If you think things are bad now, then, brace yourself: it is about to get a whole lot worse. If you are alarmed at the speed with which the Trump administration has set about dismantling every institution of American government and every pillar of the international order, you must understand that this is not just the initial burst of activity, the “shock and awe” phase after which things will settle down: if anything, the pace will continue to accelerate.
The world has never before been faced with such a threat. The United States has handed the nuclear codes to a madman, a criminal, a would-be dictator and a moron, all in the same person. Whatever the purpose to which he directs these powers – to impress his dictator friends, to further enrich himself and his cronies, to seize absolute power or just to watch the world burn – we must hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
Yeah, you can read about it in the project 2025 page online…we know what is coming…we have for a few years…
For those who want to watch as the progress bar of doom slowly progresses…
Thanks for posting this link. I had not read through Project 2025 before.
Is it just me or is the US heading into an economic recession? That thing reads like they are trying to destroy social cohesion, the environment, and probably the economy.
That thing reads like they are trying to destroy social cohesion, the environment, and probably the economy.
It sure does. Almost like he was an asset of an adversarial foreign government.
Is it just me or is the US heading into an economic recession?
Everyone but Trump, 77million magas, and Musk thinks so too.
Presumably whoever controls Musk wants it. Money has no countey, and the oligarchs are disaster capitalists, they profit from these kinds of events.
Not to be overly flippant, but it’s very clearly Russia, IMO. We don’t even need to wade into the current “Krasnov” discussion or talk about Trump on the Ukraine war to see it.
The report, drafted by the CIA, the FBI, and several other agencies, was released in unclassified form on Tuesday, but it was presented in classified form on Jan. 7. In other words, it was compiled, written, and edited during Trump’s administration. It destroys his lies about the election, and it exposes him as a Russian asset.
Miraculously the report is still up: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ICA-declass-16MAR21.pdf
Ice Cube had it worked out in 2017 though. 😁
Love the Ice Cube quote.
Like I said, money has no country.
Russia itself is ruled by oligarchs for oligarchs.
They’ve clearly made common cause with oligarchs from elsewhere.
Sure, Trump is clearly being controlled by Putin to some degree but this isn’t about national interests. That’s too narrow.
Ok evil aside people really need to commend them on their execution. This is a damn successful destruction of democracy
If Dems were smart, and assuming we have a fair election next year, they’d have their own “Project 2027” in the works right now.
Of course, no one would believe them because they’ll walk half of it back before they lose power again, but it would at least show they’re adapting.
If Dems were smart they wouldn’t have fucked Bernie in 2016
I think that is definitely the point where the US was at a crossroads.
For me it’s Al Gore losing that was definitely a start of some kind of fall. I know people point to Reagan often, but for me it’s Bush winning and starting all those wars.
That’s a very good point. I think you’re right.
That was when the US moved from covertly to openly breaking international human rights laws, introduced indefinite detention without trial, legally authorised itself to invade Europe, curtailed civil liberties, and rolled out a multi-national network of surveillance of its own citizens.
It also undercut rational reactions to climate change and normalized working-class right wing pride in having a president who sounds stupid to educated people. All of these things are arguably the groundwork for what they have now.
What we need is a manifesto for Rollback 2016. Any executive order from Trump? Invalid. Any appointment? Rescinded and Trump, Vance and any Trump appointee is removed from office and barred from any public office for life. Any corporation or billionaire that supported Project 2025 is guilty of treason and will have their assets expropriated as compensation. All legislation passed under Trump is summarily repealed. All regulatory decisions made by Trump appointees, likewise. Networks and sites that have repeated foreign propaganda will be sut down and their executives barred from ever running another public corportation and from holding public office. Tax windfalls for the rich from Trump’s cuts will be reclaimed.
The Democrats won’t do it. Someone will have to.
One thing that concerns me that not many people have talked about is what’s going to happen to the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency? More and more countries want nothing to do with us and while the US dollar has a huge edge over any other currency, the US becoming a pariah is probably going to impact that.
I’ve wondered about this too.
The USA government has enormous debt, which grows every year due to an enormous deficit. But historically people have been relatively comfortable with just letting that continue to grow, because it is balanced by economic growth and stability (roughly speaking).
But now that the government is somewhat unstable… bad things might happen to the currency. The debt will continue to rise, but the productivity and stability that underpin it are eroding. It may collapse.
