No Stupid Questions

Not really. Not to be dismissive of the harms of a 2nd term trump.

But you have to understand what American history has been.

People were literally enslaved in the early days, then the country was literally at war with itself over slavery. Then Jim Crow and Segregation. Black people were lynched. White mobs would kill black people.

Chinese people were targeted by the Chinese Exclusion Act and banned from entry, some were US Citizens too and they weren't except either.

The US had a major economic crash in 1929. Got into 2 world wars. American Citizens of Japanese ancestry were literally arrested and held in camps because of their ancestry. Went through cols war, the red scare, mccathyism. People randomly getting accused of being "communists" and arrested. Unions get cracked down. Protests were brutally suppressed, more violently than in modern day. Black people protesting for their rights and took a bus down south got burned. Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. literally got assassinated.

That is the American history.

And here we are, through such a shitty history, democracy survived, and voting rights expanded to so many people. First to Black people, then to Women.

Back then a majority of the population supported segregation, institutionalized racism. But today, a majority of people are okay with interracial marriage.

I have high hopes we can survive another trump term.

It won't be pleasent, but we'll survive.

From an outsider's perspective, I think a lot of people think you guys sailed past the point of no return back in the 80s.

Progress isn't a straight line, and sometimes there are setbacks on the way. I'm disappointed, of course, but I'm optimistic that we'll manage.

Yes.

In my opinion we've already passed the point of no return and recent events have just confirmed as much.

This isn't about having differing political opinions. A profoundly unfit, amoral criminal with a very public history of being an awful person came along and started spewing extremely dangerous rhetoric, some of which is almost verbatim to Hitler's, and our society ate it up and made him president in 2016. This man, who leads a party who courts racists/sexists for their votes, utterly failed his tenure as president, bombing his response to the greatest American crisis since WW2 and presiding over the highest White House administration turnover rate in U.S. history. Since then he has become a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, and illegally attempted to overturn our democratic institutions by various means.

This go around the American people were presented with a choice between that person, who only managed to make himself appear even more unfit during this campaign season, openly stated he is anti-worker rights, and is directly responsible for removing women's federally protected right to bodily autonomy, or a successful prosecutor with a doctorate in law, backed by a party that, despite misinformation, has a voting history proving they vote in favor of the average American FAR more than the opposing party....and Americans STILL managed to drop the ball and go with the CLEARLY worse choice. And when I say clearly, I'm talking about by every conceivable metric that exists in reality.

At this point it isn't about Democrat vs Republican or Trump vs Kamala or Biden. It's about the American people. We are not a society of intelligent voters. We have failed our responsibility as citizens in a democracy by being too lazy to learn and by allowing misinformation to mislead us and emotions to cloud our better judgement. We are not engaged in responsible involvement in our own politics. We gleefully elect people that only offer hate and fear and lies, despite how hard they try to prove how awful they are to us. And THAT is why we have passed the point of no return. If you remove the parties and the politicians out of the equation, you still have a society that fails at responsibly preserving a democracy. That gives in to hateful rhetoric and fear. That wants to get the better of the "others".

There is no happy ending for a society like that. A society like that can only decline. This was not an election about one political ideology against another. It was an election about morality. And we categorically failed that moral test.

There are excuses. We've been through a lot. Lots of people are desperate. Desperate people make bad decisions. But the bottom line is we don't live in a society with a majority of responsible adults making responsible, fact-based decisions about the most important things.

In the arc of history we may end up reaching a better place, but personally I believe we're embarking on a decline that will most likely last the rest of our lives. It simply isn't a problem that can be fixed short term. And we're about to experience a sort of deconstruction. A deconstruction of norms. A deconstruction of institutions. A deconstruction of education and safety nets. And those things take a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to build back, because it's easier to destroy than it is to create or maintain.

Buckle up. Try to find happiness where you can. It's probably not getting better anytime soon.

I hope not. But I am fearful that the US electorate has not grasped yet what it threw away.

No. People always want some apocalyptic ending, but there's always a chance to make adjustments in various ways. It's just that some solutions, the ones that are less painful and involved less people's lives getting destroyed and less death, some of those solutions become increasingly distant.

And look, if you go back and check out the history of unions and labor rights in the US, it was a bloody history. I think we might be looking at that repeating itself. And that's only if we're lucky.

We don't know.

