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?
In the short term: Yes. Unless the US military decides to remove a sitting president but that is extremely unlikely.
In the long term: Yes, but also no. Fascism is extremely inefficient and expensive and the US is destroying its own economy and pushing away all of its allies and former trade partners. Things will get very rough but it will not last forever. There will be a lot of rebuilding that needs to be done.
Unfortunately this has been a long time coming. The United States has never really been united and it was only a matter of time before another possible civil war loomed on the horizon.
I would say it’s been coming since BEFORE the civil war.
People always take my words out of context when I say that life in general would have been better for everyone long term if the south won.
People take that to mean that I’m pro-slavery. I’m not. If the south won, slavery would have died out naturally by the early 1900s (assuming confederate america lasted that long)
But if the south had won, and been able to leave the union? I feel like they’d have made the worst possible choices for their country on a repeated basis. I feel like their country would have crumbled and disolved into multiple smaller countries. The united states would have continued expanding out west. Texas is probably the only former state that wouldn’t have crumbled.
The rest of the confederate states? They’d be struggling to survive, last in the world in education, terrible healthcare, basically a bunch of 3rd world countries. But the rest of the USA? SO MUCH HEALTHIER FOR IT!!! All these cancers trying to tear down OUR country today, wouldn’t be part of our country. They can go fuck up the country of Alabama. Go nuts.
The pure amount of butterfly effect policies that would be different is mind blowing.
To me, the south winning isn’t about slavery. It’s about taking this large lump sum of the worst people in the country, and cutting them free like you cut away a tumor to get rid of cancer.
This is complete hogwash speculation. You have no idea what would have happened to the North if the split had been permanent.
I mean it’s very obviously speculation because nobody has a crystal ball to see the outcome of decisions that never happened. It’s just an interesting thought experiment and something to ponder.
You haven’t factored in the the north’s economy was based on manufacturing things using materials from the south. Industrialists got rich from it and that’s a major factor in why New York cops were returning slaves before the war.
The Industrial Revolution was powered by coal from the south.
Before the public works and refrigerated train cars that made California a farming state, a lot of food was grown down there.
On the one hand… First World War would’ve ended very differently.
On the other… Maybe eugenics would already be discredited by the 20s with how it went in Dixie.
I mean WWI was salty Europeans fighting salty Europeans over European salt. Nothing for America to get involved in.
I didn’t even mention the Second World War, because the first would’ve been different enough to make it having happened in a familiar form into unlikely.
Yeah I wanted to say WWI and mistyped.
The US arms shipments to Britain, and later after the gun runner ship Lustiana, hoping to use its civilian passengers as a shield in breach of the rules of war, led to American popular support for joining with the Allies, which they eventually did to push Germany to defeat despite the newly Sovietised Russia withdrawing.
And it might be that Dixieland and Yankeeland would support the Allies and Axis, and WWI would have had an American theatre, too opening in 1915 or so. And any major war fought in North America in the 20th century would totally alter the form US neo imperial power and hegemony took, if any at all, in the latter part of the 20th century.
As a minimum, a different US would alter how Versaille and Balfour treaties were made and what who agreed to.
Did you forget about the part where the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor? You couldn’t have kept the US out of World War 2 with a trillion dollar payoff. The country wanted blood.
Oh shit I added an extra I for some reason. I mean WWI. WWII was definitely an American problem too.
Lmao, this is why Arabic numbers are superior to Roman numbers.
If the south won, slavery would have died out naturally by the early 1900s (assuming confederate america lasted that long)
Do you have access to some alternate timeline or something? Where can I get this secret information that you have?
The civil war itself destroyed the south’s market for cotton. The number of slaves that fled was ever increasing and the war made it even easier.
If the north and south were separated they would have continued to come north but would then be asylum seekers.
The north of the south would have been the main producers of economic growth as mineral exports from that region exploded after the civil war. Based on this alone it’s not certain the confederacy would have actually collapsed.
It would take someone with deep historical knowledge of that era to make any realistic predictions of what would have happened.
For instance, the likelihood of the confederate states not further splittering isnt known. And then there are issues such as if the west coast or other regions would do attempt the same break from the union.
There are all sorts of trade imbalances that would be in play. But it’s hardly an idle thought experiment. There are simply too many pieces.
Yeah big [[Citation needed]] vibes here
You say this but it’s hardly just the south that voted for trump. As you mentioned, the butterfly effect could have changed things dramatically. Things still could have turned out worse for everyone.