It’s fine dude, Trump tweeted threats against any country that tried to get off the USD has the global reserve currency so therefore it definitely won’t happen. Or something.
The RMB yuan is used in international trade by only eight countries, yet the Chinese economy is not going down the shitter. Has anyone credible tried to quantify the effect of the USD no longer being used as a reserve currency or in international trade?
Our senators, representatives, and judges who aren’t MAGA idiots did take an oath to serve our country and defend the rule of law, right? The fact that Trump is in office illegally (he’s a convicted felon, remember) and he and Musk are doing highly illegal, unconstitutional things means you have the duty to gather up an armed force, march into the White House, and forcefully eject Trump, Musk, Vance, and any other MAGA moron, and put the actual victor of the 2024 election after you throw away all of the invalid votes for Trump in Trump’s place (Harris).
MAGA idiots are going to lose their shit, yes, but let them. Arrest them, educate them, pacify them, make them understand that this is following the rule of law for the USA. This all has to end. Now. We can’t wait for citizens to protest or especially not for a vote that probably won’t count or may not even come if Trump gets his way.
Do your fucking duty.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is already distancing himself. The wheels of government are going to shut Trump down. He doesn’t have that much power.
…they said, hopefully.
Yes — hopefully
Mike Johnson is way scarier than Trump. He’s a true believer, total hypocrite, and smart. His ideal society would be similar to The Handmaid’s Tale and he will pursue that agenda and believe he’s righteous when they build camps and dig trenches for the bodies.
Mike Johnson scares the fuck out of me. Watch him.
I haven’t been tracking his psychotic fantasies.
Let’s hope he doesn’t want the US taken over by Russia. Whatever differences with Trump he can find will do.
Like we didn’t know. This was just the beginning! RIP for you…
The perma stun proceeds as planned
This will end with blood in the streets.
The process of global de-dollarisation,much talked about, is being hastened far sooner than I think most people (at least those not privvy to whatever intelligence existed on Trump and others’ motivations and intentions) expected.
The question as to whether the country with the largest military in the world can accept a much-reduced international role (and much reduced share of unearned global wealth to go with it), without kicking off a kinetic world war three will likely be answered shortly.
Trump and Musk appear wide open to exploitation/manipulation, without anywhere near the required experience or intelligence to maintain the US’s international position.
Unstable times ahead.
The chuds at the top (most of them, anyways) know that this will likely lead to ww3, and that’s been the plan. The US is the preeminent military power, so they feel safe, and there’s a shit load of money to be made in war and instability.
The chuds at the bottom voting for US isolationism don’t understand just how much an interconnected world benefits them and how bad dedollarization is going to be for them. But then that goes along with a lot of people not understanding the benefits of concepts like soft power, humanitarian aid, foreign assistance, etc.
The chuds at the bottom are rooting for dedollarization, because they put all their life savings into $TRUMP
Are they already that stupid? Maybe I give everyone be too much credit but I assumed the ones putting money into $TRUMP are wealthy people playing the patsy to launder bribes
Even worse, the chuds might be dead of malnourishment, preventable vírus diseases, violence, before the consequences of dedollarization hits them
God, I so wish that an average American was smart enough to realize this. I feel like all they care about are their gas prices.
Here’s a few of my predictions ftom election night and the following days:
… "Edit:
Just wanted to add this moment of realization from a CBS news personality.
He was talking about how people shouldn’t be afraid, that America is the oldest democracy on earth, that democracy wil survive, and things will be OK…
… And he continued on talking about how trump likely has full control of the government, the house, the senate, the courts, and an immunity ruling.
After the last words came out of his mouth he looked at the camera and paused and said, (paraphrasing) ** " I’d like to maybe take back the first part of what I said, we should be afraid" **
I promise you he will order shootings on 5th avenue.
If you think I, we, us, anyone will be OK, like the half of the nation that elected him, you haven’t been listening.
People voted for an economy and against scary immigrants.
They also get the storm, the purge, the accelerationists, the camps, the executions, the prisons, smothered hope for the last possibility of saving this earth from environmental collapse.
They literally want Armageddon.
I mean actually fucking literally.
Once you learn how many in the Republican party, and supreme court, are members of NAR and 7MM - literally groups with the purpose of bringing Jesus back.
