3天前

So, is the USA screwed?

You know, DOGE, fascist president and corporations dictating what people can do, institutions being ruined, laws being ignored. Is there any way out of that or is it over? Is the USA done?

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Well, it depends on how you define the USA. You mean the Republic of the United States of America? Yeah, no, that's dead. It is currently dead. It died when the SCOTUS made the president functionally beyond criminal prosecution, and everyone has just kind of been playing weekend at Bernie's since then (though the Trump administration is dropping the pretense pretty quickly). Don't get me wrong, it's been dying for a long time, but that was the exact moment it was declared dead. No matter what happens, the republic as we knew it is dead and is not coming back. Nobody believes in the constitution anymore; among our leadership there are only either those who are in a hurry to destroy it, or those who are unwilling to defend it. I think a lot of the American populace haven't sincerely believed in the constitution as an effective charter for governance for a while, too. Imo, we're less than a year from the legislature being dissolved in some fashion of another, unless they just hang on like some ceremonial vestigial organ.
What we get to decide now is what comes next. That's what nobody's sure about. Are we going to have a middle-east style theocratic government? Italian fascism? Maybe the military defends the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic and we re-form the republic? German fascism? Neofeudalism? Peaceful balkanization? Hot balkanization? COULD IT BE?! BY GOD, it's the ghost of Lenin with a steel chair! Or maybe we'll get something entirely new? It's frankly impossible to guess while we're living in it. I think cold balkanization is both the most likely and most optimistic scenario. IN THE MEANWHILE, yeah, you're still going to see all the window trimmings of the USA; the maps will still say USA, we'll at least nominally still have the things that make America America (like the constitution still sitting in its fancy protective case, as though the GOP didn't just wipe Trump's ass with it), it'll all look weirdly normal while they make the republic's corpse do a funny little jig.
- maybe we’ll get something entirely new?
  The French are on their fifth republic already. A new constitution with better guardrails and different voting system is possible. The USA has a very deeply ingrained idea of freedom and democracy and is unlikely to lose it completely. It might be a good idea to already start thinking about how that new constitution should look like.
  Balkanization or a civil war before that happens is certainly in the cards.
  Maybe the military
  Trump will try and purge all non loyalist officers from the military. That could lead to a fracturing of the military. California for example has big navy, air force, and marines bases, as well as military industry. The states have national guards already and whole units could defect from the federal military to the guard.
  If that leads to an internal cold war, balkanization, or a civil war remains to be seen. It will make the US far less able to project force internationally. Queue China taking Taiwan without much US intervention.
  
  Trump will try and purge all non loyalist officers from the military. That could lead to a fracturing of the military.
  We should ask what happens when there are a large amount of military trained men that are suddenly let loose and returned to the population, but I can't think of a single time that's happened........
  
  I think if there is a new Constitution, it would need to incorporate economic rights. People can't abandon work to strike or protest, which negates the voice of the poor and working man alike. The wealthy can afford to voice their politics, which is likely the biggest reason why Yarvin's Cabal succeeded. Ordinary people simply can't dedicate the time to research nor influence politics.
  
  Let’s be really honest about this. There are town meetings at least monthly. Political parties always have something going on. There’s no way Netflix originals, hawk tuah podcasts, and countless You-Tube channels about eating various chips and playing video games are capable of existing if no one has free time.
  I can easily observe the vast majority of people with cars, money, and time choosing to sit at home doing nothing at all.
  So little people show up to these things you actually can make a small impact locally.
- ’s the ghost of Lenin with a steel chair! Or maybe we’ll get something entirely new? It’s frankly impossible to guess while we’re living in it. I think cold balkanization is both the most likely and most optimistic scenario. IN THE MEANWHILE, yeah, you’re still going to see all the window trimmings of the USA; the maps will still say USA, we’ll at least nominally still have the things that make America America (like the constitution still sitting in its fancy protective case, as though the GOP didn’t just wipe Trump’s ass with it), it’ll all look weirdly normal while they make the republic’s corpse do a funny little jig.
  to date, that 400,000,000 pew-pew stick and freedom rod are proving super effective against tyranny. Civil was is becoming more and more likely though.
  
