MSC

What danger? Can't be putting brown people into concentration camps since it's the right trying to do that. Where is the danger? Where is the existential threat exactly? I see none. Ahhhh, makes sense. Talking to a brick wall now. Thanks for the heads up!

A nation of immigrants, founded by immigrants, always a multicultural mixing pot. That's Americans heritage. As for all those companies that changed product names etc etc etc, sounds a lot like people practicing their fundamental 1st amendment rights to me. For the sake of a reasonable discussion, let's start of with some simple definitions. How exactly do you define "woke"? What exactly is "woke" ideology to you?

Yup I agree. Two words; Hague Convention. When it comes to protecting children, even countries that don't have extradition treaties with each other, will for this. +1 Also @OP I'm assuming you mean August 2024? We haven't had August 2025 yet...

The ineptness and pace of this, are demonstrative of a man who fully buys his own propaganda about himself, and like Trump has no clue how to run a government. Musks wealth also has an impact on his outlook and strategy when it comes to business. Before he really struck it wealthy, he was a bit more careful and thoughtful in his investments. As we saw with Twitter though, the kind of personal safety net wealth gives him, allows him to throw money at whatever business he buys and chops up, to prop it up when it makes obviously stupid business mistakes like firing crucial members of staff. Except now, he's doing it to government and the people that will have to prop up the pieces he messes with and pay for the damages, are the American taxpayer and the consequences are going to be far more destructive than some social media platform struggling to monetize after inept new ownership. As it stands right now, in business Elon Musk is too big to fail, he can prop up whatever business he wants, run it poorly, eat the cost until he figures out a way of swindling and cheating people with his new acquisition. It's also quite easy to see that Musk is growing more and more power drunk by the day, I've heard he's a drug addict too and the more people he screws over, the more paranoia is going to start coming in to play. The dude also sometimes believes we are all in a simulation and actually thinks it's a 50/50 case of whether or not we are. Bayesian statistics be damned. This is how you can tell he's no scientist. Believes a bunch of woo.

Yup, and that whole line of bs people were spouting off about how "democracies guardrails stood firm against Trump last time, so we'll be fine this time too" is just so monumentally stupid. Can you imagine applying that kind of logic in other situations? "Oh don't worry, that sniper missed the first few shots and has terrible aim, no need to call the cops, zigzag or keep our heads down. Now stand still so he can try again!" 12th and 22nd amendments when taken together, would provide a counter to this argument. The term constitutionally ineligible when taken into consideration with the 22nd amendment could be taken to mean that having served two terms as president makes you constitutionally ineligible to serve as VP, because you're ineligible to serve again as president.

I need to double check but I think the number I gave, may have came from an Adam Conover Documentary about government in the USA, and the number I think includes the 13% of the workforce in state and local governments also, so I may (probably) have overestimated how bad it is for the potential layoffs by misunderstanding some of the data on this.

If it gets to the point where we need to hope some modern praetorian group offs the current "emperor", then we are truly effed in the A. Trump taking control of the federal election commission, could effectively allow him to subvert democracy while keeping it's shell there for appearances sake. That said, with individuals like Trump and Musk, if they feel like they have amassed enough power to be untouchable, they may very well drop all masks and veils as power corrupts them into thinking they are untouchable. Here is my line in the sand; when the harm committed by a regime, outweighs the harm that will be caused in fighting and overthrowing said regime, and the power struggles afterwards and establishing. The cold hard truth of the matter right now, is that Trump owns too many hearts and minds to overthrow or revolt against, without potentially causing a civil war. The civil war factor What Trump is doing to American democracy is dangerous in so many ways, even in his removal, with his polarization of American politics, another extremist could take his place. I read recently at least one historian doesn't think Trump is the next Hitler but he thinks the next one will come from someone Trump has enabled.