Though things are pretty crap now so I can definitely relate to your thought process.
To be fair though, Texas seceded once already and within a year or two was begging to be taken back. They probably would have crumbled too.
How exactly would slavery have died out “naturally” in a union made up entirely of slave states who’d just fought and won a war to defend it? I get your point about letting the south stand in its own so it could fall, but you are too casually sweeping aside the issue of slavery. “Yeah yeah - that would pass naturally - now let me tell you my MAIN point….”
Frankly, it’skind of the opposite: the slavery part of the argument is obvious, simply because IIRC the model of chattel slavery the US south operated on was only viable through the constant flow of new people to feed into the meatgrinder. The “better off” part is kinda dubious.
I’m afraid you do not recall correctly. One of the features of American slavery is that it was population self-sustaining. You can see #4 on this UNESCO page. I like the way they put it: American slavery created a people where there was none before.
Northerners weren’t simply more high minded than southerners concerning slavery - industrialization lessened their dependence on slaves to the point where they could abandon slavery without the economy crumbling.
Presumably this would happen in the south as they industrialized as well.
Agriculture still has not eliminated manual labor, son.
Oh OK
Yep the South was invested in agriculture, to this day a labor-intensive sector, largely due to advantages in climate and geography which were basically fixed. So how again would slavery have spontaneously ended in the South again? It’s a question - please answer it.
What if this is karma for invading and taking half of Mexico? There weren’t slavers or shittier-that-usual people in the region before that.
I mean, if the united states is getting karma for invading and annexing other peoples land, SURELY you’d think there would have been some repercussions from Native Americans, right? Hell, even Canada arguably has some leeway to give us karma if that’s the case.
And Hawaii.
And technically Puerto Rico, and the Somoa Islands, and Guam.
Even though Vietnam isn’t, nor has it ever been a US territory, they still know what it’s like to be invaded by us. We were never trying to take land for ourselves, but we WERE trying to take land for our cold war ally. We just failed is all. And yet…for everybody reading this from a country that ISN’T America, here’s the weird thing. In our schools, they teach vietnam in history as if WE WON. Which I assume the rest of the world easily see’s how absurd that is. Here in America? There are PLENTY of people who think we’ve never lost a war. There are people who defend the 2001-2020 invasion of multiple middle eastern countries as a war we won. Some of them think it was multiple wars in a short amount of time we won. Others think it was one continuous war that we won. But those people exist. I’ve met many of them.
Now, with all that said, NOBODY calls them freedom fries. Nobody. Never even heard of a single person who calls them that. It was a 2 week thing on tv, and then everybody just shrugged and called it stupid. Which is exactly what I’m hoping this whole gulf of america/mexico thing is. Just political theater, and then it’s over because it’s stupid.
You should read about the Spanish missions and their treatment of the native people on the west coast. But also the Mexicans weren’t innocent of things either. They were constantly having political violence and even voluntarily returned monarchies. (yes plural)
As. Mexican, I agree with you. The conquistadores weren’t people of the highest caliber, and while the catholic monks were better, their mission was evangelizing at any cost, even if it meant killing people who didn’t want to. Even prehispanic people could be brutal.
The main difference between colonial Mexico and USA was that slavery wasn’t a thing here, because the evangelized became full-fledged catholics, having a saved soul and all. Something unthinkable for the slavers, who justified their acts because blacks “didn’t have souls”.
Mexican creoles, the hacendados, found a loophole: Catholics could still be exploited by crushing, multigenerational debt. That’s why we had a century of turmoil after the revolution(s), right after the century of turmoil after our independence from Spain.
Guess my point is: by the time USA invaded and forcefully took half our country, we didn’t have slavers (the hacendado’s loophole was gone), and definitely didn’t trade humans as things. Your south brought back evils that were gone at the time.
Yeah that’s true. The American South was exceptionally evil. I don’t think we’ve ever properly processed that as a country.
You’ve convinced me. I hadn’t thought if it quite that way.
(The previous comment was unedited at the time this was written, just in case)
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Lol. Americans continuing to vastly overestimate their contribution to WW2
That’s like every alt history book ever.
You are being way too optimistic. A lot of people will needlessly die, not only from violence but also disease, starvation, suicide and natural disasters.
All these years, preppers may have been right. Having a well supplied fortress of your own can turn out to be very handy.