  4 of the richest men in the world who own 7/10 of the most popular websites on the internet donated to and sat at The Presidents inauguration. They own the information pipeline and can literally control propaganda completely unchecked and unsupervised. Most of those gun toting freedom fighters use those platforms because it's all they know. Their family is on it, their business is on it, their news comes from it, they get their daily dopamine kicks from it.
  There isn't going to be any Civil War. It's just going to be a slow rotation into what Russia currently is now. Little by little by little, hardly noticable changes, over a long enough period of time (say 4 years or so), until one day they wake up and say "Well, it was better then but there's nothing we can do about it now." and go about their day.
  The next war is going to be a war of ideas and a war of messaging. We can't rely on online outreach and have to be proactive IRL spreading messages that it really is a class war. There's no better time than now, no more apparent point in history than today, it's just pulling those people away from the propaganda for them to realize it. Somehow, We The People, need to convince the Boiling Frogs.
  
  I worry that you're correct; I can't even get family to stop using amazon, because, 'shows', and free prime delivery. I point to bezos bending the knee to trump and amazon's horrible record re: unions - but... shows.. free delivery.
  fffffffffffffffffuiuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
  
  y on online outreach and have to be proactive IRL spreading messages that it really is a class war. There’s no better time than now, no more apparent point in history than today, it’s just pulling those people away from the propaganda for them to realize it. Somehow, We The People, need to convince the Boiling Frogs.
  If you look at the stats on what proportion of US population can read beyond 6th grade level you can predict that there's nearly zero chance pulling these people out of their bubbles.
  On civil war, if we were in the slow boil phase I'd agree with you, but the ghouls like stephen miller coming out the woodwork combined with a lot of people suddenly having a lot of free time (I mean fired), things are much more likely to turn heated.
  
  The problem is who holds them. The majority are the ones that voted for this crap.
  
  One can at most wield two firearms. And one is most effective concentrating on just one. The booger eating mouth-breathing MAGAts may own many more guns than the rest of us. But they can only use one or two at a time. And lots of us ALSO own some firearms. We just usually don't make a fetish of them. Furthermore, owning a bunch of different caliber weapons complicates your supply issues. I have concentrated on 7.62x51/.308, 12 ga, and .45.
  
  I've been making sure I have each range covered. Short, mid and long. Short and mid are both .45. Long is undetermined yet, but it'll be between .223 and 5.56. All depends on what has a threaded barrel.
  
  On civil war, if we were in the slow boil phase I’d agree with you, but the ghouls like stephen miller coming out the woodwork combined with a lot of people suddenly having a lot of free time (I mean fired), things are much more likely to turn heated.
  they didn't overthrow biden's "tyranny" either. Instead of the overthrowing tyranny bullshit, guns have a great track record of killing kids and helping depressed men end it all.
  
  True, and this is a very sad statistic. It would be great is we would actually work on mental health in this country. We also need much stronger purchase laws. Required classes. Better registration tracking. Even concealed carry laws are lax in harder states. My state is just fingerprints, background check, and you have your CPL. Renewal is completely online. 5 minutes, $40, about 2 weeks wait, and I have my new license in the mail.
  On the tyranny. Usually when the DNC is in office the GOP use it as a chance to cement more votes for the next cycle, and just bitch and moan in general. They generally don't call it tyranny, aside from tRUmp. They generally say that whoever is in office is causing whatever problem the GOP had just caused. They lay the blame, and lay the groundwork, to wreck shit next time while shifting blame from themselves. Eventually people get sick of the economic slump and a new dem gets in office. Que bitch and moan, and the cycle starts again.
  However, this cycle is wholly different. We have someone in charge that is actively dismantling everything like a bull in a china shop. This is something that is pretty unprecedented for the US. We have never had interference from another nation. The misinformation campaign usually came from within, and was ham fisted at best. This time, with a different, hostile, nation(s) involved ,that misinformation was turned to 1000%. Social media. Corruption coming to a full head. Then the economic downturn of both a major pandemic and bird flu causing legitimate shortages, only fueled the fire. To be sure, however, this was something coming. All of that, combined with the "perfect" storm of tRUmp, really sped it up.
  