Yes, and I should have clarified that number. To be fair that number itself is about 4 years old so it may not be presently accurate. I also cannot recall if it extends to military, contractors definitely. Another thread for sure but yeah, I highly recommend watching it or getting your hands on the books. Pretty sure another season is coming. The storyline challenges our idea of what absolute power and absolute corruption is by adding immortality into the mix, then makes us thank our lucky stars we aren't immortal. It also makes you question deeply what it means to have our species best interests at heart, as the underlying motivation for the protagonists and their objectives, on its face doesn't exactly sound like the sort of thing you'd expect of a hero to want to do. I will say no more. Also, Poe is one of the best characters and his existence as an AI/hotel adds a complex sub-narrative to the show that really makes you think about what it means to be alive. Personally I think it will be a mix of that, but the libertarians will experience a bait and switch where, instead of shrinking government, Trump allows departments he has more legal authority over to absorb the departments he has less legal authority over. There will be nothing truly libertarian about this, fascist authoritarian regimes need big governments, they just get into bed with the oligarchs more to do it if they aren't communist authoritarian. Was that called for? As far as I can tell, the correct word was used. Also last I checked plenty of idiots make it through college somehow, so even using the incorrect version of two very very similar words wouldn't mean you definitely dropped out of highschool. By the way, I dropped out of highschool. So if you want to say it to someone it applies to, you can say it to me. I just won't give a shit or take offense, because I can still do more with less. It's not always a strictly legal term, it can be applied to anyone who is in an official position or capacity, as taking advantage of that is? I'll wait.

It's a bit difficult for me to stop thinking about ways this is bad for the economy to be perfectly honest with you. Let's start with the numbers, 1 in 16 Americans, works for the federal government in some capacity, across every industry you can imagine. Lets imagine for a minute, half of those workers gets axed. I think that's 1 in 32 Americans but by all means check my math there as I'm not sure about that number, but anyway, think about the unemployment rate from that kind of mass layoff. Think about how much spending that takes out of the economy, some of those people will bounce back, go to the private sector, but how long will that take? How much debt will all those people cumulatively create just to keep themselves and their families afloat while they find new jobs? How many will go bankrupt? That's the numbers, we haven't even gotten into the types of jobs axed and how that is going to have long lasting implications for the economy. Regulators and inspectors for example. Look at the price of eggs right now and look at how that issue was weaponised during the election. As if who was president was going to have any impact on that. Firstly, chickens have different periods of low to high egg production. Fall and winter? Low. So that impacts the price. Then there was bird flu outbreaks among factory chickens. Dyou want to know how any one person could get the price of eggs down right now? Unburn and reanimate scores up on scores of culled diseased chickens. That's what it would take. Now maybe take the inspectors out of that equation, maybe those chickens wouldn't have been culled, maybe you have more eggs on the market from diseased chickens. Maybe you encourage a mutation in some strain of bird flu that makes cross species infection 100s of % easier. Or maybe you just end up with the same batch of dead chickens except they died slowly and painfully. That's just one part of the food industry (although egg prices has a knock on effect to any product that requires eggs as an ingredient). Food inspectors are just one type of inspector. DOGEshit did a massive take back of firings in the nuclear energy sector because Elon Musk and the infinite cringe realized they fucked up and hired back a ton of people in that field because they were a part of America nuclear defense system and had national security clearances. If only every sector could react so quickly to the loss of its federal regulators and inspectors. What about vehicle inspectors? I bet Tesla would just love to be able to keep selling people cars with batteries that blow up. People seriously have no idea of the chaos that is coming, this is just the start. I can't even begin to describe all the ways this is bad but maybe my points will give people more to springboard off of and elaborate on better than I can. Side note; the only good Pro about Musk I've seen so far is that he is in fact mortal, but don't tell him that, is highly illegal! Although let's face it, we all know that MF will spend as long as he can harvesting people's organs to stay alive while waiting until some doctor somewhere discovers how to massively extend our lifespans, so he can swoop in, steal credit and then live forever... Okay I've watched too much Altered Carbon. Sue me, that story is fucking amazing.

I hereby start the church of The Empty... Now keep it empty! Stay out of my church! Or Schizophrenia...

And I could win an Olympic gold medal in fencing, I just chose not to. Do you immediately believe me too?