It’s still a shitty situation. Really what’s a shitty situation with an extra 20 kg of coffee in your basement, but still a shitty situation? The prepper fortress is a very unrealistic thing to try to strive for anyhow for anyone living in a city, majority of people. It’s the widespread doomsday mentality and the downward spiral of the conspiracy nutheads that got the USA where it is today anyhow… Good luck hanging on in your basement for 10 years. That’s easily how long it can take if it goes full fascist. Even then, hard to compare, the implosion of a nuclear armed superpower has only happened once before in history (Soviet Union), and that shit ain’t over yet either, Ukraine is a direct continuation of the process. So they’re like 35-ish years in, where USA seems to be heading now. Abandoning NATO is the equivalent of the implosion of the Warsaw Pact.
Personally I think this resurgence is a highly specific cultural moment that is coming as religion dies off and the white population of America teeters toward minority status.
Since the US birth rate began to decline (natural phenomenon that happens to all developed nations) its strong immigration has held it up. But that has had an accumulating demographic effect. White people lost their official hegemony a long time ago but now they are facing the prospect of losing their simple majority and it scares the living shit out of them. It’s not just because privilege sees equality as oppression. It’s also because they know that they have treated others incredibly badly, and deserve to be castigated should they lose power.
That’s why this Trump admin is so ugly. It’s the death spasm of a dying culture. That’s why this Trump admin is hollow at the center: it’s backed by a group that has no future and can only harken back to the past. This is why this Trump admin is openly undemocratic: they no longer have the numbers to play the game.
This too shall pass, but at great cost. The USA is the greatest political prize there has ever been and it won’t be let go of lightly.
It is also with saying that America will be a different thing on the other end of this. No crumbling empire comes back the same.
The US is less one country than the EU members are and we are a long way off of becoming one.
The funny things is americans were like “We need guns to protect ourselves from tyranny.” But of course, the ones with the guns are precisely the ones siding with tyrants.
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They were still a democracy back then, now it’s an oligarchy.
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I mean, you’ll get to see the difference between a bad and discriminatory democracy and a pure dictatorship soon enough. If you think an economical crash will bring back progressivism, I wish you good luck but I think it’s really naive. At this point with the gafam siding with pedo-president, they just wait for automation and AI to get a little further before getting rid of half of the country. And since it’s the US, the other half of the country will take care of it for them. An economical crash would be the perfect setup for this. I’m not even american but for the first time of my life I’m considering getting a gun.
you’ll get to see the difference between a bad and discriminatory democracy and a pure dictatorship soon enough.
The former elected to enfranchise the aforementioned blacks, the latter is deporting people on a hunch, for instance.
That’s an interesting point, because in terms of wealth inequality and unbridled exploitative capitalism stuff was pretty fucking dreadful back then too. But I don’t think there was as much interest in the super rich taking control of the government, because the government didn’t do that much and had never really been a problem for the wealthy (apart from that time they tried to abolish slavery…)
I’m normally a “folks need to work together, big problems need big solutions” European lefty, but seeing the horror of what a powerful central government can do when it’s in the hands of crazy dipshits… It certainly highlights the benefits of small governments and localised power. Maybe this will lead to growth of some forces of progress that aren’t the federal government? The question is whether after the inevitable crash and burn, the next government will be willing to introduce the actual constraints, checks and balances to not let this happen again?
Power market’s going to get real funky in over the next 6 months as utilities run out of runway on their renewable programs.
Those pricks had one fucking job and they absolutely blew it. Boot lickers all of them, it makes me sick.
Lots of Americans have guns. Not just conservatives.
Oh yeah then explain this *gestures broadly at everything*
‘Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary’
-Karl Marx
Being a shitty person is multidisciplinary, apparently.
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“He who saves his country does not violate any law.” -Donald Trump (reading a post-it note handed to him by Felon Musk, quoting Napoleon, or something)
He’s old and doesn’t have much time left. The really problematic people are all around him and they are many.
Yeah he’s like the very obvious and prominant pus-filled boil on a body riddled with disease. He isn’t the cause of the disease, just one of the symptoms.
And yet in all their past few decades none of them rallied the base like he did.
Remove Trump and you remove most of the power.
Lol
True hydra situation going on
Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot one, and there’ll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland? In fifty years’, thirty years’, ten years’ time the world will be very nearly back on its old course. History always has a great weight of inertia.
-Terry Pratchett (Lords and Ladies)
Been thinking about this quote a lot lately. The fact that Trump is so popular shows that he’s just the symptom of a deeper, possibly terminal disease.
Nobody is saying it would solve the problem but it might make me feel a little better
The fact that Trump is so popular shows that he’s just the symptom of a deeper, possibly terminal disease.
