Realistically... How fucked is the US?
Realistically... How fucked is the US?
(Disclaimer: I voted against Trump and anyone who supported him in my state.)
Before, his power was checked by legislature....but now GOP has full control over the gov, and the supreme Court has 5 members nominated by Trump, soon to be 7.
Hand maidens tale seems possible. Destruction of the middle class through tariffs, union busting, tear down of heath coverage, teardown public schools, force colleges to abandon certain studies or no federal money....
Add in non stop fossil fuel promotion with drill baby drill attitudes, tear down NOAA and the nhc because strong hurricane news reinforces climate change.
I guarantee in 4 years Trump will try to name a successor instead of holding an election.
Pretty fucked, but not as fucked as Ukraine, Palestine, Lebanon, or Taiwan.
NATO will be fucked for a while if the US withdraws, but other NATO countries may ramp up military spending over time.
This situation is a worldwide danger. The US is/was a world power, it has/had the largest national economy in the world, it has the largest military in the world.
Previously, we could be concerned that democratic countries (including the US) weren't putting enough pressure on authoritarian countries (like Russia, China, and North Korea) to improve. Now we have to worry that the US will actually become a fully authoritarian country, like Russia or China.
Let me put it this way: we will see the true beginning of WW3 in the Baltics. Trump will predictably not act upon that and the response will be 100% up to Europe itself.
That response better be an armed one, and quick too, or we all better start practicing cyrillic here in W-europe.
Regardless if we are lucky, "only" tens of thousands will die. More likely it will be millions.
So yeah, Trump kinda bedazzled us there, no way around it. Won't be until the people who voted him in will start hurting personally that they'll finally realize they've been conned. But too little too late.
Some people are going to die-- mostly women. More people are going to have their lives turned upside-down, especially immigrants and ethnic and sexual minorities. Many immigrants, even legal ones, are going to be expelled. Corporations are going to run wild as regulation is abandoned. People are going to be bankrupted by predatory healthcare firms at a much higher rate than now. Every form of corporate pollution, adulteration, cheating and chicanery will be tolerated. The judiciary will be further corrupted. The US will not only withdraw from NATO, but will try to shut it down. Ukraine will be handed to Putin on a platter. Taiwan, the Baltics, Moldova and Poland will be left to fend for themselves. The ethnic cleansing in Gaza will transition even further to a full-scale genocide. Every aspect of government will be handed to corrupt, incompetent fanatics: kakistocracy all the way down. The impartiality of the civil service will be destroyed and the 19th-century spoils system reinstated. Social Security will be privatized and gutted. Obamacare will be eliminated. Congress will hold show trials of Trump's perceived enemies. Terrorist acts and sabotage of critical infrastructure will massively increase, and the clampdowns that follow will be used to further degrade what few rights we still have.
But at least you won't have Kamala's pantsuit to complain about.
One of the biggest things is that the "deep state", an innocuous thing turned into a convenient boogeyman by trump, will be quietly destroyed. This is the thing that actually keep your mail arriving, your food edible and your children's toys not coated in lead. The "deep state", meaning actual subject matter experts doing their jobs throughout entire government for years, regardless of current administration, are all going to be replaced by kid rock and vaping young republicans fresh from dropping out of their second semester in at The University of Southern Alabama State.
That's who's going to be the dude inspecting your meat for e.coli and signing off on the clinical trials for your perception meds - Gunner, Hunter and Ryder.
Really don't think anyone is considering the reality of how deeply fucked we're going to be as we're all fixed fully on the front door for obvious signs of trouble (immediate societal decay), while these broken cartoon villains fill the crawlspace with fertilizer and gasoline and kick in the backdoor with flamethrowers in hand.
We're fucked, and we're going to be focused on monitoring the wrong indicators of how fucked, until it is just beyond any repair within any of our lifetimes. For example, you're going to have FIVE fundamentally broken people on the Supreme Court for the rest of your life. It's over.
The US will continue ticking. Money keeps flowing, and greed will continue running rampant.
As someone making bank and based on the projections, the Trump tax changes are going to pay well. Anyone making less than $100k, or living off of social security or retirement are going to really suffer.
The Trump tax breaks are going to fund a future international trip. And poor folks will starve.
Btw I voted for Kamala. And America voted for a old dude who struggles to form sentences.
The truth is it's unlikely anything historically big is going to happen in the US. We saw what Trump did last time he was in office, and it was really bad, but it was recoverable. The fear isn't that it's likely, but that it's far from a non-zero chance, and there's very little we can do about it. That uncertainty is scary when we've had a relatively good time in recent decades.