Nobody is going to be OK ."
https://lemmy.ca/post/32433434/12637803
…
I believe his (and Putin’s) goal is to destabilize (destroy) the western order, devalue the current global currency (USD), crash the central banks, fully shift economic power eastward, inflate crypto.
Tariffs on all north American trading partners will cause harm to the entire continent and beyond.
If none can trade, none can profit. If the tarrifs go to gov, with this admin, will they really?
The only thing pro wall street will be how they siphon off whatever wealth is left, pump and dump, crash and burn.
https://lemmy.ca/post/33768636/13042232
…
And here’s a little freebie from Alexander dugin - Putin’s philosopher and author of Foundations of Geopolitics - about Curtis Yarvin, trumpism, and monarchy.
https://alexanderdugin.substack.com/p/in-the-united-states-three-completely
…
The end is nigh, my friends. Very nigh.
global de-dollarisation
This is the real problem for us in the US. Currently debt doesn’t matter: that’s stupid and short sighted but it doesn’t matter. I’m not entirely sure what global de-dollarisation means but US debt is going to matter a hell of a lot more when we’re treated like any other economy
De-dollarisation is the dismantling of the dollar’s role as global reserve currency, which is intimately tied to the petrodollar arrangement, which caused the world to buy oil in dollars for the last fifty years.
I welcome any corrections/clarifications, but off the top of my head, the petrodollar arrangement was an agreement that Richard Nixon’s government made with the Saudis in the early seventies where the Saudis agreed to only sell oil in US dollars in return for military support. The agreement was a fifty year deal.
In order for countries to buy oil they needed dollars. This was and currently still is via the selling of US government bonds, which has allowed the US to fund its deficits by printing more and more US dollars. Ultimately the world has paid for that US spending. This ends with the end of the US dollar as global reserve currency.
Trump is showing in real time that the US cannot now be relied upon to provide security, so that half of the petrodollar arrangement is dead and gone. Would you fund the enemy’s military spending? Plenty have. And when you wanted to try and sell oil in a currency other than dollars you got a whole lot of freedom!
This de-dollarisation very much suits the likes of Russia (for historical reasons) and China (for sound economic reasons) who do not want a world dominated by the US.
Trump is playing into the likes of Putin’s hands fantastically. Not only is Putin getting what he wants from Trump in Ukraine, Trump is also voluntarily dismantling America’s position as global leader. I don’t know if he is a Russian asset, or if he is just so stupid, or believes the US should be an explicit oligarchy.
Buckle up, the future is not looking good for the US. Countries that have relied on the US are facing a period of serious instability.
The process of global de-dollarisation,much talked about, is being hastened
China has a thriving economy without the RMB being anyone’s reserve currency.
I’m not really sure what your point is. I assume you are saying the US can have a thriving economy and not be the global reserve currency? If so, a couple of points:
-
The US’s debts will come due as it loses global reserve currency status. Do you think it can pay those debts?
-
US and other capitalists outsourced production to China due to the lack of collectively bargained labour agreements and environmental protections. It was cheap. Are you saying the US could ‘Make America Great Again’ by making it a sweatshop!? Because I don’t think that is what Trump voters had in mind for themselves.
-
Iowa passed a law changing their state’s interpretation of the Civil Rights Act to be one that excludes Gender Identity, they claimed they were doing it in order to protect women. This marks the first time that a group was removed from a protected status.
Chaos and Anarchy will break out in the US soon, the bad kind though.
the extent that Trump has gone to remove barriers to committing atrocities likely corresponds to the extent he intends to commit them
What’s really got me sweating is the fact that we’re living in sorta good times. A lot of people are struggling of course, and serious issues are unfolding, but imagine what the world could look like if we get hit by the next Great Recession or Great Depression. Things could quickly go from very bad to much, much worse.
I’ll be the one to say it. We have been living in good times. The internet has the vocal crowd of naysayers. I believe they are signal boosted by “the algorithms” sowing the discontent bubble. That’s why there hasn’t been much counter-movement. Enough people are still too comfortable.
And you all can spare me the belligerent replies about how this or that sucks for whoever or whatever. That doesn’t strike the fact that things are good for enough people such that there isn’t mass breakdowns of social order.
It’s actually kind of crazy how the system keeps bending yet nothing has completely snapped. We’re not even at Occupy Wall Street level.
I agree that in general these are good times. Some groups and demographics are struggling and I do think most people are feeling varying degrees of pressure from inflation and other issues.
