In the past week or so, the courts have begun to try to set some boundaries on the Musk–Miller–Trump administration’s early blitz of recklessness.
. . .
This judicial review provides at least a small reprieve, hope that some of the administration’s most destructive impulses will be stopped. Or at least pared back. But even with the courts stepping up, and even with the reality of the administration’s ineptitude sinking in, this early Musk–Miller–Trump blitz remains very—maybe irreparably—damaging. Of course, there are a lot of moles to whack: the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are being dismantled at an alarming rate, and the court system is not known for being nimble. The administration is betting, perhaps rightly, that at least some of its thoughtless, lawless efforts will slip through the cracks.
But even if the courts caught them all—and even if every court facing each lawless escapade said, “Nope, that’s not a thing”—still the entire process would be doing serious damage to our institutions. Think of it as someone spoofing your identity and going on a shopping spree with your credit cards. Even if the goon gets caught, you still have to go store by store to argue that the fraudulent purchase wasn’t legitimate and hope the debt is forgiven. And all the while, perhaps long after all the debts are dealt with, the torrent of uncertainty kills your credit score.
I actually do.
We’re entirely fucked.
We’re going to spend the rest of our lives witnessing the enshitification of this nation. Even if we completely turn this crash and burn around, we’ll then spend the rest of our lives watching things being slowly rebuilt as traitorous Republicans continue to obstruct.
I don’t think a lot of Americans are grasping exactly how hard we fucked ourselves by refusing to responsibly inform ourselves even to a minimal degree.
As someone currently living in Canada, the US is badly fucking up a lot of it’s international relations too. I’ve heard several people here say that even if if the US unfucks itself right away (which it won’t), it’s still going to be a long time before things will be right again.
You don’t go around threatening neighbours and allies like this and then expect to be able to just walk it back overnight.
USAID was, more than anything, a means of positive international relations. It was a 2 prong approach of foreign aid and foreign good will. The mid 1900s US made a lot of fucking enemies, and USAID was one very solid method of trying to overcome the damage wrought by our government.
And now TB supplies – that were already paid for – are rotting in warehouses (among many other issues). Not only will that harm people, it will harm our reputation, AND increase antibiotic resistant TB, which will in turn affect the rest of the world including the US itself.
And that’s only one piece of the very large clusterfuck.
USAID was a great investment, a cheap investment that returned good value, even beyond things like lives saved and people brought out of poverty. In many ways it was being a good neighbor.
It would still be a great way to spend our money if we doubled it or tripled it or more
It was a great source of corruption too, we must be real at this point, end USAID is a joke and a stupid move but probably half of it was doing corrupt business with Americans money. Its not an easy subject
I very much doubt it, and the white house press secretary holding up a contract that was lawfully fulfilled as an example of fraud, is not going to cut it
I’m more worried about future fraud, if we really do continue spending the money but at personal whim and with no one to manage the process. A no-bid procurement order describing $400M of “armored Tesla’s” is a much clearer case of fraud, as-is firing inspectors and watchdogs for doing their job
We’re going to have TB outbreaks in the states. It’s already happening.
Yeah, even just kicking out these crazies isn’t a good fix because they’ve already demonstrated they’re more than willing to lie, cheat, and steal to hold on to or gain power.
The only justice I’d trust would need to come at the end of a rope, and it’d need to include a LOT of colluders at the very least in cells as well. That includes certain media organizations that helped enable this shit-show as well.
After all that, the American public needs to force better, including proper regulation and enforcement of public over corporate interests. While some of it has been astroturfing, the embedded cleptocracy and corporate interest in the Democratic party also needs to be fixed (or both parties turfed and new better choices), because “lesser evil” is not good enough.
Other countries should also take heed from the US situation. This is what happens when you continually tolerate the intolerable, and when your government is owned by a billionaire+ untouchable aristocracy with a corporate shield protecting them from consequences.
I would argue that America needs a whole new economic system. A big problem with what we had up to now, is that people are too poor, tired, unable to form communities, and lack the time to do all the things that are needed for a democracy. If you can’t afford the price of travel, shelter, food, and losing your job, you can’t visit Washington to protest, let alone long enough to make a difference with like-minded people.
The wealthy, on the other paw, can freely travel, network, and simply not worry about being ruined if they dare to do something beyond basic survival.