Will we see a sudden shift toward a state where you can get jailed or murdered for being a dissident? Maybe, but probably not.
Will we see an escalation of the wars involving Israel, such that we see a WWIII and/or the first nuclear strike since WWII? Maybe, but probably not.
Will we see economic collapse causing widespread hunger and homelessness that we haven't seen since the Great Depression? Maybe, but probably not.
The only thing that's really a guarantee is that we're another four years away from dealing with climate change, and while that's massive for humanity down the line, individuals currently living in the US are probably going to be mostly fine. Not to say nobody will be affected - hurricanes, floods, fires, and so on - but it won't cause catastrophic failure of society in the near future.
Multiple regulatory bodies are going to get disbanded. The EPA is unlikely to survive, whole departments of the FDA are about to get gutted. Anything involving industrial safety is going to get its funding cut. Unconstitutional crackdowns on free and independent media is almost certain. Large scale damage to the functions of many government institutions can be expected. Massive economic damage due to reckless deregulation ( that's even before they start putting tariffs on everything and wind up in multiple simultaneous trade wars). Funding for education and infrastructure maintenance will be reduced to allow tax cuts for the already wealthy. Massive loss of global influence and a massive gain in influence by hostile autocratic nations is also something you can expect.
I could go on and on but even if you were to assume they weren't serious about project 2025 (if you haven't read that you should) it's real bad.
Fucked regardless but how fucked remains to be seen. Just as before, Trump will spend his presidency golfing, what really matters are his cabinet picks. Best case scenario is that just like 2016-2020 in-fighting and general incompetence make the administration a revolving door and keep the Christian Nationalist from realizing their darkest ambitions. Worst Case is that the Fascist have learned from their mistakes. I also think Trump either dying or being forced to step down (with a pardon of course) is a possibility that is on the table. Vance is a much more competent Fascist and this is definitely a worst case scenario.
Regardless, I think there are a few things that are guaranteed to happen:
- The dismantling of much of the Federal Government. Starve the Beast will finally come to fuition. The Department of Eduction, the FDA, The EPA, ect will become toothless if not entirely abolished. De-regulation will bring us back to early 20th century levels of consumer protection and quality control. Read "The Jungle" to get an idea. Public Health is going to tank dramatically.
- The little safety net Americans have will be pulled out from under them. Workers will be entirely beholden to their employers. The price of most consumer goods will surge, bankruptcy from healthcare cost will skyrocket, and homelessness will become even more common. Homelessness will become completely criminalized and the % of the American population imprisoned will make today's prison population look small.
- The police and surveillance state will be expanded dramatically with the intent of targeting undesirables. Immigrants will be deported, while Trans people and political dissidents will be labeled as sexual criminals and will be eliminated. As time marches on more groups will be targets for the state. People around you will simply disappear sometimes, victims of secret police.
- An increase in media censorship by morality police. Pornography will be banned, and using that vague label media critical of the regime or expressing ideas against the regimes interest will be censored.
- The US will pull out of NATO and pursue a policy of isolation. Authoritarian and expansionist regimes around the world will be allowed to pursue their interests unchecked.
- A general brain-drain as educated people with the means to do so flee to Canada or Europe. As time passes it is likely that emigration from America will be made more difficult by the state, effectively stranding people here who didn't get out soon enough.
- We will completely miss the window to do anything to avoid the worst-case scenarios for climate change. So it's not just America that's fucked here.
Smoke em while you got em, it's about to get rough for everyone. We are in the death throes of the Neo-Liberal world order. Buy a firearm and get a vpn. Keep your vehicle as fueled as you can, and if you are able keep a sizable amount of cash stored somewhere safe. There's never been a better time to go vegan and get in shape. Do what you can for the people you care about.
Glad you asked.
I can't leave.
I have a child with an abusive, vindictive ex-spouse. Regardless of me having sole custody, I would still need to get both the court's permission and his permission just to move out of state, so god knows I will not be able to get out of the country.
I'm at a loss. I will not leave without my kid.
We should remember that most Americans still live in blue states with sane governments. The federal government can't just barge in and do whatever it wants, and if tries to do so, the social contract that binds the nation together is broken and secession becomes a real possibility. But that's unlikely because Trump is far too clueless to know about any of the problems he'll run into if he tries to implement any of his plans.
Which is fine for him because it was always a con anyway. He talks and acts out of his ass. What he will do is anyone's guess, but it'll at least be restrained by what's realistically possible.
Prices on everything will go up exponentially while income comes down. Worker protections won't exist and the people in charge of your health, whether food, medical, other goods, will only care about which company gives them a bigger check.
