[QuickTidal]

Cause, on 04 February 2025 - 01:00 AM, said:

What a shit show.

Craziest thing is I can already see how this will go.

Trump, his voters, fox, republicans will say that he won important concessions by threatening tarrifs. They will celebrate it as a win.

Everyone else: he threatened a nuclear option, panicked stocks, panicked Americans and saw how unpopular they were. Found a fig leaf to hide behind and paused the Tarifs.

I’ll wait for reports that every concession he won was already in the works

Amusingly all the news that is not Fox in the states are reporting on the fact that both Mexico and Canada were already doing these two supposed "concessions" before Trump was in office...so at the very least that narrative it only flying with the Fox/Newsmax set.

[worry]

The only new thing appears to be Canada's "fentanyl czar". Which, all things considered, sounds like a pretty easy gig.

[QuickTidal]

worry, on 04 February 2025 - 01:04 PM, said:

The only new thing appears to be Canada's "fentanyl czar". Which, all things considered, sounds like a pretty easy gig.

It's going to be one of our current Border/customs ect. people, whose job that is ANYWAY. LOL Trump just wanted a fancy name for them.

[Abyss]

I kind of wish - and i ack i'm in a silent minority on this - that Canada and Mexico had just said 'ok asshat, bring it' and gone full trade war. Yes, it would have sucked, but he would have had nowhere to credibly avoid the FAFO. 'Mexico and Canada make concessions' is a win for him, however false. 'Mexico and Canada tell trump where to stick his fentanyl, raise own sanctions, cut off avocados and energy' would have been lovely.

QuickTidal, on 04 February 2025 - 01:13 PM, said:

worry, on 04 February 2025 - 01:04 PM, said:

The only new thing appears to be Canada's "fentanyl czar". Which, all things considered, sounds like a pretty easy gig.

It's going to be one of our current Border/customs ect. people, whose job that is ANYWAY. LOL Trump just wanted a fancy name for them.

where do i apply?

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 04 February 2025 - 02:46 PM, said:

I kind of wish - and i ack i'm in a silent minority on this - that Canada and Mexico had just said 'ok asshat, bring it' and gone full trade war. Yes, it would have sucked, but he would have had nowhere to credibly avoid the FAFO. 'Mexico and Canada make concessions' is a win for him, however false. 'Mexico and Canada tell trump where to stick his fentanyl, raise own sanctions, cut off avocados and energy' would have been lovely.

QuickTidal, on 04 February 2025 - 01:13 PM, said:

worry, on 04 February 2025 - 01:04 PM, said:

The only new thing appears to be Canada's "fentanyl czar". Which, all things considered, sounds like a pretty easy gig.

It's going to be one of our current Border/customs ect. people, whose job that is ANYWAY. LOL Trump just wanted a fancy name for them.

where do i apply?

I fear you would break bad being the Fentanyl Czar though...Say my name!

[Cause]

Is he god Damn insane? The us will take over Gaza?

Does this dumb fuck think he is going to build a golf course on the Mediterranean there?

[Vengeance]

 Cause, on 05 February 2025 - 01:19 AM, said:

Is he god Damn insane? The us will take over Gaza?

Does this dumb fuck think he is going to build a golf course on the Mediterranean there?

Yes and a nice resort to boot. Jared will run it and it will be the best the world's ever seen.

[Maark Abbott]

I mean, the US government has been supportive of the genocide over there so this is really just the logical next step in that line of thinking. Remove natives, build resort.

Of course, it is BATSHIT CRAZY but then at this point that's so normalized in US politics that it would be suspicious for something sensible to happen.

[QuickTidal]

He won't do it. It's a distraction from the treasury shit. IT's Bannon's "flood the zone" with shit plan. It worked on the first term and it's working now. Three crazy things every day to cover up the fourth thing you want to do that you don't want people to pay attention to.


Musk and a bunch of tech boy cronies are looting the treasury? NO...look over here I'm going to annex Gaza!


