth to that thought.
I guess we'll see.
It might be for some stuff. I'm worried that it'll have a lasting impact on women inside the USA as well as outside. Inside, they'll have their rights taken away over time. Outside, morale will be impacted. But I'm hoping it'll cause an uprising rather than the other way around.
👊
From an outside observer: it's gonna be harder, but I don't think so. Still, the playbook Trump is gonna try and follow with his trifecta is what his mate Orbán did in Hungary. How hard that is going to be to undo depends on how far he gets.
5
Just to be the nihilist in the room, I honestly think that the point of no return for humanity occurred the moment we stepped down from the trees and started to evolve. And I'm not actually kidding.
I'm not an evolutionary expert, so I'm more than likely talking out of my ass, but I was an Archaeology Major with a focus on the Bronze Age Collapse and what I can tell you is this...
From a certain perspective, the same evolutionary traits that brought our species to this point, are the very same traits that will keep us from moving forward past it. Selfishness, resource hording, greed, the urge to continually expand at the expense of others. Fear of "others" outside of ones own community; all these things in some form were beneficial to growing from hunter gatherers to urban/agricultural societies. We needed organisation to build cities, so we created monarchies. We needed ways to control the growing population, so we created a fear of a deity.
We needed a reason to not allow too many people in to our society so that we didn't waste resources, so we created borders and the concept of "others" that aren't like us. Now, all of that has to get binned if we have any hope of getting past this point because the only way forward is as single planet, not petty nation states. But every single thing that brought us to this point prevents that from happening. It's ingrained in our very DNA, so to speak.
Someone who has been president before, for four years, was elected president again.
I cannot think of anything less similar to a "point of no return".
You may think of him or his policies what you want (I personally have a mostly negative opinion of him too!), but we have all had four years of opportunity to observe what he does when he is president.
If you are thinking that Trump is like Hitler, then please point me to anything similar to:
- a Capitol Fire Decree of 2017 that says several parts of the Bill of Rights are suspended until further notice
- an Enabling Act of 2017 that gives the president full power to make law including law that violates the constitution
- laws on the Coordination of the States with the Federation of 2017 or a Law on the Reconstruction of the Federation of 2018 giving the federal government full legislative and executive power over the states
- a Law Against the Formation of Parties of 2017 declaring that the Republican Party was the only political party in the US and anyone attempting to form another party would be imprisoned
- a Law on the Abolition of the Senate of 2018 doing exactly what the title implies
- a Law on Measures of State Self-Defense of 2018 retroactively legalizing dozens of extrajudicial killings of Trump's political rivals
Oh, none of those things happened in the late 2010s? Then why exactly are you expecting them to happen in 2025 or 2026? What is different now?
You are giving examples in history and changing the dates to the first Trump presidency, which is somewhat confusing.
Those things certainly didn't happen because the GOP did not have a majority in the legislature. I agree that it is unlikely that these will occur during this term as well, given that the majority in the house will be very small, but I assure you there will be bills passed that will continue to strip away power from the legislature and grant those powers to the executive. There will also be interpretations of the law that will disenfranchise the citizens and/or will have repercussions for years to come.
LegalEagle gives a pretty good rundown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG_L3fLLG3c
You are giving examples in history and changing the dates to the first Trump presidency, which is somewhat confusing.
I was attempting to tell you when those things would have happened if Trump were doing the same things as Hitler. (It's convenient they both became heads of government in January.)
Those things certainly didn’t happen because the GOP did not have a majority in the legislature.
what? It did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/115th_United_States_Congress#Party_summary
Thank you for the solid points. People are dooming way too hard, simply because their preferred candidate lost this round. There is an opportunity for Democrats to improve themselves. They had that wakeup call 8 years ago, and they didn't take it. Hopefully they will this time and strengthen the quality of the party and the candidates. Simply being 'not Republican', their primary strategy, isn't enough.
Point of no return for what?
Do you mean its fall, like Rome?
No, I don't think so at all.
I actually think we're on the cusp of actual, true reform.
But if I'm wrong, just try to remember that millions of people lives happy, fulfilling lives, even while Rome fell around them. We will too.
Would you ever allow yourself to accept that truth if so, or will you need to see actual bodies in the streets before you believe it's over?
This isn't something you'll be able to determine in the moment. It will only be clear in hindsight.
People do see it, it's not easy to see it and act, but they did. I know directly of people that gave up ownership of multiple factories and a very comfortable life in Germany in about this phase of the fascist uprising there. They left to America and Australia, split family, with what they could carry, and started back over from a very modest place. Not too long after, the worst gained momentum in Germany, nazis took over the factories and a horrible fate befell many in their community who didn't acct when they could have.
No. Just the next chapter in the story.
Rome had a final chapter.
The Germans are good at ending things, aren’t they?
You don't understand Americans at all.
We're here in "no stupid questions". The OP asked a question. So if you want to offer some of your knowledge and insight - go for it. But simply telling OP "you don't understand" isn't really adding anything of value.
It's like not commenting, but with more effort.