  True, and this is a very sad statistic. It would be great is we would actually work on mental health in this country.
  It's 99% the guns though. The US has shitty mental health safety net, but not worse than in Eastern Europe, the murder rates (which is driven by gun violence) are much lower there. If you exclude firearm deaths it drops to similar rates to that of Europe. I personally think that increasing fines and punishment for bad gun ownership is the way to go.
  They lay the blame, and lay the groundwork, to wreck shit next time while shifting blame from themselves.
  Yup. The funniest thing is how important the national debt becomes with a democrat at the helm, but how irrelevant it is with a republican presidency.
  All of that, combined with the “perfect” storm of tRUmp, really sped it up.
  Agree, trump is a symptom not necessarily the direct cause.these all happened because of citizens united and the influx of infinite money into politics that was bound to tip the balance away from actual citizens towards corporations.
  
  I'd definitely be for fines and punishment for bad gun ownership. Any rational person should be. Too many times we see that a shooting happened because someone that shouldn't have had them got them from a family member. If you have someone in your household that shouldn't have firearms, you should remove them from the home. Not just a storage unit or something either. Police should be holding them for you until that person is either out of the house or has completed a treatment program. If you want to go hunting or something, it wouldn't be a big deal to go check your firearm out from the station.
  
  I am a gun owner and there are three places for your firearms, at home, at the range, and while hunting. Restricting uses to those uses would do a world of good in reducing gun crime.
- I mean, the American Constitution is dogshit. The people who wrote it didn't even mean half of it, and the other half became out of date about when globalisation took off. It's not surprising nobody wants to defend it, the U.S. Republic has been desperately, desperately overdue for a revision.
- I think cold balkanization is both the most likely and most optimistic scenario.
  I'm curious why you think it's most likely. Most optimistic, I agree.
  
  Okay, here we go
  The US is fucking YUGE. Historically speaking, it's very, very difficult to keep countries that span huge geographic areas together. There seems to be some fundamental limit of size per population that can be tolerated before your cultural and geographic differences start becoming significant enough to start forming separate identities. The US has like 14 such subregions, and each one has a little different idea of what "America" means to them. A strong single national identity is not the default case here, you've got to really work at it or have some big unifying cause, which we no longer have.
  We already have pre-fabricated governments in the form of state governments. State governments tend to be pretty strong, in the sense that they tend to have a whole lot of administrative capacity, much stronger imo than what I believe of European provincial governments. The whole original idea was that the states were mostly independent states joined together under a trade federation and its government. Of course, it hasn't been that for a long time, but that's the root that we grew up from.
  We have almost no history of state on state violence, and most Americans do share some sense of national identity. Maybe not a strong one anymore, but it's there. I think most people would be pretty shocked about the idea of going to war with another state.
  This isn't really an ideological separation, as much as the federal government is just, like, vanishing in a puff of smoke. There's a lot of states where they've depended on the federal government's administrative capacity to handle stuff, and that's just going away in a real haphazard, scattershot way. At some point, these states will ask themselves "if we're handling all this shit ourselves, what the hell are we sending the Fed tax dollars for?"
- Lol wut. It died a lot longer ago
  
  Okay, I'm not trying to be shitty with you, I'm actually interested. Why don't you make your case for when you think the US republic died?
  
  I don't necessarily agree but one could argue in 2000 after SCOTUS stopped the recount and the dems just politely conceded.
  EDIT: Also seeing a lot of people pointing to the rise of Neoliberalism.
  
  I think our present situation became inevitable once the loathsome Newt Gingerich convinced the GOP that people who disagree with them are an enemy to be destroyed rather than people who need to be convinced or compromised with.
  
  I think citizen's united. The spirit was dead probably before I was born, but legalizing corruption made the full death inevitable.
  
  Citizens United would be a decent candidate. Once it was established that donations were protected political speech, it effectively legalized bribery, and made oligarchy essentially inevitable. Most of the missteps since then have been motivated by folks trying to simultaneously play to populist talking points but also placate billionaire donors. The left needed an actual positive message, like the kind Bernie Sanders was pushing, that would energize folks and unite the overeducated with the working class, but that was never going to be acceptable to the donor class, and so candidates like him always had to be shoved aside for someone who would clearly cater to corporate needs. And someone who would clearly cater to corporate needs was always going to be a really tough sell and not really a solution to the needs of the moment.
  That doesn't really account for the rise of the tech bro fascist accelerationists like Mencius Moldbug and the Dark Enlightenment, which is a big part of the current moment and accounts for how the far right was able to hoodwink some billionaires into voting for a social collapse that seems very likely to hurt them also. But Citizens United still seems like a fair candidate for a point at which some of the last paths away from this outcome were foreclosed.
  
  I'd say it died when we accepted first past the post.

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