America needs an economic system that promotes agency of every single citizen. That means guaranteeing survival, ensuring enough vacation time to permit protesting, and decent wealth accumulation for the poorest American. Without that, it isn’t possible for the ordinary person to exert meaningful political influence.
You mean we should stop enslaving citizens to corporations yes? That is practically capitalist kryptonite.
I don’t believe anyone should be able to be worth billions if we actually value humanity.
Oh I know. I hate it because a) I love yall, Canadians, Danes, Germans opposed to the afd, etc. You’re our friends and neighbors and I’m horrified seeing people not treat you as such, but also b) we had a real good thing going and we’re never getting it back.
Indeed, could you simply annex all the Blue States?
We entirely are. Our lifetimes in this country will never see another good day of it.
I don’t think a lot of Americans are grasping exactly how hard we fucked ourselves by refusing to responsibly inform ourselves even to a minimal degree.
This! Methods that lower general intelligence:
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Content Streaming - its starts with Bluey
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Gaming - iPads have replaced paper in schools, in car trips colourful gems pop instead of engagement with the world. Adults game the night away, streaming live. Kids aspire to be them.
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Social media - Algorithms, echo-chambers, bots, keyboard warriors, content cencorship and manipulation, advertising, yuck.
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Dating Apps
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AI - We’ll become dependent and lower general critical thinking skills.
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Legalisation of marijuana. - Its political support should be a concern. While it may be seemingly harmless at an individual level, there seems to be issues with mass use. How many users abstained from voting?
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Underfunded, cookie cutter lower education. There is no flexibility for the diversity of people and development potentials. Teaching children non-denominational meditation and concentration, or helping them observe but reconcile simple contradictory expressions of duality in existence, would strengthen their conciousness significantly.
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Over emphasis on technical STEM in higher-education without equally supporting the arts and philosophy.
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Cultural over-emphasis towards individual monetary wealth over knowledge, spirituality or even concern for the wealth of those around them. Prevents empathy.
All of these focus on separating the individual from other individuals. The darkness does not want connected families or communities. It wants you to feel alone, helpless and willing to hand over your power.
We have all seen the US police force’s brutality under democratic law. How much worse could it be under authoritarian rule? My advice would be to immediately set up public meetings with local law enforcement at the officer level, start a collaborative dialogue and get to know each other, fast.
If you think Bluey lowers kids intelligence or “separates the individual from other individuals” then you’ve never watched Bluey.
It’s a great resource for teaching emotional intelligence to kids and empathises the importance of quality time with family. I don’t think you could have picked a worse children’s TV show example.
Also Bluey’s Aussie, not even made in the US.
Cocomelon would have been a proper choice for OP to argue. It’s sensory overload brainrot that causes addiction rather than any sense of morals.
Legalisation of marijuana
Ridiculous take.
You had me on your side until you went in on weed. Let’s focus on the bigger issue of alcohol addiction and drunk driving before we go after something less harmful.
What kind of new age crazy are you?
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a purge could fix it all tomorrow.
As much as I agree, it will take things getting a lot worse before people do anything like that. A lot of the most heavily armed are the ones who voted for this. The pickup full of hillbillies are still in the denial phase. They still think things won’t affect them, or that it’ll be temporary. They are all for “those people” taking the brunt of the actions right now. They’ve convinced themselves that only the “libtards” are affected, and they aren’t.
It’s going to take a deep hit to their way of life for anything more than peaceful protests and voting advocacy (which definitely fucking vote) happens.
As much as I agree, it will take things getting a lot worse before people do anything like that.
agree completely. we are as a nation and as a community too desperate or complacent to ‘take to the streets’ at this point. until fascism and austerity reaches one’s own doorsteps, most will wait and see and carry on with their boring daily routines.
that said, it will gradually change though, already has. it’s reached the doorstep of more people today than it did 10 years ago. what will be your personal breaking point? what is your neighbors breaking point? no one knows. I for one won’t be sitting back doing nothing until then. it’s time to talk to the neighbors friends and family and decide in advance as a community what we’re going to do before they drain us dry or drag off grandpa for re-education at Guantanamo.
A lot of the most heavily armed
sounds to me like we shouldn’t wait around for those guys to wake up. maybe some of us on the left should arm ourselves instead?