The US came back from a US president hiring private goons to spy on his political opponents.

The US came back from a US president illegally selling weapons to Iran to fund right wing militias in South America.

The US came back from a US cabinet member taking literal bribes from oil companies to give them oil drilling rights on federal land.

The US came back from a US president illegally firing a cabinet member and installing his own lackey.

But it didn't HAVE to.

I don't think there's really such a thing as a 'point of no return' for a Democracy. But it is possible to get to a point after which you don't return.

Nah.

That was Reagan. You're about 40 years late.

It's going to be a really shit 4 years. There could be a point of no return anytime along that based on a variety of issues, but IMO the most likely point of no return is if/when Trump moves to take a third term in '28. If that happens it's clearly dead no hope.

No. Of course not!

Failing to Reject the Reagan Revolution, and mass embrace of the Jack Welsh style "trickle down" economics lie, by BOTH parties was the point of no return, almost half a century ago at this point. This car was already totaled.

Citizens United years later was just a victory lap by the owners pissing on the long dead corpse of the dream of societal equity.

Trump is just another symptom of that intransigent reality we all live in.

I'd say hope for collapse, as painful as it is, to have any hope for a better life for our children, maybe, but oligarch greed made climate change and at this point inevitable ecological collapse in the coming decades means there really isn't hope for a better society/civilization for generations(if they eventually develop technologies to better cope with the new hellish climate reality) if at all.

Right now my mind is at, "it very well could be, but time will tell".

Had Trump had the right people in places to make certain decisions, it could have very well ended in 2020 just as much. Well the world did change in a big way near the end of his term, with COVID, how he botched it and how he gave corporate handout after corporate handout which caused the inflation that Biden is being blamed for.

I've been still grasping for ways that the US still can be saved, which there are many, but they hinge on

1A. Trump going back on many of his worst promises and not doing them, because reneging is his thing, or

1B. Trump and his team being too incompetent to enact his agenda, or

1C. The backlash to Trump's unpopular moves creates disobedience within government, military and writ large, preventing him from enacting his agenda, and

2. Democracy not being rigged during his tenure, avoiding where elections become just as meaningful as Russia's or China's during the 4 years.

A plurality of Americans gave Trump and Republican facsism basically all the dragon balls of power, so it's up to him pretty much whether he can use them and the most Americans can do is organize and resist.

I was as surprised and disappointed as anyone, and I think we WILL take a few more steps backwards over the next few years, but I don't expect an unstoppable fall into fascism.

Most of the votes for Trump weren't actually FOR Trump. They were against the current situation they are in. They see him as the revolution. The anti-politician that will bring real change. They think all his court battles are the "Man" trying to hold him down and keep him from disrupting a system that gave up on its people long ago.

Of course that's all bullshit, but, assuming that all "normal" people can see through his lies and that only evil, woman hating racists would support him, is a big part of why he was elected.

Trump denied Project 2025 because he knew most people wouldn't want it. (Honestly, I would be surprised if he even knew what was in it) If he lets the Christian nationalists push that whole agenda on day one, he'll become the oppressive government that is taking away their freedoms. And nothing is more important to Trump than making Trump look good.

This is based on nothing but vibes and my observations but I think so. We were cooked the moment we elected the clown the first time, just been a slower slide than I anticipated. In truth though we already had the disease at that point but it was then it became terminal.

I desperately want to be wrong and will do what I can to prove myself a moron. Fingers crossed.

I think the real answer is that we end up kind of like the UK -- going from the worlds ultra-dominant superpower to a sort of slow regression to the mean, as China, India and others take the spotlight.

When you look at what China is doing with their Belt and Road Initiative, and their move to dominate the transportation infrastructure of developing nations -- the US isn't anywhere near equipped to counter that. We're still in a cold war mentality thinking that we will dominate as the world's police force.

Meanwhile, all the actual economies will be run by Chinese companies operating with state support.

Yeah, I think this could be the end of free and fair elections in the U.S., and there's no coming back from that without a revolution. Don't get me wrong, I don't think most of us will directly be killed by this change; our lives will just be shittier. It'll be like living in Russia. Given how utterly incompetent the administration is looking, and the things they say they're going to do (mass deportation of a significant part of our workforce, blanket tariffs, gutting social safety-nets), we may speed-run an economic and societal collapse. That could sow the seeds for a horrible and bloody revolution.

