I'm of two minds on this lately. Lira, I'm with you, I'm a long term optimist and think the US will weather this, painfully and awfully, but will survive. History is encouraging in that regard. Also, MAGA really does seem like a cult of personality. Trump can't have many more years left in him, at least as a viable head of the cult, and who's next? It can't be Vance (and Trump has said as much lately).
In the meantime, some level of collapse or incompetence-driven failure seems inevitable, with resulting loss of popular support. (Firing and trying to rehire nuclear watchdogs and bird flu experts in recent days is a good example.) The combination of tariffs, deportations, upsetting allies and adversaries alike, alienating former supporters (feds and vets who lose their jobs due to DOGE, people who start to feel threatened reductions in Medicare/Medicaid/SNAP, any number of spurned voters), inability to deliver on campaign promises like lowering inflation, continuing to make an utter mess of diplomacy re: Gaza or Ukraine with resultant isolation (US and Israel vs the rest of the world)...I just don't see how that plays out in Trump's favor long term. That's not even counting government inability to provide basic services in light of all the DOGE firings. I wonder how tax season will go? Midterms should be interesting.
At the same time, it's encouraging to see federal judges at many levels challenging and freezing the administration (and for now the administration saying they will appeal, but abide by the decisions made). I don't know that anyone with long term perspective on the GOP side wants to start impeaching judges or get a decision up to the Supreme Court with less-than-certain outcomes...certainly setting a precedent for Democrats to respond in kind in the future would not be desirable.
This bit from a column in The Guardian in the days after the inauguration has been echoing in my head, and I'm inclined to agree:
quote:
Here is another prediction: these men will not succeed in all their schemes. They will not deport as many people as they say they will; he will not change the law as much as they pledge to; they will not, cannot, capture the institutions as completely, or bury dissent as successfully. They cannot do everything they aim to do. Because politics is not over; because our institutions are not all collapsed; and because the existing institutions are not the only methods of resistance and refusal.
The Trumpist movement that ascended to power on Monday is relying on a tired, defeated America, one too diminished to do anything but submit to their demands and schemes. But the American spirit is indefatigable: it loves freedom and equality, abhors tyranny, values minding your own business and hates, above all, to be told what to do. When Trump was last in office, Americans found, at the end, that they did not like it. They will not like it now, either, and that dislike, however tardy, will have political consequences.
All that being said, the other side: what damage happens in the meantime? Even if institutions survive, how many people suffer? How many years will it take for the US to recover its image (not that it was ever that great, but this seems like a recent low)? What will it look like to restore some level of faith in political systems?
Again, history is encouraging for me. If the country has seen its way through arguably worse periods of nativism, populism, and outright oppression (too many to list), not to mention the Civil War, survival and recovery looks likely. And many other countries have gone through far worse and survived, albeit at terrible cost.
I can't say that I entertain the idea we won't go down this path again in the future. It seems it's in our DNA at this point. And we seem awfully unwilling to even admit there's a problem (much less learn from our disastrous mistakes).
It shouldn't be surprising or shocking at this point, but I am rendered speechless. The cruelty and dehumanization is so wanton, so callous, so casual and flippant...I really am at a loss. How much lower can we go from here? If this continues, I'd imagine his more moderate supporters (the anyone-but-Kamala types like my extended family) may finally start having real second thoughts. Maybe.
JEO
quote:
But the American spirit is indefatigable: it loves freedom and equality, abhors tyranny, values minding your own business
Man. This could've been written in all seriousness by an American or The Onion, and I would chuckle at both.
SYSTEM-J
The problem is too many people still see Trump and MAGA as some kind of aberration, and that once Trump leaves office some kind of reality can and will be restored. Trump is just the most obvious and odious manifestation of a much larger trend in the democratic West, which is an eroding of public belief in democracy and our current model of politics.
My thinking on this subject has been heavily influenced by this video by political commentator and historian Vlad Vexler, which is well worth a watch if you have 10 minutes:
quote:
We are at the beginning stages of overt democratic decline... This [historical] tendency will exacerbate over time. That is evident. The timeframe isn't clear, but it is evident. So we can fairly comfortably talk about, in my assessment, ten and twenty years. But don't think at the end of twenty years we go back to where we were before. That's never going to happen... So in 2020 trust in America in institutions is lower than in 2016, and it's lower 2024 than in 2020, and it will be lower in 2028 than 2024. If a certain type of technocratic centrism doesn't work today because there is not enough trust, it will certainly fail to work when there is even less trust in society four years from now.
I said in the other thread, too many people on the left cosily assumed the general population would eventually turn against capitalism, whereas in actuality their frustration with "the system" is making them turn against democracy. And this is not a temporary blip. For decades now, people have intuitively understood that Red vs Blue, Democrats vs Republicans, Labour vs Conservatives, has been a charade, a system that maintains power in the hands of the elites while giving the populace a placatory illusion of choice in the matter. And this isn't just a right wing feeling. Noam Chomsky has been talking about this for decades. People didn't vote for Harris and the Democrats because they knew intuitively it wouldn't give them any notable change in the injustices and inequalities of the USA. And they are responding to that by abandoning faith in the democratic system.