Remember how baby food had to be recalled recently because it was unsafe to feed babies? That ain't happening anymore! Fuck the babies! And if you can't afford your $4k/month rent, to prison with you (because homelessness will be illegal and prison labour cheap cheap cheap!)
Luckily the House of representatives have set up the rules such that they can call to change their majority leader whenever they disagree with each other, so very few actual policies will change. They might even fail to pass their own tax plan again, that would be nice.
What is fucked is USA's allies depending on support from NATO, USA's economy as Tariff season is here now, USA immigrants, and of course the Environment. Last time Trump was in he removed protections for forests and streams, and put a Coal Lobbyist in charge of the EPA.
The world is fucked. A climate change denier was elected to one of the most influential countries and we're already past mitigating some of the worst effects. There is no coming back.
Trump was pretty ineffective in his first term, largely because he did a terrible job of supporting people who really agreed with his agenda, and an even worse job of removing people from influential positions who didn't.
He said during his campaign that he knew much better who to trust, but now he's got Elon Musk and RFK Jr. prominently featured. I don't think he has learned anything, and I think he will be just as ineffective this time.
It's possible that some of the Republicans in Congress will support more of his agenda, but even there if they have to overcome the filibuster, I don't think mass deportation, a federal abortion ban, or most of the rest of the potential worst of it is in the cards.
Breathtakingly fucked. Wannabe dictator with a mandate from the dumbest mfers alive.
But take heart. The battle for the US is now a fight between the old guard Reaganite Republicans and the out&out Fascists. For the next 4 years at least the Dems are a complete non-factor. I hope the DNC is proud of their accomplishment.
All the worst possible things that could happen are now not just on the table but incredibly likely.
Honestly who knows, it's literally on the whims of the giant toddler and who he listens to last that afternoon.
Even if trump doesn't do everything in project 2025, the supreme court picks mean we're basically ultra fucked. Like, that's best case.
Remember all thay resistance he faced in 2016? Gone. That shit takes decades to build up and was out of steam four years ago.
After that I have no idea.
Pretty fucked. I'm already weighing my options here now that this has happened. My gf is a Brazilian here on a education visa, will Trump deport her? Maybe. If she goes back to see family during the summer will she be allowed back in? I don't have much faith she will be. My cousin is trans and in a red state now, he's very much at risk. My other cousin is queer and also at risk. If my dad wasn't already dead his disability money will have dried up, not to mention his medications and treatments would've been unaffordable more than they already were. Thank fuck I don't have or want kids so they don't have to grow up in this shit hole of a country, if there's even a livable planet left with Trump deregulating and adding to the climate crisis.
We're about to be bent over the table with no lube
The planner will never recover from his systematic sabotage of all efforts to save it. This is what scares me most. He lies through his teeth to make money, a lakey to soulless corporate mega entities and the entire human race will pay for this one man's greed, long after he has died. Our kids will pay for his opulence and that to me is so sad.
More fucked than BREXIT.
Well, they want to dismantle a lot of the stuff that protects the middle and working classes. The country will be fine. The people will suffer. Democracy? Judgement is reserved. If he follows through on his idea of a third term without a legitimate amendment to the Constitution then it's very very dead. But we won't know that for years.
From the wiki on Project 2025:
Critics have characterized Project 2025 as an authoritarian, Christian nationalist plan to steer the U.S. toward autocracy.[14][16][17][18] Legal experts have said it would undermine the rule of law,[19] separation of powers,[7] separation of church and state,[20] and civil liberties.[7][19][21]
"It proposes criminalizing pornography and imprisoning those who produce it,[34][35] removing legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,[35][36] and terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs[7][36] while having the DOJ prosecute "anti-white racism" instead"
I feel like the U.S. is becoming similar to Russia. For example, we are seeing an autocratic strongman holding the highest office and only vaguely behaving within the democratic system, with a clear intent to rule unilaterally with a congress and Supreme Court that are less checks and more support for maintaining the power base. And as generations continue to experience this way of life, America as a society will forget what it was like for the past 250 years where both parties respected the system with peaceful transfer of power.
It’s sad, but fascinating in a kind of slow motion train crash to be alive for.
It's actually likely to be better as long as trump waddles on. He's just so god damn bumbling that even with all the cards, he'll find little ways to not get his shit done.
Mind you it won't be enough, and it will be god damn fucking horrific. But decidedly less smooth while Narcissism Jones keeps grabby-handsing the wheel from his handlers and derailing his own goals.