Or, maybe I'm wrong and the important institutions will somehow hold against a christo-fascist party controlling all branches of the federal government and a president with immunity. If there are still are free and fair elections, then congress could block a lot of things in 2026, and start repairing some of the damage in 2028.

Still, it does not bode well that the U.S. elected these people in the first place, and at best, the U.S. will slowly crumble for decades.

It would seem that way. The people elected a guy that tried to overthrow democracy

How do you recover from that

It’s my point of no return. Leaving in two weeks forever. Good luck.

For democracy? Yes.

The longer the rubes hold on to this pipe dream that the dems can make a come back the further we will slip and longer it will take to recover. Unfortunately, I don't think democrat party members will ever give up on the democratic party and they will spend all their political goodwill investing in this farce of a party long after the elections are still free and fair.

Say, free and fair elections survive by some act of god. That doesn't change the fact the GOP can beat them handley in a free and fair election. The only thing trump needed to cement his win was the Supreme Court to sign off on everything. Given immunity all the road blocks trump had before have been lifted.

We have till January and you will see what the executive is actually capable of, with limp dick biden kicked to the curb.

The terror that will be trumps deportation methods will have your jaw drop and I'm not kidding. We tolerated kids in cages, Abu Ghraib is coming to America and our own sex trafficker and chief will begin some truly despicable shit. You better believe media capture is part of it because there is no way other country's will be let in on this side of the veil.

I'm not a doomer. It's not hyperbole. Im not an oracle and would pay with my own life just to be wrong.

I still am hopeful though that my countrymen can snap out of it and quit dismissing reality in real-time, allowing us an actual chance at resisting this upheaval. If we wait till the midterms though, this shit is cooked, packed, and on the shelf.

If you want to say, look at American history, I'd quickly defer you to the 90s. Whatever we might have once been we are no longer that. We are consumers educated by infomercials who only know reality TV and "influencers". Coke was the first plague, Springer the second. Followed by real world and road rules. All of this media "culture" stripped us of what it ever ment to be American. No one sits around and wanes intellectual about the founding fathers unless you're a fashie supreme court justice or Lin-Manuel Miranda. Today, in 2024, the Apprentice is more American than George Washington.

There was a time when a single black women sitting at the front of a bus could change a nation. Today Rosa would hit the front page of reddit on a Wednesday and fall off by the time Europeans woke up to see.

That's up to Trump, because your vaunted checks and balances are gone.

Think he's going to show restraint? Insight? Empathy?

It might be. Only time, and the actions of Americans themselves, will tell.

It's the biggest crisis in my lifetime. But we have survived other crisises, some-fucking-how, so maybe we'll luck our way out of this one too.

God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.

• Otto Von Bismarck

No. There were two ways the trump admin was going to go. He was either going to run an effective fascist regime, or become the ringmaster of the largest dipshit fucknugget circus. Seeing how things are going so far (and he isn't even the president yet) it's going to be the latter.

Sure, there will be long term damage that is going to take years, if not lifetimes of hard work and good policy to undo, but it can be undone. Assuming 2024 was a wake up call and people vote more effectively instead of throwing their voice away at propped up Russian disinfo candidates.

Unless there's nuclear war, there's no such thing as the point of no return. Just a further slide into more egregious civil rights violations. Eventually it will get better, hopefully through democratic means and not violent ones.

Outside perspective: It doesn't have to be. It is the moment democracy, its values and its people are tested. The path towards open dictatorship and/or fascism is not set in stone. What is clear is that some setbacks, even catastrophic setbacks, are unavoidable. But as a whole the free-fall can be avoided and you can bounce back from setbacks, even if it takes time. This is actually somewhat universal, since it's not only the U.S. which is sliding more and more towards fascistic or anti-democratic tendencies. It's just that, like with so many other things, everything does seem to be bigger in the U.S. (and Texas).

Although I'm sure a lot are feeling economic pain and/or are generally under stress and uncertainty (IIRC 50% of households struggle to make an unplanned $1000 expense), and I don't expect it to get better under the new administration, the U.S. is still a federated system. If you look at what affects your daily lives directly, a lot more is done on a local and state level, than on the federal level.