I’ve been sorting plans with family and friends as well. Unfortunately, most of my neighbors are idiots and bought it all hook line and sinker. When COVID started, the guy 2 doors down from me tried to say that the dew on our vehicles one morning was the AF dropping COVID from the tankers. I think I saw the moment the gerbil wheel in his head froze up when I told him I’ve seen them inside and out and that there was nowhere for some “bags of COVID” to be stored.
I have some firearms, but I’ve been making an effort to ready myself. I’ve been making sure I have short, mid and long range covered. Sights on and the sights adjusted properly. I hate, hate, hate how crazy that makes me sound, but I don’t trust these nut jobs at all when things get rough. I don’t have any option for leaving the country, and I don’t think I’d want to leave it to them anyway. I swore an oath many, many, years ago. I’m long out. My body is wrecked (mainly my nervous system), but I still take that seriously. Many others do as well. I can only hope that those of us who actually realize what it means are able to keep the corrupt from taking over.
If you expect being in a riot down the line, you might want to get some protective gear. I am thinking a forestry helmet - it has face plates, hardhat, plus earmuffs that you can raise or lower. Bonus points for not being fascist-tacticool style, and you can use it for practical work. While not good when compared to milspec gear, it should be enough to offer mild protection against nonlethal weaponry. I assume military gear would cost more and be tracked.
You described the AmeriKan Taliban.
I just need to shout this into the void:
Fuck this fucking bullshit. What the hell is wrong with this country. I fucking hate this timeline.
blame democrats for not having a primary
No, blame the people who did this. Blame the people that voted for Trump.
The most blame goes to billionaires and allowing corporations to be people.
Most people that voted for this have been brainwashed heavily for many years by the super wealthy to think they want this.
It’s not an excuse but think about it: if our country had provided better over all education and actually kept the super wealthy and our media in check then this wouldn’t be happening.
We should have been fighting really hard to reinstate things like fairness doctrine and to have more news outlets that didn’t rely on ad revenue this whole time.
The problem with progress in the US is we are never able to focus on the most crucial issues first. There’s so many people and views etc. and everyone has different priorities. Rich people don’t have this problem because they all have the same driving goal: money.
So, there’s blame to go around but citizens pointing at each other is not going to fix anything.
There’s plenty of blame for everyone
Blame? They did what you did, vote for the better candidate. That chunk of people was bigger than the chunk who voted for the other side. Isn’t that what the US is all about since the 1780s? Blame should be given to the people who sat on their arses and did not vote. We all know there are more democrat aligned people than republican.
yes and also democrats for not having a primary
I think she would’ve won the primary anyway.
I think your country’s terrible voting and political system is largely to blame… Given that it’s so easy for an unelected official to sweep in and dismantle everything.
True, but Dems made a terrible system even worse by refusing to hold a primary. When you add that in with liberals funding a genocide, promising to add fascist Republicans to their cabinet, and offering zero policies that people actually care about like free healthcare, it is painfully clear that Liberal capitalist politicians did everything they could to throw this election.
I’d like to cordially invite you to go fuck yourself.
He’ll ruin the gov like he ruined X
He’ll ruin the
govcountry like he ruined XFTFY
He’ll ruin the
govcountry like he ruinedXTwitterFTFTFY
As if twitter wasn’t a net negative for society to begin with.
At least Facebook was decently capable at helping you keep connected with friends and events at the beginning. Twitter was always gargled garbage to begin with.
Nothing of value will be exchanged over 140 characters without being bastardized in some way, or context withheld.
Less true in other languages. Twitter was big in Japan where 140 chars goes a bit further.
Far too many Americans will argue with you about how every single thing Trump and Musk do, is good. There is no way to change their mind and I am surrounded by them.
What I don’t understand is that no one is stopping this from happening. They’re all just letting it happen. Perhaps because they are afraid to lose their jobs but at what cost? I’ve lost all hope for this country and I wish to God I could move. Oh well.
What can you do if your boss that the president puts in charge fires you?
You can assume you’re already going to be fired since you don’t align with the program so white not ring the alarm bells as much as you can? Film it. Livestream it. Anything for God’s sake.
I think a lot of humans are having this thought anyways: “We are all fucked. There is no future for many/most of us”, and therefore, people have no reason/motivation to fight.
What would a vision of the future be, in your eyes? Where do you see yourself in 40-50 years?
you have to make leftists understand that the only answer is violence. we have to say this over and over until it finally clicks. the people are the last line of defense.