I kind of feel like there was little real foil to the propaganda machine in the past decade. There just weren't enough journalists telling the truth in the right ways. They forgot that a lot of people are headline readers, knowing who "slammed who" isn't news. I didn't see any headlines that were just simple accounts of the truth themselves in the last election cycle. "Trump promises X, Harris promises Y." It actually astounds me how few pot smokers for example, actually knew that Harris had promised to legalize marijuana and the news reports I read completely racialized it as a "promise to the black community" and "an attempt to sway black male voters" So yeah, you're right, and that was from non conservative outlets so too many people have taken to adopting the language and narratives pitched by propaganda. The Democrats ran on their most anti-immigration ticket yet, simply because too many Americans believe falsehoods about it now and can't even identify where the real problems with it lie. How exactly can we make the truth speak louder and in a more compelling and persuasive way than current propaganda does? Saturate the Internet with AI fact checker bots?

Diversity, equity and inclusion is not dividing America, by it's very nature DEI is the opposite of divide and conquer tactics. The philosophy within DEI policies is about creating a diverse, unified and harmonious society that everyone can thrive and prosper in. So it is the natural target of those who stand to benefit from a divided populace where all the little guys are at each other's throats instead of looking at the people who are legitimately making things horrible for everyone, IE the mega rich. Wrapped up in the rhetoric of "DEI is evil" is the underlying desire to fire or refuse to hire based on race, sexual orientation, age, disability, gender etc. There is also the claim that non-whites and women couldn't possibly be as qualified as a white man with a rich daddy. Its just ridiculous that the words diversity, equity and inclusion are being spun as dirty words. Oh desiring a fairer society is evil now? Its like arguing that up is in fact, down. Falls on its face.

Why hasn't anyone tried to stop him? Well last I checked plenty of people are trying to stop him, journalists telling us what is happening are trying to stop him, judges are trying to stop him by halting his firings. Trump controls the federal government and has tasked Elon with breaking up the old federal government while building a bigger authoritarian one, through the Gestapo... I mean, DOGE... So who exactly is meant to stop Elon dead in his tracks right now? Your entire argument makes no sense. This is what it sounds like "If Hitler was so bad, why didn't the German people stop him from trying to kill the Jews? If killing them was so bad, why didn't it get stopped?" When the answer is; wtf do you think WW2 was about if not stopping Hitler?! Do you have any idea how many people work for the US government and how many different jobs there are? 1/16 Americans, and it ranges from civil servants, doctors, engineers, food inspectors, nuclear energy experts, administrators, cafeteria workers etc etc. Do you have any idea how high the unemployment rate is going to be after this?

Being a genius, and being a loudmouth bully who abuses the best work out of others and screams they are the genius responsible for said works of others, are two different things. One is actually far more likely to lead one to great wealth, and it isn't the genius one, it's the bully one. For every innovation there is a capitalist narcissistic manipulator ready to steal credit and profit. More often than not, they actually stifle innovation by killing competition and stealing the spotlight from the true geniuses who were actually responsible, thereby stealing public support from the people who could do truly great things with it. They also completely believe their own waffle. The illusion of the cynical genius is just that, an illusion. What I will say about Musk is that he works very hard at trying to cultivate an aura of genius, but I dare you to track down any real academic or intellectual achievement of his that was actually his, that doesn't involve the manipulation of others. I guess it takes a type of genius to be that good at manipulating others, but it's a very short sighted kind that requires you to be stupid in the long-term. In ancestral terms, hoarding food in your cave and declaring yourself to be better than your fellow caveman, led to being clubbed in the night and having all your hoard taken anyway. Here is a pro to modern society; on average we are all much safer than our caveman ancestors. Con; the hoarding cavemen who think they are better than everyone else are even more insulated from the clubs.

For people like me and you, who care about facts, you're right, this wouldn't sway us. For people lost in a propaganda bubble who believe Trump and Musk are rooting out massive levels of corruption and are being told $5000 within that bubble (which they indeed are being told this) this will hold a lot of weight. Also, you said $5 per taxpayer, but this assumes that eligibility is something they'd agree on so that it would be a fair an equitable share of $5 per taxpayer, hell I'm a greencard holder and I qualify as a taxpayer but I somehow doubt I'll be included in any kind of check whether it's 5 bucks or 5k. To be clear though I'm not saying I believe this check is ever coming, but what I am saying is that Trump has already gotten his followers to swallow a lot of shit on the promise of "it'll be here in two weeks" and it doesn't take a genius to see that he is shameless enough to float such a promise and then when ungiven, blame it on the "radicals" trying to thwart him as to why it never materializes. I do hope I'm just doom panicking over somethings that will never happen and I hope that somehow democracies guardrails hold firm against this... But how long will it be before the assault relents/ends? What sort of damage and chaos is going to happen in the meantime? How much are we going to lose?