Capitalism
There’s a lot of the “atheist” tech bros that still peasant-brain worship the market with human sacrifices as if it will bear them miracles. I like to tell them “You’re an atheist just like me, except I go one god further.”
This is the thing making me lean more toward leaving than trying to change things. Even if Trump were magically impeached today, and our election system were left as near-intact as it is, somebody just like him could be just as likely to be elected in the next cycle. And odds are he’s going to pull off rigging the system to make sure that happens by then.
I think that on a long term scale, to get at the root, something needs to be done about the media machine behind him. Culture eats policy for breakfast.
inb4 moderation
Shitty time to be alive when it’s no longer cool to shoot Nazis.
Any media that silences it is in support of Trump.
As Elon Sucks says, “you’re the media now”.
Who has a good recipe for cooking the rich
Trump is just the convenient caricature of a puppet pushed forward to be the face and disorganise everything. When he dies he’ll be replaced by someone else capable of filling that role. It wouldn’t surprise me if the follow-up person is already known in their circles.
Trump is old and messed up. The propaganda rocketing him up can just as easily shoot him down. He is here to do damage and to disrupt and corrupt the system. He’s here to weed out the failsafes against fascism/monarchy so a new political model can take over.
When he’s done enough, someone else will step forward to rebuild and ‘repair the damage’ but only in such a way that the fascist/oligarchy gains more power and the majority of people lose more power.
Not that I’m opposed to the idea on principle, but realistically that kind of long wolf adventurism would only make things worse.
I hate to say it, but yes. Everything we’ve predicted from trump has come true thus far.
The insurrection was predicted
The migrant camps were predicted
The ice raids were predicted
Roe v Wade was predicted
SellingGiving Ukraine to Russia was predictedBanning DEI was predicted
The list goes on but more importantly these were all seen as hypothetical worst case scenarios. We should stop treating the next steps like they are hypothetical. America has fallen, and civil war is next.
Former presidents at least recognized they had the responsibility to take care of both the people who voted for them and the people who didn’t. Trump only sees the people who voted for him and the people he needs to make an example of.
I hate to say it, but the DNC is weak and won’t help us anymore. I supported Kamala like hell and believed that they could figure it out but they just don’t and won’t.
I’m not a violent person. I hate the thought that I’d ever be forced into a situation where I need to either learn how to fight or die (because right now I’m SOL). I never wanted to find myself rooting for assassins and feeling like the world would be better off of certain people were dead. I’d rather believe the world would be better off if certain people were alive.
But all I see in the future is a federal coup backed by sycophants in the Senate and supreme Court that then collides with the governors of blue states who won’t bend the knee.
TL;Dr if we don’t go full dictator, we are going to civil war, and we deserve it.
Yes.
The amount of harm already done to your country by Trump and Musk is immeasurable, and will take a generation or more to recover from.
The amount of harm done to your standing in the world is equally bad. The world was skeptical after Trump’s first term fucked over the rest of the world, but we were hopeful that maybe the US had learned their lesson?
Nope. They elected a fascist. They RE-elected a known fascist, felon, rapist, idiot-child, psychopath. Worse, they bolstered Musk to get into a seat of unauthorized and unimaginable power.
When Trump announced his idiotic tarrifs, Canada collectively said “that’s it - we’re divorcing.” When he pulled back on the idea for 30 days, Canada said “don’t care, still divorcing.”
Trump is following the exact model of Hitler, and it’s only a matter of time until he actually invades either Greenland or Canada if he’s not stopped. The USA has to collapse into ruin and rebuild from scratch before anyone is going to trust them again.
Yep. We will need Nuremberg trials to actually move on from this.
It’s a good point and deeply concerning.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if Trump decided to invade somewhere just because he can.
Especially if his economic measures start making him look bad.
Trump ordering an invasion of Canada and the military going along with it, will be his demonstration of full powers.
He wants a grand victory parade.
And then begins the real fun. The assassinations, the pipe bombings, etc. Americans won’t allow an invasion on Canada. Things will get incredibly ugly.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Copy Russia’s playbook.
Let’s say, it’s just a short special military operation to clear Vancouver of fentanyl imports from China. You don’t need the whole military on board for that. A few battalions is enough. A preceding crisis could be created that then provides a reason. The city doesn’t even need to be taken in a battle. Occupying Canada’s highway 1, railway, and blockading the port could lead to a peaceful handover of the city.