You don’t include the Dems in “the left”, right?
that’s a complicated answer.
practical answer: yes
idealistic answer: no
EDIT: i think the most important answer for right now is that it doesn’t matter. this situation will not be resolved through voting. the mid terms might help alleviate the problem, but that’s a long time from now and things could get a lot worse if people don’t pull their heads out of their asses now.
What’s stopping you. Cmon man, let’s go
A believe a lot of blue politicians actually agree with Trump and what him to push things through where when things go to shit they can then try to blame Trump and still run for re-election and the sheep will still vote for them.
I have so many ideas about it, before it even began. Good luck to you all, may we survive this next fascist cycle
Everyone who perceived the Harris pivot as “playing to lose” has ideas about it. We’re over-represented on Lemmy as compared with the voting public. The Republican party has been sufficiently horrifying for sufficiently long, that there is an entire generation of voters who “lean left”, but have no idea where to even begin actually holding their party accountable for things.
In 1984 Jesse Jackson had his Rainbow Coalition, but they gave us Walter Mondale. The same thing happened with Bernie in both 2016 and 2020. In the USA there is a capitalist part and a fash party, and no room is permitted on the stage for anything other than tightly controlled powerless opposition.
I am not American. I have no say in it except godspeed
After surviving the last 4 years Americans have proven they can survive anything.
Lol what? US has had far less inflation than the rest of the world while also passing and staring huge infrastructure projects and semiconductor fabrication.
Another asswipe Ivan. The Russian infantry is accepting applications. Don’t worry, the NATO tungsten will greet you.
Another armchair general who seems more inclined to see others suffer than to advocate for peace. Perhaps they should consider directly engaging in the conflict in Ukraine if they truly believe in such an approach.
I already served and faced the fucking Soviets. We had peace in Europe until two asswipes, Vlad and Cadet Bone Spurs, decided to cooperate to further weaken Ukraine and create a rift within NATO. Carry on licking the sweat off of Putin’s nut sack and join the Russian infantry. Nobody in Europe, with a sane mind, would allow the Russians to occupy Europe again.
Why did Russia invade Ukraine?
So a narcissistic billionaire is indirectly ruling your country, without even being elected, and you guys are just cool with that?
Nope. But in case you hadn’t noticed, we don’t really have much power to stop him.
Your second amendment was intended for precisely this scenario. Guess all those school shootings were for nothing.
Narcissistic billionaires have been indirectly running the country decades, why do you care now?
I have an idea, normal thinking Americans do
I also have an idea of how many billions of dollars in lawsuits taxpayers will be on the hook for in the coming 25 years
It should come out of Trump, Musk, and Vought’s money.
Did he really get rid of remote work for no reason?
for no reason
Reason: Attrition
You don’t have to fire them if they quit.
You gut those departments and put the money into things that benefit tax cuts on the rich, or you hire friends and loyalists into those seats and pay them all the money to do nothing.
It’s a gift, Everything they’re doing is a different length of gift to make the rich richer.
Yup.
Americans literally just voted to gut what was left of the middle class.
Super, almost unbelievably, stupid society we live in.
When there’s a critical mass of hopeless people, they’ll be drafted, given a rifle, and marched somewhere with the full intention of never letting them return alive or otherwise.
Today children, we’ll learn about the great Canadian - American War of 2027.
Or as they know it in the US the American - Canadian War
I expect it to happen around 2040. People aren’t suffering so much that they’d go to war … yet. But if things continue this way, they will. IMO what can/should be done is to have fewer babies … then whatever well-paying jobs will still exist in the future, will be distributed among fewer people, That would bring the unemployedness down.
That’s unfortunately what often happens. I think, the best way to prevent this, is to drop the birth rate so dramatically that there will simply be no/too few “soldiers” to draft.
I will not pass on the cures of living to another.
To get people to quit, they’ve just started firing large swathes of people now though.
So exactly what Project 2025 said. Replace non political federal workers with loyalist.
Worse. He’s acting out the network state project / butterfly revolution steps as well.
I know a very nice family with three kids and both parents do remote work for the government. I think one an auditor and the other in IT.
They got a bomb dropped on them a couple weeks ago something along the lines of “show up in person at an office within X days or you’re gone.”
There are not offices anywhere near us. The parents world basically have to move to two different states to keep their jobs.
