From Reddit to the New York Times and TMZ, there’s an ongoing effort to squash the wave of popular anger at for-profit healthcare that Luigi Mangione represents.
From Reddit to the New York Times and TMZ, there’s an ongoing effort to squash the wave of popular anger at for-profit healthcare that Luigi Mangione represents.
This is the primary reason that I say the United States is terminally ill - that the only possible future is collapse.
When faced with popular discontent, the leaders of a nation have exactly two choices - to attempt to deal with the issues that cause the discontent, or to refuse to deal with the issues and instead just try to squash or distract from the discontent.
A nation that has chosen the latter is living on borrowed time, since the discontent is still there, lurking below the surface, will always be there as long as the cause remains unaddressed, and will, sooner or later, burst into the open again, even more toxic and violent than it was the last time.
Much though the ruling class might wish to believe otherwise there is no third alternative. There's no magic wand they can wave to make the discontent vanish. They can either work to eliminate it by eliminating its cause(s), or they can watch while it weakens and eventually destroys the nation.
And the US has clearly chosen that latter path. In fact, it could broadly be said that that's the exact purpose of the Trump presidency - a concerted and organized effort by elements of the ruling class to establish a government specifically dedicated to refusing to address the causes of discontent and to instead merelybtry to distract from it or squash it.
And it will ultimately fail. It can't do otherwise.
Dude, come on. We've had children working in mines, the great depression, proxy wars from hell, Jim Crow laws, this is not our first rodeo at being shitty humans. Saying the collapse is about to happen is an extremely unuseful take, even if it's true. There are solutions, what are they?
The country has collapsed several times, because of those things. The Civil War was the US collapsing over the rich landowners refusing to move away from slavery. The great depression was also a collapse of the old order, and ushered in the current MIC-based order.
The solution to the Civil War and slavery was Reconstruction, which was so successful that the rich rallied a counterrevolution to resuppress people. The solution to the great depression was the war economy and global looting that kicked off after WW2. Looting the planet with petrodollars has kept Americans complacent and happy enough til now but the rich have run out of places to loot other than home.
So now we're back in crisis, perched on the edge of a new collapse. After several million or billion people are killed by disasters and genocide, things usually settle back into a prosperous mode for the survivors for a while until the stupid rich take over and collapse the system out of greed. Again.
I'm talking about a very specific dynamic - a civilization in which there is widespread citizen discontent and whether the government acts to alleviate that discontent legitimately or merely acts to divert or stifle it.
The former allows for solutions so allows for recovery. The latter leaves the problems to rot and fester, and is a death sentence.
A problem I see with these collapse predictions is that they see the US as existing in a vacuum. There are external forces interested in the united states future.
China
Europe
Russia
Japan & South Korea (yes I think they have quite some influence)
From these Europe and Japan & South Korea are interested in keeping the American state stable enough as a counterbalance to the other 2. Russia is interested in Trumps and his likes stay viewing his effect on NATO, China likes Trump not as much, as the tariffs hurt the worlds biggest export nation the most.
I would go as far as saying Russia needs the Trumpian united states as a counterbalance to China as well. As Chinas economic scale and population still dwarf the Russian one.
East Asia and India in general will depend on the US as a Petrol state in the future, supplying vital fossil fuel imports for plastic- and chemical industries.
These external power centers are the deciding factors should the US become unstable.
The US has a number of institutional failures that need to be addressed if it's to have any hope of surviving and the Trump presidency is not only not going to address them, but has for all intents and purposes taken it as its mandate to specifically focus on exacerbating them.
It's dealing with wealth inequality by increasing it. It's dealing with political corruption by institutionalizing it. It's dealing with fragile and ineffective public health, public education and social service systems by breaking them. It's dealing with rapacious corporations by eliminating constraints on them. It's dealing with climate change by encouraging it. It's dealing with diminished international stature by alienating literally everyone. It's dealing with the threat of economic collapse by destroying international markets. It's dealing with the threat of social unrest by fanning the flames of bigotry and hatred. And on and on.
It's essentially the equivalent of a cancer patient taking up smoking. In a house lined with asbestos and uranium.
And at that point, it really doesn't matter who wants to save them or how much they want it.
Funny, I didn't see anything about this from cnn, msnbc, fox, newsmax, meta, google, bytedance, amazon, arasaka, millitech, biotechnica, or kang tao. Must not be true.
We, The People, give these corporations power over us since we foolishly voted in self-serving politicians that allowed Citizens United to enter the political arena and since then no politician has lifted a finger to repeal it.
I upvoted the post. I just meant to express my absolute lack of surprise at the situation or the news.
Yes, it's news and yes it should get attention, and lots of it! It's just not at all surprising that mega corporations want to protect the status quo that got them to where they are, whether we like it or not. Nor is it surprising that they will absolutely do everything they can to make us believe what they want us to believe. A few years ago that might have sounded super 'tin-foil-hatty' and this story might have been bigger news, but I'm not sure that's the case anymore.
I think there's a difference between trying to actively quash public opinion and trying to preemptive self-censorship so others don't think YOU support something, just because you let the opinion exist on your site. I think this is mostly the latter.
I'm not saying this is good or better, mind you. Preemptive self-censorship just means the people/structure aren't healthy enough to withstand the pressure they fear, or just fear it unreasonably. People in those positions are often chosen/supported exactly because they'll toe a line.
It's a problem. I'm just saying it's a slightly different problem. Maybe less malicious, more insidious and wide ranging. Maybe.
“Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.”
― Naomi Shulman
Originally Posted By u/Sea_Blueberry_7855 At 2025-03-30 09:49:41 AM | Source