It's fucked. But it's been fucked for a long time. You just didn't see it until the other day. It's like the foaming at the mouth from rabies. By the time you get that far, it's too late. But that animal bite months ago, and itching and fever were the warning signs, and everybody ignored it.
The goal is to remake the US into something else. A Christian Patriarchy + Oiligarchy with sham voting every four years. The biggest wild card in their plans is Trump, but as long as he gets to pretend he's Putin 2.0 -- which literally means being able to point his finger to see someone killed -- he'll be happy and easy to play.
Overall, there's no limit to how fucked we are. There are no brakes and there's no steering wheel.
Think militias deputized as enforcers.
Think protests put down by the military ordered to shoot to kill.
Think indoctrination of children and political/militaristic organizations for teens.
Think history books rewritten, science education dumbed down, evolution and global warming illegal to even mention.
Think marriage rights taken away.
Think voting rights taken away and voting laws rammed through to ensure Republicans win.
Think Republicans getting enough state legislatures both to call a Constitutional Convention and to ratify a slew of amendments to rework citizenship, enshrine Christianity into the constitution, and generally butcher the Bill of Rights.
Think "real Americans" going after and imprisoning and/or killing hundreds, thousands, millions of other Americans.
Think purity tests and identification papers, total surveillance, digital tracking of every word and action and movement.
Think of your street with a dead body in the middle of it and everyone afraid to go near it.
Think of being terrified for your own life if you accidentally hear someone say something against The Party.
Think of this very comment used as evidence to lock me up or have me killed.
There is nothing, nothing at all, standing in their way. Like in most one-party systems, the competition among the players will be to see how extreme they can get in order to prove themselves to their party, while the rest of us who vainly hope they'll show restraint will pay the price.
I hope I'm wrong about most of the above. It may not get that bad. But, again, we've gone over the cliff and there's nowhere but a helluva lot of straight down.
With AMOC collapse underway, the entire planet is fucked. Hope this helps
America has always been a white supremacist slave colony.
It will still be fucking over the entire planet.
It all depends on whether they’re competent and can act together for their goals. Many of those goals are truly horrible, but
- Trumps first term was incompetent, fractured. Despite all the chaos and destruction, they did nowhere near as much damage to peoples lives and democracy as they wanted to
- My conservative brother is all too typical, dismissing the worst statements as “he’s not serious. He’d never do that”. We have to hope people like my brother are right
- their goal is narcissism and their methods are stoking outrage: is it possible they’re not actually evil, don’t actually pay attention to what comes out of their own mouths? Are they even capable of working together? Making Trump rich and stoking his ego would be a travesty, but far less damaging than what he says he’ll do
The orange shrivelled taco will probably keel over before his term ends. Just look at him, does this look like someone who might survive four more years?
What would happen afterwards with JD Vance at the helm I'm less clear.
Its hard to say cuz hes so unstable, but since his party has been hijacked by his sycophants and own the three branches, id guess some crazy shit. Maybe this will finally make the americans understand that voting has consequences, and that some minimal homework is needed to choose. But honestly no one on this planet has any faith in the average american so i predict ww3, mass incarceration with slavery (woops already has been happening, but for even more ppl), demonization of any minority, and a general loss of wealth that will be vacuumed by the upper class. Man I cant believe you guys let trump hire Elon fking Musk, hope you guys like living like one of his employees.
7
Someone joke bet $500 Michigan will be blue with a +4% lead so I think I'll joke bet $500 it will just be a repeat of 2016-2020 except 1.5x worse and then by next election maybe the DNC will learn to run a normal primary again and promote a popular candidate who actually promises to meet constituents' demands instead of ignoring them.
Also someone on this community asked what everyone would do if Trump won and I said I'd probably make a collage of a years worth of my comments telling people ignoring genocide would cost Democrats the election.
So I guess I might go do that now and say "I told you so" to everyone who told me I was wrong.
most problems are state level problems, so generally unaffected, but any interstate, constitutional amd international problem is up in the air
This is going to create the political order we will live under for the rest of our lives.
What happened to the Iranian left after 1979's revolution:
The Iranian left played a significant role in the 1979 revolution but was ultimately suppressed and marginalized by Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamist forces in the aftermath. Here's an overview of what happened to leftist groups after the revolution:
Initial Collaboration and Support
Many leftist groups initially supported and collaborated with Khomeini's movement to overthrow the Shah:
- Various Marxist-Leninist, socialist, and communist organizations participated in the revolutionary coalition[5].
- Some leftist groups like the Tudeh Party (pro-Soviet communists) and Fedayeen (urban guerillas) attracted many student members[5].
