So the USA is turning into a fascist military dictatorship because of capitalism and misinformation campaigns swaying voters etc. etc. How do you (as a USian or not) view what is going to happen in the immediate-to-near future regarding civil liberties & disobedience, especially the current secret police and/or ICE (just getting a big, beautiful budget increase to unbeforeseen heights); and also thinking civil war and outside intervention?
For me, the current situation seems hopeless for the state. The bipartisan system is in its core a laughable excuse for an actual functioning democracy (then again are there any real democracies in the capitalist world?), as both parties are controlled by the same organizations and lobbyists, with governmental administration occasionally changing hands from one to the other only to unmake what little “progress” the currently “progressives” had made last time they were in the administration, forming but a pittance of what the people actually want. But the current administration seems to be too much akin to the Italian fascists or the German NSDAP of yore, and its attempts to control all media too see-through for some, who mostly seem to be in the bluer (richer and thus more better off) states. I think this stark divide between the population will be the force that rips the nation apart, as most people in the bluer more progressive states probably aren’t as big on the secret police appearing unmarked and unannounced and armed, ready to take people away to concentration camps in undisclosed places in foreign nations in unmarked vans as the people of the redder and more conservative states seem to be.
So the question becomes how will the people react? Civil disobedience probably sounds nice right up until they start gunning those disobeying down, and deploying the National Guard and Marines against them (which I think might be unconstitutional there? not sure though because it happened already). The US Armed Forces apparently have 1.3 million active members (without a draft mind you) and even though there are people in this group who aren’t as morally bankrupt as the administration is atm, I think they’d still have enough members positioned around the world in enough places that there isn’t a single force in the world to oppose it willingly and easily. I bring this up because if (or when) push comes to shove and the civil disobedience in the blue states becomes too much for DJ Dump and his christofascist capitalism buddies, and they start driving their military might against their own people with increasing force, who will be there to come in to save the (non-militant minded) people? I think the US administration would consider this a declaration of war, and respond to it as such. So as I see it the US is on a surefire highway to the danger zone to Civil War part II: Electric Boogaloo, and in the end will either rip itself apart or pull the entirety of the western (NATO) countries to war with it. So thank god my country just got in! Wouldn’t wanna miss this one, boys!
Anyway post your prophecies on the manifesting destiny of the US below, we’ll eventually see who got it right.
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Economically like the post-Soviet states. Socially and culturally like Iran after the revolution.
I don’t think there will be a civil war. It seems like this is popular idea because the American narrative is programmed like Hollywood blockbusters that need to resolve itself between one to two hours. That means a setup, the big conflict, and the brief resolution. Where the righteous American hero prevails in the end as he walks away from the explosions without looking back.
Reality is slower. It’s not a linear point A to B story. There’s not necessarily the big event that immediately leads to victorious conclusion.
End stage capitalism is going to slowly get worse over the coming decades. The everyone for themselves mind-rot leads to the natural conclusion of economic decay for the lower majority as wealth and power further concentrates. There will effectively be commie blocks. Urban centers once the marvel of American economic and democratic might. Built when there was ample money, resources, and more functional civic systems to maintain it. The effects of the wealthy gutting social systems leaves a helpless population. This compounds a vicious cycle of urban decay.
The conservative supreme court supermajority is going to play out over the next several decades leading to deeply entrenched conservative backlash against secularization of the late 20th / early 21st century.
A saying I’ve seen a lot lately is that Americans have always had things work out for them. So they think it will continue to work out. It’s made them complacent. They sit at home and watch MTV / Youtube while their country kept on winning just like that.
Sometimes there are situations where there is no coming back from. That’s just individual life and world history. I think there’s a very real possibility America just fades away.
I’m trying to think of countries America is most likely to end up like, but America’s military power complicates basically any comparison. But I’m thinking there are so many parallels to Nazi germany. A core difference is the access to information we have. First and foremost historical precedent, but also social media (even though it’s also part of the reason we’re in this mess).
If Trump can’t achieve a critical mass of compliance, a military coup is the most likely salvation. Specifically Trump calling the military on mass peaceful protests and in response the military saying “we’d rather coup the president”. Violent resistance would close this avenue off, as it would galvanise the military behind the president.
There’s also the question of whether ICE will be sufficiently militarized by the time this happens, and whether it would even occur to Trump to call in ICE to suppress protests. Nobody but the worst of the worst will join ICE, if their personnel and equipment can overwhelm even the local police (ACAB, but like, not ACAMAGA) then it would take gross incompetence for Trump to lose power.
That is domestically. The question now stands:
- Will they actually invade Canada or Greenland (nobody’ll pay attention to Panama)?
- Would the rest of the world resist?
- Would they succeed?
- Would it result in nuclear war?
Keep in mind I am not an expert. Also this is all putting aside Trump’s narcissism. Trump wants to be seen as a good person and a genius and I’m not sure he’d go as far as to massacre crowds of protesters specifically. If nothing else such violence would look like a failure on his part. Whoever succeeds Trump, a Republican obviously, would need to be Stephen Miller levels of bad.
