No “average” person is aware because they are too busy trying to just survive. Nobody wants to chance losing what they’ve worked so hard for. The only people who watch the news are seniors and disabled people, and they’re being misled if they just watch TV news.

People who call themselves Republicans are happy with what’s going on. People who call themselves Democrat are not happy but think they need to work within the system to solve the issues and wait until the next election. Libertarians have sided with the Republicans. Socialism is still a taboo way of thinking for the most part here.

Then you have disabled people (like me) who are watching what is happening in horror and have sky high anxiety wondering if they’re next to be disappeared or homeless. I can stand for maybe 30 minutes at most, holding a sign maybe 15 minutes at most. So I’m doing what I can and that is trying to live as if things are “normal” to continue on my mental health recovery and sobriety journey at the same time being horrified and terrified of what’s to come. It’s a weird duality that I don’t like. I told my therapist the other day that I have hope for the future for my recovery but I have lost all hope in what is going on politically and in the news.

A lot of this I also blame on false American beliefs fed to us in school that we were safe from all of this nonsense because of our constitution. The American Dream and all that B.S. They sugar-coat our history as a country in schools – at least they did when I went to school in the 80’s/90’s, I don’t know about now. It’s as if America only has a rosy history, even the Civil War is glorified in false narratives.

It’s easy to see how we got to this point as a country. The question is, how do we get ourselves out of it?

Is there even a car that is 100% made in the US, parts and labor?

I ask because I’m very confused by this article.

President Trump on Wednesday announced 25% tariffs on autos and auto parts that are not produced in the U.S., effective on April 2.

Ok, so if I don’t build a car here or build the parts here then I get charged a tariff.

“We’ll effectively be charging a 25% tariff, but if you build your car in the United States, there is no tariff,” Trump told reporters.

Ok, so I don’t have to pay a tariff on the parts I use to build my cars here in the US?

In a fact sheet released after Trump’s Oval Office comments, the White House said auto parts compliant with the USMCA trade deal will remain “tariff-free” until Customs and Border Protection “establishes a process to apply tariffs to their non-U.S. content.”

Oh hey, look! I don’t have a Real ID or a Passport. I already can’t fly or enter federal buildings. Now I won’t be able to vote? They’re basically making it a requirement to have a Real ID or Passport to be considered a citizen at this point.

Millions of poor people are about to lose their U.S. citizenship is what this sounds like it’s coming to.

You make a good point. Maybe I’ve fallen into the trap of seeing street after street of boarded up buildings and hearing of houses being hit by stray bullets every couple of months and thinking it is a war zone.

I’ve never witnessed an actual war zone and can only go by images and videos I’ve seen. Maybe the better term is “areas with frequent gang activity that could mean innocent bystanders could get hit with a bullet”?

Not only schools, there are whole neighborhoods in most cities that are nothing less than a war zone with people involved being younger and younger. Why should gangs risk jail when they can recruit bored teens or tweens to do their dirty work and not be charged as adults?

But a few damaged Teslas are a problem?

Who the hell would want to come to this country with all this shit going on?

If my SSDI payment doesn’t show up you can bet I will raise hell. It’s going to possibly mess up my Medicaid and Medicare. And if it’s a long term issue my HUD housing.

FAFO and shit’s going to get ugly quick. Well, as quick as my disabled ass can move

It goes farther than that, it’s a Republican issue and has been for decades. Trump is just saying the quiet parts out loud.

And traumatizing the fuck out of me because I grew up with a narcissistic parent and was subject to her wildly changing decisions, gaslighting, and her always saying the quite part out loud as if they are incapable of thinking without speaking.

Does this asshat realize that the only non-immigrants in this country are the Native Americans? I mean even after 9/11 there weren’t mass deportations of people of Middle Eastern descent. Racism and prejudice, yes, but this is ridiculous all because of Fentanyl?

I have a better and more empathetic idea – meet people where they are and help them find a path that works for them to get out of the addiction spiral. This is just going to lead to an increase in drug prices, which will lead to even more crime.

You make good points. I hope you are right about universal healthcare but I’m not holding my breath on that one

I can’t tell if they’re joking or are dead serious anymore.

I have a mental illness – 2 of them actually, Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Possibly will get PTSD thrown in that mix soon too. Therapists and Psychiatrists use a little book called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-5 for short. Unless they can convince the APA to include TDS in the DSM-6 then it’s not a mental illness.

This is nothing but thought policing and a way to label someone with mental illness when they really don’t have one. It’s also causing all of the work that’s been done recently by NAMI, MHA, and AFSP to try to end the stigma surrounding mental illness to be set back to the era of mental institutions (something that their beloved Reagan did away with).

But what the hell, might as well add it to the DSM-6 and slap TDS on top of all my other mental illnesses 🤷🏻‍♂️

I am an Independent and think both sides suck on the whole political spectrum in this country. I’m also from NY and both of my Democratic senators voted to pass this blank check to Trump and Elon.

The Democrats have gone about dealing with Trump and his disciples in Congress the completely wrong way from day one. They try to be civil and favor the traditional ways of solving things in Congress. They have basically been bringing a pink plastic toy baseball bat to a gun fight this whole time that Trump has been in office this term.

And because of that, here we were with 2 horrible choices for them. But one choice would have shown that they had enough of the B.S. and had some kind of a spine. The “right” thing for Chuckie to do was to be united and stand firm that they wouldn’t approve this CR and force a shut down unless they had a say in some of the solutions in the bill. Pain was coming either way, why not go down fighting and show that you were on the right side of history?

Given the past month and a half (holy shit it feels like it’s been a decade) and the track record of Elon and Trump so far, I am very afraid of what is coming in the next month and a half – let alone when this budget fight resumes in September.