From where I'm standing, organizing with like-minded people in your community around issues is the most promising way to go. Unfortunately the issues are back to basics issues like human rights and democratic principles, but that's where we are. This entails more than just protesting, but actively pressuring elected officials around legislation proposals. Suggest ballot measures (find out how such a measure gets to the ballot in the first place, because it's very different depending on where you are). And of course having people run for office and for the others to support them to get in, and get the anti-democratic forces out, once it is time. Don't succumb to the nationalization of local elections. People can be reached way better and more directly on the local level, when they can see it directly affecting their lives and talking to the people responsible directly than for anything happening in Washington D.C. Counter the anti-democracy spewing media outlets with true alternatives (maybe there's an entrepreneurial-minded person wanting to found a cooperative media outlet).

It sounds like a lot to do. But you are more, than you think. Even the disillusioned might be good allies. Take yes for an answer. And more people than you might expect have been part of 'the struggle' for a long time. Welcome them. And yes: Coordinate with and support other local actions.

Another view on what will happen with the federal institutions: Although Trump will put more loyalists than ever in powerful stations, there will remain many (even among the loyalists) who profit from the system's status quo. This includes the Supreme Court justices and ironically corporate goons. So in furthering their own advantage, they might resist things leading to an overall degradation. Of course they will go along with and actively lobby for anything that gives them more power at the expense of the general populace, but that is already the case. Again, if you make unlikely allies on single issues: Take yes for an answer.

Bottom line: Democracy and basic rights are ideas, made by humans. And they can only survive, as long as we believe in and fight for them. Always keep the belief, always keep on fighting. If you hit your head and fall down: Get back up. As the saying goes: This is a marathon, not a sprint. All the best!

The difference between recession and collapse is a bounce back on the other side.

Banking system is already vulnerable to real estate prices. Commercial real estate has been in zombie mode with banks hiding their losses on the sector. The US government has already unsustainable debt levels that can't afford major adventures or catastrophes. Adventures include mass deportations or wars. The problem with austerity measures for the non-oligarchs is strong degrowth and crime from multiplier effects.

While Trump is likely to be extremely divisive and angering socially, it is economics and geopolitics that will collapse the US. Deregulating banks is letting the fractional reserve system use a riskier lower fraction. Biden was very good at strengthening the subjugation of US colonies, but he pushed away majority of the world. There is major risk that Trump pushes away colonies without making the world more trusting of US. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/11/requiem-for-an-empire.html

What destroys America is the hubris of thinking it is winning, and that it can win over the world. Fighting China instead of getting cheap stuff is a mistake. Investing in dead ender climate terrorist energy is a mistake. Promising reindustrialization is a lie, and tariffs won't do it. It will bleed Americans dry while letting oligarchs pillage what's left.

Weaponizing AI to control population, and kill people is the new priority. Putting your hopes in DNC so that they can undo project 2025 is controlling you in a way that doesn't avert the path to collapse in any way.

The only escape is UBI and peace. Not something a Israel supremacist neocon DNC wants, because UBI is power redistribution instead of wealth redistribution. The binary of AI and automation is either cooperation where abundance and the profits from abundance can be shared, or extermination of useless riff raff that dares to whine about oligarchy and empire.

Absolutely not. It’s the moment where everyone digs in harder.

Ask anyone with skin darker than yours, or whose sexuality or gender was once or still is illegal. You don’t fuckin give up

Sure the US may be past it's glory days. Hell even the Rand Corporation (who write a bunch of stuff for govt leaders and other high ups) says it's been trending downhill since some point in the early 2000s. They didn't mention 9/11 but it seems like a good historical milestone.

Essentially the paper says the last 200 years have been an anomaly and we're slowly sliding back to historical norms. They call it the neomedieval era and it's not just the US.

Yeah pretty much. We're 2-3 generations deep into a cultural expectation that "some one else" will deal with all these problems.

The constant threat of this being "the most important election of our lives", when the party making that argument campaigned as if the outcomes were irrelevant (because from their privileged perspective, the outcomes are irrelevant).

Back during covid a boat got turned a bit sideways in a canal and it seemed like the whole world economy was going to collapse. The system we have is actually incredibly fragile and built largely on trust, both in one another but also in institutions and systems. Not only the US, but western Europe is about to get smacked up-side the head by the 2x4 of failing to maintain a civil society (US at fault within its borders, EU at fault beyond its borders).

Assuming you are talking about who won the US presidential election. Happened 8 years ago too, it wasn't the end of America then. It won't be the end of America now.