- The leftist-Islamist group Mujahedin also gained significant support among students[5].
- Many leftists viewed Khomeini's movement as anti-imperialist and hoped to push it in a more progressive direction[1].
Gradual Suppression
However, Khomeini and his allies soon moved to sideline and suppress leftist forces:
- In March 1979, Khomeini declared "do not use this term, 'democratic.' That is the Western style," signaling his opposition to liberal and leftist ideals[2].
- The National Democratic Front (a leftist group) was banned in August 1979[2].
- Universities were purged of leftist influence starting in March 1980[2].
- By early 1981, the government had closed MEK (People's Mujahedin) offices, banned their newspapers, and issued arrest warrants for their leaders[2].
Violent Crackdown
The suppression of the left intensified into violent persecution:
- Between 1981-1985, nearly 8,000 political opponents were executed, many of them leftists[3].
- In 1988, a "Death Committee" oversaw the mass execution of leftist prisoners[1].
- Overall, the Islamic Republic's crackdown on dissent was far more brutal than the Shah's regime, which had executed fewer than 100 political prisoners between 1971-1979[3].
Reasons for Failure
Several factors contributed to the left's inability to maintain influence:
- Lack of unity and organization among moderate and radical leftist factions[2].
- Underestimation of the conservatism of the Iranian masses[2].
- The left's secular ideology conflicted with the religious fervor driving much of the revolution[1].
- Khomeini's skillful co-opting of leftist anti-imperialist and social justice rhetoric into an Islamist framework[3][4].
Legacy
By the end of 1979, the "secular middle class" and liberals had been largely sidelined, leaving mainly Islamist factions in power[2]. The suppression of the left helped consolidate the Islamic Republic's hold on power and narrowed the range of acceptable political ideologies in Iran[3]. However, some leftist ideas around social justice and anti-imperialism were incorporated into the Islamic Republic's ideology, albeit in a religious framework[4].
Citations: [1] Ideology and Iran's Revolution: How 1979 Changed the World https://institute.global/insights/geopolitics-and-security/ideology-and-irans-revolution-how-1979-changed-world [2] Aftermath of the Iranian revolution - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_the_Iranian_Revolution [3] Four decades later, did the Iranian revolution fulfill its promises? https://www.brookings.edu/articles/four-decades-later-did-the-iranian-revolution-fulfill-its-promises/ [4] What Iran's 1979 revolution meant for the Muslim Brotherhood https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-irans-1979-revolution-meant-for-the-muslim-brotherhood/ [5] How Iran's Theocrats Allied With — and Then Crushed — the Left https://jacobin.com/2022/10/chahla-chafiq-iranian-left-khomeini-protests-feminism [6] Iranian Revolution | Summary, Causes, Effects, & Facts - Britannica https://www.britannica.com/event/Iranian-Revolution
The Fifth Risk is a very good read for anyone who might be interested in a finer grained look into the lesser-known functions of our government 👍
II think it's entirely possible the world is fucked. Climate crisis won't come during his 2nd administration, but the 4 years we lose in national and international regulation is going to make it impossible to prevent.
It'll be slow, but before 2061, I expect the death of the global Internet, and global shipping, and most air travel. Electrical grids will fracture or fail and the pieces used for smaller (at most regional) grid. Cities won't be able to maintain the sewer pumps, and Cholera will start killing people again. Gas lines will stop maintaining pressure.
I don't plan on sticking around that long. My BP has always been bad, so I figure just indulging my vices will make this no my problem, and I don't have a partner or descendants.
If you prefer not embracing despair, I suggest looking into how you and your dearest can survive without infrastructure. Local food production, local power and medicine production. Don't count on supplies you can't retrieve within a day of travel, and don't count on the state to maintain roads. "Solarpunk" might be a good search term. Also, might prepare for unpredictable shifts in the local climate, like preferring indoor growing.
If anyone has data that says we can avoid climate collapse with no new national or international regulation before 2029, I'd love to hear it. Please.
Probably fine
At least 200%, it's the end of an era.
Slightly worse than with Harris. But the downward trend would never stop.
Sounds like my country. We have bit better prisons if I happen to snap some day :D
I was talking about your Russian statement. Lool
My opinion is:
Somewhere beween 2016 Trump and Erdogan-era Turkey. But if democrats dont win midterms and 2028 election (if there even is a 2028 election), then we go beyond Erodogan's Turkey into Russia territory.
Very bad, but the US has Federalism, we might be able to survive if state governments resist. There would be so much damage to US institutions, but if democrats win future elections, we can still save this.