The next step is then the US needs a strategic land bridge to protect Alaska against Russia, so BC and Yukon will be temporarily under US administration.
With Mexico it’s even easier. Say cartel and drugs, special military operation, and that’s that.
Copy Russia’s playbook.
Or, you know, the playbook of the US in all its past invasions?
The US playbook usually means having the support of allies. They lost the trust of all of them.
A generation seems very generous. The only path back to US hegemony I see is Fascism: we’ve burned our bridges and I don’t think the world will be willing to work with us for a long time. But I don’t even think the current batch are interested in US hegemony.
Military power and wealth have an irrisisatable pull. China can still make deals and do diplomacy. Even North Korea can cut deals with Russia. Russia and Iran work together. One nations pariah state is anothers opportunity.
The rest of the world will hedge their bets, but if the US negotiators start talking sense again after the trump admin they will attend the meetings and make agreements hoping for the best. International law people live and breathe the hypocrisy of tyrants and democrats alike.
The optimism of the 1990s is dead, but that was a lie even then. The US reputation as the “leader of the free world” is dead. It was a self appointed title anyway.
The world will keep spinning and deals will still be made by non idiots.
If the predictions in this thread of a hot civil war in the US prove true, then deals will be made with whatever comes out of that.
I hope not, but I am not optimistic about the next few years/decades
In the short term, yes.
If trump remains in office after this term, absolutely yes.
If we get a different admin - not just another republicrat trump clone - they’re going to have to spend an inordinate amount of time fixing all of trump’s fuckups. One of which should be restricting any wannabe monarch’s ability to rule by decree in the US. So yeah, we’re fucked, and we’re gonna have to spend a lot of effort getting unfucked, digging ourselves out of an oligarchy hole, instead of moving forward from a continually advancing starting point.
E: allies are already turning away from us, politically and economically. They’ll form new alliances and relationships that the US doesn’t get to be a part of, or at least won’t get a leading position in. Same with things like soft power from international aid. China will step in, maybe the EU or even Russia. We lose the goodwill, stability, and any economic “ins” we could have achieved with that soft power. We’re fucked in lots of ways.
During my lifetime, the view people have of the US has completely changed.
It used to be “When I grow up, I want to move there.” and “Oh, you went to the US on vacation? AWESOME”.
Now it’s “Why the fuck would you go there, are you stupid?”Agreed on all counts.
We live in a criminally stupid country but Musk is doing his best to show everyone that being a billionaire should be a crime.
Edit: the tweet is fake, btw
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.
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.
’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.
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.
Lol wut. It died a lot longer ago
Just wanted to say: react now. Their actions will slowly get normalized and it will be a much harder fight once culture starts working against you
Not even close to being done. Right now the biggest changes are a reduction in non law enforcement/immigration government staff and contracts being paid out. The biggest thing coming down the pipeline is Trump clearly wants to free himself of the courts and congress. But it’s far too early to say he’s won that. And even that wouldn’t be the end of things. In the US the states have a lot of autonomy. They are actually the ones responsible for holding elections. So let’s look at a worst case scenario, where he tries to say we shouldn’t have elections.
The first thing that’s going to happen is all the blue states are going to tell him to fuck off and hold them anyways. The second thing that’s going to happen is some red states will also do so, although they’ll likely be less coarse with the language. Then a few more red states will be pressured into having elections by massive protests of people angry they can’t vote anymore. Then while Trump is having a fit because there’s no real way for him to stop this process, we get to learn about a fun feature of the US Congress. There is no law requiring it to meet in D.C. Trump would likely try to claim whatever is left over is the real congress, but without having been elected the Constitution is clear that those states forfeit representation until they hold an election.
So we’d be left with a House that is majority anti-Trump, after all, he tried to make them irrelevant at best. In the Senate we’d likely be looking at something of an even split in 2026. There’s probably 5-7ish red states that would hold elections anyways and combined with the blue states and senate democrats leaving DC they would be able to convene elsewhere with a majority to declare rules of the Senate without Trump’s interference. The new Congress would likely swiftly vote to impeach Trump. The remnants of the old one would protest this but they don’t have any legal power. Only the backing of Trump and propaganda power.
This leaves Vance with a choice. This would be by design because our democratic party leaders only appear to be stupid when convenient. Vance can throw his weight behind Trump and get impeached himself or he can order Trump removed from the White House thus acknowledging the primacy of Congress. If he chooses the first option then Congress simply repeats the process and the presidency goes to the next person in line, the speaker of the house. Yes, Congress can effectively vote one of it’s own members into the White House at any time. This president then declares an emergency and orders the military to secure DC. The military loves process, and loves the Constitution. It is highly likely this order would be followed.