Communist organizing is increasing more rapidly than ever before, with the exception of the CPUSA back when it wasn’t revisionist and had genuine backing from the USSR. I don’t see a civil war, unlike the US civil war there aren’t two competing forms of labor and production (agrarian slave owners vs industrialist bourgeoisie). I do see the US Empire collapsing, hopefully via internal revolution during crisis but it may be that the US realizes that trying to re-industrialize under capitalism while depending on the financial profits of imperialism isn’t going to work, and instead takes on a more state capitalist economy like South Korea to force re-industrialization while maintaining bourgeois control.
I don’t think the latter would work, either, mind you. The US is thoroughly subservient to imperialist financial capital, it has all of the control. Re-industrializing can’t work when Chinese commodities are so much easier and cheaper to produce thanks to its advanced industrialization, the US would need to go into hyper-tariff, state planning mode and that would go directly against its current hegemonic position as a debtor country flooding the world with US dollars.
Honestly, I don’t know. Decay is the only thing I can really see as nearly certain. I do think we are approaching the weeks where decades happen, as Lenin put it.
Yes, capitalism can only serve the capitalists, and maintain a (highly relative) peaceful environment (not counting the subjugated peoples and areas in the global south atm) in only the most auspicious of times. And even then the system will inevitably shit itself and die every few years or so and must be resurrected by national intervention using said nation’s taxpayers’ (=working class) money. So the system is fundamentally flawed, which has never and will never “work” insofar as the working class is regarded.
Indeed the US is in quite dire straits, having replaced its national industrial capacity for outsourcing to countries with cheap labor, and also positioning the US dollar as the world currency, thus having the leverage to force dissenting nations to either go bankrupt or accept its imperialism. Now there is no industrial capacity in the US and its populace (completely understandably) not wanting to do two or three full-time jobs just to afford housing and groceries, neverminding everything else you need to live in there (like health insurance, so you best hope you don’t get sick ever), just to bring the industrial capacity back at minimum wage. And now the administration is driving out the only ones willing to do the manual labor at minimum wage, the immigrants; while being willfully ignorant to the fact that the entire nation’s history is that of immigrants, as most of the natives died on the Trail of Tears or were otherwise killed off and cordoned to reservations.
It seems that there are only bad tidings afoot for the USian worker, having also been brainwashed since birth into the impossibility of communism. Doom and gloom.
I don’t actually agree with the theory of brainwashing, it’s closer that imperialism and settler-colonialism contributed to a largely reactionary working class. However, now that conditions are deteriorating, the working class is still becoming more radicalized.
… the working class is still becoming more radicalized.
you mentioned this earlier (and dose of optimism of warranted here); what evidence are you seeing for this?
Among other things, comrades in PSL reporting record growth, Mamdani winning ovet Cuomo, and a shift from a ~14 point favor to “Israel” among democrat voters in 2017 to ~57 point favor to Palestine in 2025. The rate of growth is high, even if the numbers aren’t yet.
People generally getting pretty excited about someone executing a healthcare CEO on the streets for vengeance is not a bad sign either.
Yep, that too!
The USA has been a fascist dictatorship for some time depending on who you are, the fascism just wasn’t evenly distributed: immigrants, prisoners and brown people got the brunt of it before, now it’s coming for the rest. Luckily, between that and the external resistance struggles throughout the world, there are many people who know how to resist this, who have been resisting it for decades and can teach us.
I got out but I’m still terrified for my friends and family, they’re all targets. I call my dad daily to make sure the SS hasn’t snatched him even though he’s a citizen.
I’m afraid there’s only one way out of this, and it involves that pesky second amendment. Civil disobedience doesn’t do shit against fascists with paramilitaries bigger than other countries’ armed forces. I also fear that if Americans don’t do anything about it sooner rather than later, the US will force itself onto other countries militarily.
If you don’t mind, Where did you end up. You mentioned the US will eventually force its self onto other countries, so Canada seems too close but Europe and Australia sound safe
Canada. I understand the risk of living next to a problem ex and Canada is by no means perfect either, but a) I’m honestly enjoying life here more and have a solid group of friends, and b) I simply would not be safe staying in the US as a tan skinned immigrant trans woman.
I’m just gonna wear a mask and tactical gear from now on. Call everybody “brother” and drink American beer. Wait out the next 3.5 years.
AIN’T THAT RIGHT, BROTHER rips off shirt
But yeah, sounds like a valid plan. That is if you believe things will ever change by voting, or that Trump & Goons LLC will be ready to release their power come 2028. A fool’s hope, certainly, but a hope nonetheless.
At this point I’m ready to consider an ICE military coup
As if the democratic process of election itself hadn’t been compromised years ago in more than obvious ways, lol. Well, I’m lol’ing about it but it’s all very sad and frustrating.
I think it’ll just keep sinking for a long time. The US has been hell for a very long time. It’s just gotten worse.
It’s illegal to revolt against the state, and it’s illegal for individual states to seek independence. And that’s for the nation with the strongest armed forces in the world.
I predict a slow, boring descent into a corporatist dystopia.
You best start believing in corporate dystopia stories, Ms. Turner… You’re in one!
Only next step is to protest in front of these billionaires houses 24/7. Making their lives as hell ish as possible.