Of course, people in hotspots, like Ukraine, Syria, and Gaza, are having a much worse time.
What I do think is a serious risk is that a lot of groups could end up hit very hard if the economy were to go into a downturn. People suffer during every downturn, of course, but I think any downturn now could quickly grow severe and match or exceed the Great Recession.
Living in good times? Tell that to the people getting deported. This clownery hasn’t directly affected me yet. Everything is fine.
Like I said in my original comment:
“A lot of people are struggling of course,”
The deportations are terrible now. Imagine how they’d be if the world fell into a Great Depression. I’d be legitimately worried about frequent lynchings of immigrants.
And American still just going to whine on the internet and do nothing about it.
If anything this has completely vaporized the “checks and balances” democratic system everyone was so obsessed about.
Americans need to update the constitution where people have the power to dethrone a dictator as of right now theres nothing right?
They already have it.
The 2nd amendment.
Ah yeah, my semi automatic hunting rifle is really going to stop the armored military and the drones, and the mass data collection. Me and 1000 other people sure will make a difference right up until they shut off the internet and mow us down.
Tanks, jets, and rocket launchers are good against other armies. They’re pretty shitty against anonymous civilians. It’s why the US lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And in the US, the civilians would have 2 other advantages:
- A military that would be more reluctant to kill other Americans on American soil
- The enemy wouldn’t be the military, but poloticians.
We live in a budding techno-fascist police state. Your argument depends on anonymity. That is almost completely lost on the modern America. Hong Kong is one if many examples over the last 15 years. They’ll find you. They’ll disappear you. Sure. Buy yourself a gun and load up on ammo. It will do you lots of good when they break your door down if you actually prove to be a credible threat.
People don’t have to be part of an organized, traceable resistance when everyone has guns and the targets aren’t military in nature.
United Healthcare lost its CEO to a random dude lone gunman while he was walking down the street.
The idea is to make everybody a potential threat to those who abuse power. But one side of the political spectrum decided that guns are bad and disarmed themselves, so 90% of the guns are owned by fascists.
The US has way better surveillance of irs own cotizens than it had of Afghanistan. They will send Homeland Security after any militia before it becomes a credible threat to them.
If the end result is the same, fighting is the only choice.
Search for “Winter on Fire”
I agree that a full scale war against the US military using small arms is probably not likely to go well for those attempting it, but assassinating a president is a different thing altogether. America has assassinated many presidents.
Yeah lol that would never happen.
If americans can’t even form strong, lasting peaceful protests how could they form an armed resistance against literally the most advanced and powerful military in the world? Even US police is equipped with military APCs - what is your glock gonna do about that?
The 2nd amendment never made sense in the contemporary world. The casualty rate would be 1 to HUNDREDS just through sheer technological and skill difference and no uprising can possibly sustain that.
Removed by mod
Yeah but this sort of cartoon type of dictator is not realistic.
They always have some public support and as long as you lie and control some useful idiots it’s never going to be an ideal rise up people think it would be. It’ll be chaos with some resistance that’ll be marked as terrorists and nothing will be clear enough for “taking down some baddies with me” scenarios.
Luigi mangione is being tried as a terrorist with the maximum sentencing of the death penalty
Just sayin’
What Luigi did was just.
However, the 2A is specifically, ahem, targeted at removing government.
The GOP shows that yes, you can say the quiet part aloud and still have supporters
I agree that what he did was just, the government which is supposed to uphold the 2nd amendment does not was my point.
The 2A was about maintaining state militias to catch runaway slaves and to suppress slave rebellions. The south wanted it, the north didn’t care. At the time the amendments were being written, here was little to no discussion of the idea that an armed citizenry would be able to resist state tyranny. They had just fought a revolution and had a very clear idea of what it took to break away from England. It was a lot more than farmers with hunting rifles or posses of slave-catchers.
I’m not saying that armed resistance is not necessary. I’m just saying the 2A was never really for that. But there are many examples of barely armed citizen’s movements overthrowing governments. Without compliance, without legitimacy, their power can be broken.
Trump is going to get worse until he’s stopped. That has always been the case.
If was so easy dictators wound not have existed.
The american people will have to stand up for themselves and it‘s gonna be hard and brutal. Cause no one else can help you with this.