However all would not be well, it’s not a fairy tale. It would likely be the start of an American Insurgency that would take decades to root out. It would certainly be the end of the US as the hegemonic world power. Our Aircraft Carriers would rust in port and our projection of soft and hard power over the world would wither. But we would still be here, just much diminished and never the same in our lifetimes. This is certainly scary but if we all do our part this is as close as we would come to losing our democracy. Far more insidious is the threat of slowly revoking the right to vote. They’d start by raising the age, then by requiring you to not have any debt of specific kinds, then by making harsh punishments for illegally voting, and other such things until voting is effectively restricted to land owners. Certain factions would like to get it to white christian male landowners but that’s probably a decade or more down that line if at all.
Notes -
Why wouldn’t he just send in the military?
2028 isn’t enough time to purge and train enough people to make the military loyal to him. He would be mid project on that at best and the states could effectively counter him into a stand still with their national guard. This would make many people stay home, but the determined voters are likely to be anti-trump because that’s the change incentive. Loyalists will feel like the elections don’t matter.
What’s stopping SCOTUS from declaring the elections invalid?
The states. SCOTUS is only relevant as long as they have reputation of being an impartial arbiter of Constitutional Law. That opinion is already in the trash heap. They could not make such a decision today, or after 4 more years unless they spend the next 4 years setting themselves as at least a mild opposition in a long game. But they haven’t shown that kind of patience.
What happens in Trump surrounds himself with thousands of armed loyalists in DC?
We select a new capital and wish him the best of luck dealing with DC. There is no law requiring DC be the Capital. The Constitution doesn’t even require the states to give up a district, it only provides the legal possibility. There’s no need to engage in that kind of a conflict. Such a group would be arrested bit by bit by Maryland, Virginia, and Federal authorities until it could be resolved swiftly.
You seem far more hopeful than me, and far more intelligent, so I am going to try and hold on to a sliver of hope.
I’m probably not smarter than you, this is just in my field of study. And to throw a little water on it, it depends on people doing things. We can all sit on our couch and watch the ministry of newspeak broadcasts or we can be in the streets. Our leaders are humans and we can’t expect them to act in a way that endangers themselves without visible support. But it actually takes a heck of a lot to kill a country. We aren’t anywhere near that point yet. Get mad, get in the streets.
Man that read is some high grade level Hopium of the best quality dang if only the DNC would do half of this instead of rolling and die with a billionaire cock in the mouth.
The flaw with this scenario is that it assumes Trump would try to simply cancel the elections. Instead, he would be more likely to regulate them in a way that makes unseating him impossible. For example, federal regulations might be implemented that required states to use voting machines, voting machines that are produced by corrupted companies. He just straight up steals the election through rigged voting machines. Or they mess with registrations and voter purges to a level more than the amount that already got Trump elected this time. See the SAVE Act..
Or alternatively, the election systems themselves will be unaffected. However, the candidates will be carefully managed. Any Democratic candidate that would present a significant threat to MAGA will be arrested on trumped-up charges. The courts will miraculously cease to give the Democratic candidate the same leeway they did to Trump when they “didn’t want to interfere with the election.” Or he’ll manipulate the Democratic elites so much that they end up electing someone even more conservative. They end up running Ted Cruz or something insane like that.
Remember, even the citizens of the Soviet Union got to have elections.
He can certainly try, but he can’t pass laws about elections without Congress, which brings the filibuster into play.
Arresting the party leaders of the opposition also generally doesn’t work if you do it more than once or the situation is already very politicized.
At the end of the day it’s going to require us to be in the streets no matter what he tries. Our state leaders need to see that they have support to stand up to Trump.
The problem that I keep seeing here is people saying “well, he can’t do that.”
Stop that. He can do it because nobody’s going to stop him. I mean, you surely don’t expect that little shit Mike Johnson to tell Daddy Trump no. The constitution itself isn’t going to rise up out of its case like Godzilla and crush him. The judiciary isn’t going to come and enforce their decision in person. That just leaves the military. They’re either going to coup him, or not, and I’m expecting the latter case.
That’s not what I’m saying. The entire point here is that he does not have the physical power to interfere in state elections without an act of Congress. The states would arrest any federal agents trying to do so. This isn’t a “gentleman’s agreement” that nobody is enforcing.