I could actually really do with your perspective on the technological aspect of this; propaganda aided by current technology, AI and a trove of data on most individuals is a new variable that quite frankly wasn't available to the likes of Hitler, but is to Musk and Trump. How drastically do you think this changes things? It's not like Thomas Hobbes could have seen this all coming in Leviathan. We haven't even really gotten into how bad this could all get nor how quickly. Trump's DOJ, Trump's election commission etc unchecked threats, bribery and extortion of officials from federal to local. It's honestly a massive mixed bag really. There are so many different reasons it's hard to list and they range from sounding reasonable to utterly reprehensible.

Hard to gauge when upto half of the US population voted for Trump. It's my understanding that the exact demographics up to now have been that of leadership leaning against Trump while the rank and file members tend to lean toward him. With a leadership change to Trump Loyalists, you put control of the chain of command into Trump's hands. It should also be noted that political leanings and moral inclinations aren't going to factor in much when looking at military or criminal sophistication. We have been severely underestimating Trump and the people around them, as stupid, when in fact they aren't. They are criminally sophisticated and have a working understanding of how to play people's emotions. One of histories biggest dictators, Napoleon, was a military genius. Immoral af yes, but still a military genius. My above paragraph is in response to this. Simply put, there are going to be individuals in the military, already loyal to Trump, who are still more than capable of running an effective military. Cult members don't join cults because they are stupid (I mean some do but not all) they join because they were in a vulnerable state, an insecurity was taken advantage of, a fear magnified and anger given a direction to go. Thank you for sharing this; I have some questions about it though because within a highly polarized environment like we have now, and the existence of the Kyle Rittenhouses of the world, that 3.5% could be variable depending on the unique circumstances of a given nation. My concern is that in recent years, non-violent campaigns on the true progressive side of things, are met with a reaction from the alt-right side of things. I also worry that with the current state of technology and the psychological impacts of that, whether or not a propaganda machine could create a proportional reaction to defeat any movement that is nonviolent. I suppose the best way to kind of illustrate my worries, is to ask; what would have happened if there had been two large groups in DC on January 6th 2020, one for Trump, one against Trump, both groups driven to do what they have to do to defend whatever it is they think they are defending. Another thing that worries me this time around with the authoritarians trying to once again take away liberty, is Elon Musk. I tried to see if I could find any historical mention of Hitler straight up bribing the German populace into complicity. I feel like that is part of the playbook this time around, Musk has already talked about giving Americans checks from the money he's claimed to "save" by gutting the government. I heard some Trump supporter talking about it loudly and I just don't know if it is or isn't something to be concerned about from a few angles. At this point I'm back here talking to you all about this because I just, don't know what else to do. This all scares the hell out of me to be perfectly honest with you all. Not sure how to process anymore, let alone react.

Trump has just started gutting military leadership, starting with the chief of joint staffs. The chief of joint staffs is supposed to be a termed position that crosses over administrations precisely so they can't be partisan hacks. I assume most of us here have heard the Padme Amidala quote from Starwars I'd argue that liberty in fact dies once the slavers are made generals and leaders. This is the part where I ask the Americans here; how do you expect to keep your democracy intact after this? We all know where this is going, increased defiance of courts and Congress, no more checks and balances, the goading of the American public to engage in protest and then we walk right into martial law. Have we just moved past a tipping point where there is little way out of living under a violent and malignant authoritarian regime without some kind of revolution? That's a question of practicality, can an oppressed public, peacefully get themselves out of a dictatorship without said dictator willingly giving up their power?

Not sure which quote of mine you're referring to as it's just blank. Also it's been a minute since I was last here.