I found the recent developments in Serbia quite interesting and it might help to get an idea what a widespread resistance from the people could look like. Video on Serbia
It’s going to require daily nationwide protests going on for months and months with national participation approaching 1-2% of the population (4-8 million) on weekends and clear and actionable demands (resignation of Trump and his goons and corrupt members of the judiciary).
From my experience living in the US, I don’t think this is likely (I do hope I am wrong). Geographic size can actually be managed by having many thousands of protest sites by key admin buildings all throughout the country. The bigger issue is perhaps a lack of experience “operationalizing” beliefs and standing up to a thugs and oligarchs.
When the Second Great Depression starts, that’s when shit will hit the fan. Once the bread and circuses end and the starving begins.
It could be like months away too based off them wanting to cut like a million fed jobs and dump a shitload of commercial real estate onto the market.
And unlike the first one, we now have 3 guns per person in the US.
This is gonna be some bad juju ahead.
I wonder if the European bars will have little “For the Cause” jars similar to how Celtic owned businesss has them to support the IRA here in the US.
The only thing at this point that could prevent the USA from annexing Canada is a civil war to deal with. So yeah, it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.
And that doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen. For the most part Americans are complaining but not willing to actually do anything about the situation.
I’ve heard people say the US couldn’t invade us because it would cause an uprising, but they aren’t willing to stand up and fight for their own democracy. They won’t stand up to fight for ours.
We’ve never been in a situation even remotely like this before. A lot of people aren’t sure that doing a coup would be fighting for our democracy because removing them from office would be removing the, as far as any evidence can show, legally elected government. It’s about as bad as it’s been in nearly 200 years, but what if we “destroy the democracy to save it”?
Invading a country that most Americans like more than their federal government is an entirely different question. This current bullshit is disgusting and heartbreaking.
At this point, American democracy has already been destroyed.
Last time we had anything remotely close to this was 160 years ago. And this time the sane ones would be the ones going against the federal government.
It’s… we’re in the unknown as a country.
Also doing an uprising or outright causing regional sessions would be a lot more devastating if the US is already at war with someone else. It’d cause chaos in everything from logistics to the chain of command, that’s not even getting into how it’d fuck up all asset control.
Just to use an example say the Trump declared war on Canada next week and only California declares secession. That alone would fuck up so much more on all sides than just California declaring independence.
As you said we’re in uncharted waters and it’s best to play it safe, any actions not carefully considered could even strengthen Trump’s position.
Americans now want to invade and are cheering this on. It’s inevitable.
Bull fucking shit. Equating a minority of MAGAs that want to invade with most Americans only worsens the problem. Canadians could benefit from recognizing they have plenty of allies in the US and if the federal government chooses to invade our neighbors it’ll spark tremendous outrage and new alliances with Canada from blue states. Just to be crystal clear most Americans do not want this and see Canada as an important ally despite what you see on social media.
Yeah, IMO war with Canada will be the trigger for kicking off balkanization.
Can it be called a minority when more people voted for trump? And can’t just assume people who didn’t vote wouldn’t support him.
Bigger question is how many Americans not in the military would willingly sign up to fight against Canada, and what would happen if there started being drafts. Even supporters of wars turn out to be cowards when they or their children are actually forced to participate.
So that is likely the scenario that would turn trump supporters against the US and lead to inner conflict and unify both sides of the political spectrum.
Who want to invade and are cheering it on? His followers will agree with anything he does, obviously, but who else?
Once “support our troops” kicks in and Canadians become those people who fight against heroic American soldiers, I fear the majority of the USA will support crushing Canada. A country doesn’t need to have done anything for it to play out this way in the USA. There’s a vast reservoir of “we’re the best in the world” to tap into.
American Exceptionalism will be the death of us all
The “support our troops” movement went right into the shitter around the Iraq War. A majority of Americans do not approve of our military operations or expenditure.
And that was when the operations in question were across the entire world almost as physically far from the US as it is possible to be. If the government tries to start a war in our literal backyard you’re going to see a different side of Americans.
I wish you’d see it without having to come to that, but, unfortunately, I do share a lot of your views about our inaction. We’ve never had to deal with something like this before. We don’t know what to do about it. The obvious solution could cause even more problems that we can’t foresee, and would guarantee the complete destruction of whatever hero carries it out. Most people aren’t willing to die for their political beliefs unless they’re backed against the wall. We are very swiftly approaching that wall though.