Fucking Trump/Bannon playbook, lock, stock and barrel.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 05 February 2025 - 12:31 PM

[amphibian]

There are functionally three different factions working to do awful stuff: Stephen Miller and that crowd on immigration and implementation of racial segregation; Musk with the Treasury and looting the government; Project 2025 people and destroying education, propping up a wacko Christian support of a crusade in the Holy Lands (I include both Israel and the US as holy lands here).

I (and the others here) might sound like a deranged conspiracy theorist, but it's the actual truth and mainstream reporting is slowly catching up to describing the specifics of how chaotic and evil these factions are.

At this point, 3 weeks into his term, I think Trump has firmly clinched the worst president ever title. Before this, it was a question of whether the main two were worse: Andrew Johnson (botched Reconstruction after Lincoln), Andrew Jackson (Trail of Tears, nearly blew up the federal government also). First term Trump oversaw 2 million people dying during the Pandemic in the US alone and having the most corrupt administration ever at the time.

Now, we've got multiple constitutional crises and possibly no money flowing that the entire country depends on in so many ways.

I am not sure the Brits have seen something like this in the last 200 years. Even Thatcher wasn't this bad.

[QuickTidal]

And I keep coming back to the fact that none of your laws (be they from congress or otherwise) mean anything any all if they are not enforced. Yeah, Trump and Musk are breaking all kinds of laws I'm sure, but unless someone actually enforces the laws, they are toilet paper.


Your republic is dying and everyone who could be doing things to stop it... are just watching it burn.

[worry]

amphibian, on 05 February 2025 - 01:29 PM, said:

There are functionally three different factions working to do awful stuff: Stephen Miller and that crowd on immigration and implementation of racial segregation; Musk with the Treasury and looting the government; Project 2025 people and destroying education, propping up a wacko Christian support of a crusade in the Holy Lands (I include both Israel and the US as holy lands here).

There's a couple more, they're just a little less openly feral: one, formerly fringe, is about to put RFK Jr. in charge of national health; the other, omnipresent but with the friendliest admin in generations, is gonna gut environmental protections. I guess it might count as irony that under Trump 2.0 the world's gonna find out the hard way how imaginary borders really are.

[HoosierDaddy]

The inner fallout from all of this almost makes me want to be a prepper! But then I think, I'd rather just be dead. Sometimes dead's better.

This post has been edited by HoosierDaddy: 05 February 2025 - 04:16 PM

[QuickTidal]

Watching the US follow the same route that late Soviet Union/post-Soviet Russia did in the 90's (that of Oligarchs, lies, propagandized populace) should be as disturbing as it seems to be. The particulars might be different, but the playbook is damned near identical.

I mean Musk and Bannon both have seemingly filled the Surkov role to boot. It's scary.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 05 February 2025 - 04:54 PM

[Cause]

 HoosierDaddy, on 05 February 2025 - 04:16 PM, said:

The inner fallout from all of this almost makes me want to be a prepper! But then I think, I'd rather just be dead. Sometimes dead's better.

This is my take. If it’s a localized disaster and you have to hold on for a 3 months at most before rescue the prep will be a godsend. If it’s a localized disaster economic disaster the prep can help you be more comfortable before ship rights itself or you can get out.

If it’s a worldwide collapse? The world post a nuclear holocaust is likely just not worth living in, I’d rather just die.

The pepper community fascinates me, I like watching cool gear videos or camping gear just because sometimes the technology fascinates me. They are obsessed with 3 day emergency survival shelter in place or bug-out bags though. 3 days? All you need is water. It might suck but that’s all you need. Anyway that’s a different conversati

This post has been edited by Cause: 05 February 2025 - 05:13 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 05 February 2025 - 01:39 PM, said:

And I keep coming back to the fact that none of your laws (be they from congress or otherwise) mean anything any all if they are not enforced. Yeah, Trump and Musk are breaking all kinds of laws I'm sure, but unless someone actually enforces the laws, they are toilet paper.

Your republic is dying and everyone who could be doing things to stop it... are just watching it burn.