So let's be clear on this. Even if Trump goes quietly in four years time, things are not going to go back to normal. His successor will try to continue what he has started, and the pillars of democracy that he has chipped away at will only be attacked further and for longer. And the public are only going to care less and less about it. Because there is nothing in the US political system to make them believe democracy is going to get any better for them.
Silky Johnson
It's not just the mistrust of democracy, it's the mistrust of academics and intellectuals.
The de-intellectualization of the world is the real problem. People care less and less about democracy because they're either too stupid to understand that they're voting against their own interests, or just totally exhausted by having to navigate myriad crises, real or fabricated. And then there's the people in the middle, who are and always have been just comfortable enough to remain complacent which is the worst kind of braindead.
I'm no conspiracy theorist but it gets easier and easier to see that there is indeed a total corruption of power and democracy to the benefit of a handful of "elites", whatever the that means now. The right clearly thinks its "leftist elites" and/or the intelligentsia. It's almost like they're jealous or resentful of educated folks and the real power that developing and using one's brain brings, lol.
JEO
I don't know if this is self-evident to you all (in which case I'm going to sound like a moron) or if you see this as the rambling of someone who sees Russia's hybrid campaigns everywhere, but I don't think the growing mistrust towards democracy, institutions, and everything that's made us who we are, is entirely homegrown. Russian and Chinese online actors prey on those who perceive themselves as the losers in our societies, often turning a mild disappointment at current affairs to full-blown scepticism towards everything that's effectively been holy to us. A good amount of these retards from red pill incels to MAGA people often seem to align with something that, in the end, is pro-Russia. Or at least, if they don't explicitly express their pro-Russian opinions, you can see that they subscribe to a "might is right" way of thinking, which pretty much is the Russian way of thinking. I've noticed it with many of my acquaintances that have gone through a bad break-up or divorce. They end up in some cuckoo divorce or break-up subreddit, and a few months after the break-up, if they're a certain type of person, I notice they've usually not only adopted a hostile view towards women, but among all the other anti-Western things, they've completely changed their view on the war in Ukraine, now basically spouting Russian and/or Chinese propaganda.
I was actually "undercover" on an invite-only Finnish far-right Discord server for weeks, and there were clearly accounts there who were actively trying to harness these dumbasses to basically hate their own country, the EU, and democracy. Every now and then they'd mention something about Russia, and how the "degeneracy of the West" hasn't reached Russia, and so on.
None of this is anything new I guess. I mean Russia did try to meddle in the 2016 election in Trump's favor, that much is clear, but I think that the whole MAGA movement wouldn't exist to this extent if Russia and China hadn't at least heavily stoked the fire throughout the years, Trump likely wouldn't be president, and most of the chaos we've witnessed in the past few weeks probably wouldn't have been there. From what I've seen, the average Trump voter seems quite susceptible to even the crudest, most obvious ways that foreign powers try to win them over in. Either I'm reading all the wrong things myself, or this angle isn't talked about enough in the US.
Silky Johnson
You're onto something. Have seen the same with one friend. Started out red pilling years ago. Now he's full blown anti-jew, Hitler was great except for being vegetarian, guy.
72hrpartyanimal
This thread is GREAT! I'm glad I'm not alone. Love seeing everyone's thoughts. Keep sharing folks
SYSTEM-J
Russian (and Chinese) disinformation is certainly a factor, and not just on the right. It's not spoken about as often, but they also spread a lot of online disinformation stoking up anti-government sentiment amongst the left as well. But they're pushing against an open door. I don't believe the average American Joe would start subscribing to pro-Russian sentiments if they were happy with the way their country was being run.
JEO
Having spent a fruitless evening trying to discuss this whole situation with a few people from the US, almost all of whom said were against Trump, I am about 95% convinced that there's nothing to be done about this whole thing. There was a sense of stubborn apathy (if that makes any sense) among most of them. Some kind of a refusal to really, really care about what's happening. I guess all you can really do is go to a protest and hold up a sign, and that's it. So many seem to be convinced that nothing can really be done about this, that not one Trump-voting relative's mind can be changed anymore, that it's all downhill from here. I also am now convinced, but only because I see the people who actually could affect the situation so lethargic. That leads me to the conclusion that most of the "better half" of Americans don't really understand or feel what they could be headed towards in the coming years either. Not enough has happened yet, I guess. I don't know exactly what I expect the US population to do, but.. Expressing disapproval, voicing concerns? What is that gonna do?
planetaryplayer
They need to take one for the team and realize, if they are sensible they will need to nuke their country out of existence
Sykonee
Sometimes you have to ride a storm out, hunkering down while it does its damage, rebuilding after it passes.