I kind of feel as if "buy electric" only really captures one aspect of the reasons to have very real and deep concerns about the future of the USA and this planet. It also doesn't help me because already done, I get around by ebike. Shirley you don't mean Tesla though? Unfortunately also due to late stage capitalism and a near monopolized market across most industries if not all, our dollar made choices are very low quality and low in quantity also. Renewable energy is awesome, until it's energizing a fascist regime.

As a community, what can we do to protect ourselves and our fellow man in the rising face of technologically advanced neo-fascism and industrial feudalism? My biggest concern after the US election, is that we are reaching a scary tipping point where over half the population could become brainwashed to support people like Donald Trump, making louder calls for violence and stronger acts of it being more frequently perpetrated against anyone who is a threat to fascist strong men everywhere. Today it's the illegal immigrants, tomorrow it could be eliticide, professors, scientists, researchers, artists, teachers and one day common sense dissenters. Right now we are awaiting the chaos of "dictator on day one" with little hope that the Biden administration will make any sort of hail Mary run using the free pass from prosecution the supreme court just gave the office of the presidency. It will be a peaceful transfer of power into the hands of chaos. I hope that the guardrails of American democracy can withstand another 4 years of Trump, but how many are going to be hurt in the process? Maybe I'm just being a completely apocalyptic unreasonably? I don't know, but none of this feels right and I feel a storm coming for humanity in so many ways and all seemingly of our own making. This community genuinely has not only some of the most intelligent people I've ever had the pleasure and privilege to know, in more ways than one, but also some of the most hopeful and passionate. So as a group, of many brilliant diverse individuals, what can we do?

You could stand to be a bit more diplomatic is all and be a bit more aware of the highly charged nature of this particular thread. Everyone is pretty pissed and frustrated, not with you just in general. What I will say is that your words have either been mischaracterised or could have been put better by you. Your claim; voters are too lazy/inept to educate themselves about the issues. So in response to this, what would be your advice to future campaigns? How do you expect working people to pull the ability to teach themselves about complex issues out of thin air or to guard themselves from manipulative and biased news sources and only read the legitimate sources, when they have to pull 40-80 hour work weeks just to get by, juggle kids, family, friends, doctors appointments etc? Do you have any clue how busy the average person's life truly is? What I will agree with, is that voters are having a lot of trouble educating themselves about the issues and it is for a variety of factors, variables and on the individual level not all of those are going to apply to everyone. Lazy and inept applies only to those it is true of, but that is not the story of every or even most voters. One of the things that further isolates members of a cult from the outside world, is the outside world viewing them as stupid and foolish rather than someone who was taken advantage of when they were vulnerable. It's a kind of victim blaming that goes nowhere and only serves to push people right back to the cult. It is certainly tempting to fall into the pattern of viewing the other side as somehow less than you, stupid, cruel, evil etc, especially when that is their bread and butter and they definitely see you as stupid, inferior and evil to them, but that really is just playing into the very narrative that made them vulnerable to cult manipulation, which comes through not just the acts of the higher ups in the know of the abuse of their supporters, but peer pressure from other supporters. Now the entire claim here of laziness and ineptitude that follows the average person around like a dark cloud over there heads, comes from a narrative started by wealthy people, the people paying wages and salaries, to explain the ill fortune and struggle for financial security and economic stability that is the reality of the average person. A manufactured reality where lack of fair payment for a person's time and effort is the reason for the struggle, but is blamed on the very things you are claiming in quite broad terms is what all these voters suffer from. Laziness and ineptitude.

Except I never claimed they were lazy or inept. I definitely claimed they were ignorant and didn't actually know (somehow) what the candidates truly stood for. Speaking of what people stand for, what do you stand for? You've hammered down into a few people on this thread now but I think you should speak plainly about what even motivates you to speak as you're pretty new to the discussion and so far we've all respected each other enough to share some of our skin in the game. What's yours?

I'm afraid I'm not following. Isn't a 2rds majority vote required for a constitutional amendment or is there some other avenue I'm not aware of, as an immigrant? Kind of weird to say but thanks Sinema and Manchin I guess? For maintaining the filibuster.