Sure did! USCIS hq is a circus, the internet was down most of the day bc they’ve never had so many people there before and it wasn’t designed for it
Ya know how about 2/3rds of the internet population is now on at least 1 watchlist because of supporting Mangione. The second we start seeing vulnerable citizens having their medicare/medicaid/food stamps/gov housing/anything I missed that our taxes pay for to keep people from dying in a ditch during a snow storm/benefits actually cut. You know, like the second 2 small children citizens freeze to death because of funding cuts while the rich refuse to pay their fair share. I say we all, in unison, do something so illegal it requires a legal response, but since so many of us are doing it they won’t be able to pick out anyone to single out for certain so we can all keep doing it as they freak out and go after whomever they feel is vulnerable. Like who’s the one person it’s illegal to threaten to kill? What would happen if 75million of us did it at 2:30 on a Friday afternoon? Pure, unadulterated chaos. Just if some kind of “threat protest” were to take place because of small children dying while rich fucks slept in late, and now a bill for more benefit cuts is being considered, you yourself should absolutely be prepared to be targeted as a ring leader because they will target the weakest and try to use them as a scape goat, I can almost guarantee the current Reich’s SS wouldn’t have the balls to knock on the door of someone that lifts 80lbs of dry cement with 1 hand and is documented as “should already be dead we don’t know what the fuck.” I could be wrong, and if I am, nothing would make me happier than sum small nut little man that everyone thinks is a badass finally going toe to toe with me… But I have no doubt they would pick on a highschooler, or housewife, or a software engineer. So be ware of how they view you before you stand up bravely, you don’t want to be the reason the cement beast goes on a rampage, you want to live to see the cement beast go on a rampage. Also, I’m not advocating for any actions at 2:30 on a Friday afternoon, but at the rate they are looking to “slash” benefits for the average Citizen, and frankly I’ve had everything taken from me already, I’m not on government benefits but my family is, and I’m done having everything taken. I’m Jim Carrey and this is fun with Dick and Jane - “I got the lawn back”. Take again, and I will take whatever I can, and I’ve already seen how your little Piggy’s cow toe for me. I would too if I was weak like them.
Let’s all stop paying federal taxes
Doing only that would just give them more fodder to complain about a deficit. Mass violent resistance is just an excuse for crackdowns and martial law.
One interesting and simple idea I’ve seen is just opting out of the consumer economy. Americans in any socioeconomic strata can just stop buying anything but the bare minimum.
General strikes are effective but hard to coordinate and maintain, most people can’t risk skipping a paycheck. But anyone can switch to beans and rice, cancel subscriptions, learn to repair their own clothes, buy a phone second hand, etc… Since a massive portion of our economy is driven by that spending (68% of our GDP) it would definitely hurt, but they couldn’t ignore it.
It’s easy to do and doesn’t have an outsized impact on poor or at risk groups, and it’s not all or nothing so any way you can cut helps. I wonder how they’d react to 200 million people on an economic hunger strike…
What could possibly go wrong?
This is simple sabotage. There is nothing beneficial about this outside of showing some green on Wallstreet LEDs. Pure pump and dump scheme.
Yes I do.
To bad there is nothing we can do. We call our reps and they say “we agree, but there is nothing we can do”. The Republicans definitely won’t do anything so until midterms we are basically stuck.
There is more far, far more we could do, but it would require courage and class solidarity.
Like what?
I grew up thinking that government was slow. Until I encountered Trump’s second term. Now tell me why the dems take fuck long to do so little?
It’s way harder to build things than to smash everything to bits?
Because breaking things is easy and building things is hard? Also doesn’t help when nearly half of your elected representatives work against building things.
Just wait a few months and you’ll see the consequences of government moving quickly. If anyone respects the rule of law there will be lawsuits galore.
However, no one will be countering Trump because apparently no one respects the law anymore.
The consequences instead will be no one knowing what the fuck they are supposed to be doing, or what they are allowed to be doing, or who is suppos d to be doing it, and everything will come to a grinding halt.
Because they share the same incentives as the Republicans. Can’t help out the average Joe too much otherwise the billionaired will get mad.
Dems are there to make us think we have a choice.
So am I. I’m still doing ok.
For now, you may not be next but eventually you might be in their crosshairs.
I’m fucked either way, as a mailman lol between the contract debacle and the privatization threats. I’m just sick of it all. Just saying that I’m not worried about it. Yet.