I'm also fiddling with passionate intensity. (As Home burns... 'tis a distillation / Devoutly to be kitsched.)

Biden lies dreaming (and slowly decaying...)...

But yeah, where are all the mass protests? I finally read about some protests today, but they were comparatively small. I thought masses of people out there love to protest? Are they already afraid that Trump will just have them shot? Use it as an excuse to seize even more power even more rapidly than he otherwise would?

Perhaps that's why Trump so quickly retracted his suspension of all USPS packages from China. Granted, most such shipments are by private carrier, and so one analyst called it mostly symbolic (of Trump's twisted balls? ... which then got bashed in and inverted?), but it apparently might have impacted some Shein hauls. Or perhaps they just paid him by buying enough Trumpcoin... and he's still holding out for more before he renounces the rescinding of the de minimis loophole.

Cause, on 05 February 2025 - 05:09 PM, said:

The pepper community fascinates me, I like watching cool gear videos or camping gear just because sometimes the technology fascinates me. They are obsessed with 3 day emergency survival shelter in place or bug-out bags though. 3 days? All you need is water. It might suck but that's all you need. Anyway that's a different conversati

Water is obviously less important than guns.

Because you can just kill other people and drink their blood, of course...

And 'cuz this is America!

(Kidding! Though the former might also be true---if you can find other people, and they're not armed too....)

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 05 February 2025 - 07:58 PM

[HoosierDaddy]

Azath Vitr (D, on 05 February 2025 - 07:56 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 05 February 2025 - 01:39 PM, said:

And I keep coming back to the fact that none of your laws (be they from congress or otherwise) mean anything any all if they are not enforced. Yeah, Trump and Musk are breaking all kinds of laws I'm sure, but unless someone actually enforces the laws, they are toilet paper.

Your republic is dying and everyone who could be doing things to stop it... are just watching it burn.

....

But yeah, where are all the mass protests? I finally read about some protests today, but they were comparatively small. I thought masses of people out there love to protest? Are they already afraid that Trump will just have them shot? Use it as an excuse to seize even more power even more rapidly than he otherwise would?

....

(Kidding! Though the former might also be true---if you can find other people, and they're not armed too....)

Why no mass protests? Several reasons:

1. They haven't rounded up the right people yet.
2. Most of this is a bureaucratic coup that is way less tangible than #1.
3. This was predictable. What is predictable can be expected, and what can be expected can be shrugged at as inevitable.

Honestly our dumbasses voted for it. You get what you pay for, and we bought the easy answers and easy choices, the clever but simple justifications and easily glossed over lies.

We (some far more than others) deserve what we get.

[worry]

It's possible the domestic protest machine is just starting to rev up -- some of it will be aimed at Trump, some of it at Elon. There was a pretty big one in L.A. a couple days ago that shut down the 101 for hours.

There are also mass protests globally that just aren't being widely reported on here. On inauguration day, quite a few around the world. More recently, Panama has some going on. Germany is having its own anti-Afd ones, but they've expressed solidarity.

Which isn't to say HD is wrong about the mitigating factors, particularly #2.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

I've been leery of the right wing/Muskian talking point against mainstream/traditional media institutions. But, the more I see of what they choose not to cover; the spins they do put on the topics they do choose to cover; the lack of attention, depth, and repetition given to key issues/events; the lack of motivation to challenge the administration directly for fear of...something; and the overall both-sidesness...it all has me thinking that they really are shitting the bed.

Just look at Krugman's reasons for leaving the NYT (and he is hardly a "leftist") or Acosta's firing-by-any-other-name.

I went to a journalism school, and I can say clearly that objectivity and challenging the accepted narrative were both important values taught. I'm not sure where they've gone with journalistic organizations today (probably "something something financialization of everything and attention economy and advertising").

[Maark Abbott]

Even Thatcher wasn't this bad.
[/quote]

Sez nar tha dunt say stuff like that when there's norvuns abart.

No but being serious it's impressive that I actually do not have an actual non-joke rebuttal to this point.

What really scares me is how many people over here are openly in admiration of him and what he's doing.