Does he not have a way to replace the state agents with ones that will do his bidding?
No, in the USA States have a limited form of sovereignty. They elect their own officials and hold all powers not expressly given to the Federal Government. So while the President has some law enforcement agents, most of them are actually employed by the State Governors and Counties/Cities. The Governors have a Secretary of State that is also elected who are responsible for running all elections in the state.
So if Trump tried to make an Executive Order that only Republicans could vote, (this is meant to be an extreme example, it would backfire hilariously in real life), the states could legally ignore it. However if Congress passed that as a law and the Supreme Court upheld it then the states would be legally bound to prevent anyone not registered as a Republican from voting for federal offices.
The thing is the Republicans don’t have enough of a majority to just pass any law they want. So it’s very unlikely there will be an extreme voting law in the next 2 years. So if federal agents showed up trying to enforce an Executive Order from Trump it is highly likely they would be arrested by the state or city police for interfering in voting.
if Trump tried to make an Executive Order that only Republicans could vote
The way authoritarians have done this before is arrest enough of opposition party members. Other ways of blocking members of Congress to show up for a vote could be travel restrictions due to a state of emergency because of a terror attack for example. You can combine this with other methods.
You might have 5 arrested on made up charges, 4 can’t leave their home because of protestors blocking them, 3 are blackmailed, 2 are bribed to stay away, 1 is murdered. This could even start with one or two members of congress getting murdered. Then a state of emergency is called including. Tragically not all members can make it in time to vote in the emergency session.
if federal agents showed up trying to enforce an Executive Order from Trump it is highly likely they would be arrested by the state or city police for interfering in voting.
Trump doesn’t need to succeed in all states with this or even send in federal agents. There are enough state governments run by MAGAs, who will fall in line.
Things don’t need to be properly done. Some chaos as cover and the slightest plausible deniability is enough.
So you end up with some kind of election reform, that’s not accepted by all states. This means the president can declare a further emergency and suspend elections until further notice. Alternatively only elections run according to the new rules are accepted by the federal government. Non compliant states can hold elections, but they will be declared invalid by the supreme court.
I really only lurk on Lemmy, but I felt the need to comment. Thank you for writing this. I’ve been stressed out since the EO was announced. I felt like we were doomed, but this gives me some hope. Even if this doesn’t happen, I feel better knowing there is still a way to possibly course correct.
This is actually one of the more pessimistic courses. It’s probable that Trump gets enough push back that his legacy consists of massively handicapping the civil service, screwing up the economy and our alliances, and then peacefully transferring power to a democratic party president.
One of the other things we need to do is seriously organize to support a more left candidate in the 2028 primaries. Part of this shock and awe is meant to make us give up, not only resisting Trump but also in organizing within the Democratic party.
is seriously organize to support a more left candidate
Americans need to start organizing the network for a general strike and start writing a new constitution.
A new constitution is a really bad idea until we can do a lot more organizing. Conservatives have been practicing for a convention for at least 20 years. If we called one right now they’d steamroll the liberals and we’d have an actual king again.
Thank you for this. It’s so easy to feel hopeless in the face of everything that’s happening, which is exactly what they want.
Yeah, there’s still quite a few good paths here. I can’t guarantee we do what’s needed but I can show how if we demand it from our leaders and publicly support them it becomes really hard for Trump and friends to reach their goals.
Intensionally, the USA is going to lose its status as a hyperpower. Europe is going to decouple from American defense policy to the point where I can see American military bases close in Europe. An anti-Chinese military alliance will function with or without the USA anchored by India and Japan, but I see that force yielding some territory to China in the near term. There will probably be an increase in the number of wars in general as regions go into conflict without an American threat to maintain borders. Nothing the USA does is likely going to fix this.
Domestically, the administration is the greatest threat to the republic since the Civil War. If Trump is able to be pushed out in the future, there is going to need to be a major re-evaluation of how the American federal government works. This is going to require constitutional changes and the removal of major powers that the President has collected as the federal government grew.
American here. Maybe I’m going through the five stages of grief and now I’m at acceptance.
Everything in your first paragraph sounds accurate and maybe something that probably needed to happen. America as the World Police is/has been a problem. There were some positives, but a lot of negatives.
The sooner America gets off the stage, the better. We don’t deserve the recognition. We can’t even feed our own people and yet wield tremendous influence internationally, and maybe it’s a positive thing that it ends soon.
My only concern is that I expect an increase in international conflict as the American security guarantee is gone. The only remaining countries capable of projecting power internationally can’t do it on nearly the scale of the USA. I expect a lot of wars until new spheres of influence get established.
an increase
People in the Middle East are really not seen as people.
This is including the Middle East.
No it isn’t
Yes it is.
Nope.
My global political history isn’t great, and maybe others can correct me here, but it doesn’t feel like the US has had much of a stabilising effect in the last 30 years.
There’s plenty of conflicts that just don’t make the news that the US just isn’t interested in. Poor places with no oil or other resources. Presently Burma comes to mind. There always seems to be somewhere in Africa, last decade there was genocide in Congo IIRC.
Also it’s not really clear whether their involvement in the middle east over the last few decades was positive or negative.
It’s nice to have them hovering around South China Sea to keep China in check I guess.
The USA definitely went crazy after 9/11 and has done destabilizing things to the international community. I’m not denying that.
However, the USA has a big stick that has been able to keep most borders frozen. Without the threat of American intervention, I can see a lot of wars between countries start because war became an option.
And this could come to pass with a peaceful China.
The USA put a stop to the wars on the Balkans in the 1990s: Bosnia, Kosovo.
Saddam Hussein is another one. Without the USA, he might have continued his expansion after Kuwait into Syria for example.
Latin America has had no major wars, only guerrillas and such for a long time.
The USA made peace between Egypt and Israel possible, a cornerstone for stability in the region.
The USA also kept Europe together with NATO.
Pax Americana is a thing for sure.
Saddam Hussein is another one. Without the USA,
Damn, and then what happened?
Latin America has had no major wars, only guerrillas and such for a long time.
And major fascist take overs, backed by the USA, of course.
The USA also kept Europe together with NATO.
Lol
The USA made peace between Egypt and Israel possible, a cornerstone for stability in the region.
Lol, yeah; the US sure has done a good job at regional stability by stepping on the neck of anyone who gets in the way of Isreal’s genocidal settler colonial project.
Deeply unserious
Orwell just got the year wrong.
Trumpism isn’t Orwellian, it doesn’t need to be.
This is going to require constitutional changes
I think it’s going to require a new constitution. The American constitution was pretty good for a first try at modern democracy, but it has weaknesses. Look to European constitutions for inspiration regarding balance of power, parliamentary systems, electoral systems, basic rights. A less powerful president and a voting system that doesn’t lead to two parties might be prudent for example.
Having term limits on politicians (including judges) would be key. At some point, an old person simply can’t relate to the world that younger people grew up in. More importantly, they either become angry codgers (Republicans) or domesticated sheep (Geronocrats), which is innately an imbalance in political influence. An assertive person, in most situations, gets a bigger piece of the pie, be it political, fiscal, sexual, or some other thing.
Term limits have a huge downside. The politician will need a job afterwards and is thus more motivated to give political favors for job security afterwards. Your goal would also be achieved via an age limit like 70.
It also takes a while for a newly elected representative to understand how the political apparatus works, who is who and so on. Lobbyists and bureaucrats don’t have term limits though and have a much easier influencing the newcomer. Experience matters in every profession including politics.
China is focusing on itself, maybe that’s what the US and Europe should do for a while.
With Belt and Road, and all the colonialist projects China is doing in Africa, I would absolutely not say that “China is focusing on itself”. Or, at least: Even if it’s mainly focusing on itself, there is a very noteworthy imperial and colonial project going on.
What’s wrong with building infrastructure? Nothing stopping the West from offering an alternative development plan. Countries go with China’s because it is a better deal with fewer strings attached.
Instead when the US invaded Iraq it destroyed its infrastructure and opposed any plan to rebuild Iraq. China now is helping rebuild Iraq. Just one example of plenty.
Then again given the crumbling state of US infrastructure, it should really focus on itself. It brought a lot destruction (see: Gaza) and very little building to the rest of the world even when they broke it (see: Iraq).
Nothing’s wrong with building infrastructure. Why would it be?
What’s wrong is the financing scheme that makes the infrastructure effectively Chinese national property. And when China can decide how and when a country’s infrastructure can be used, China gets a lot of influence in that country’s domestic politics. And it does use that influence.
USA destroying Iraq doesn’t make China any less colonial. China helping rebuild Iraq in a way that will make Iraq a vassal of China… That does make China more colonial.
USA should absolutely focus on itself. And it will do it much more than before, because now that it has decided to cut its international soft power, it does not really have other options, does it? :)
What’s wrong is the financing scheme that makes the infrastructure effectively Chinese national property. And when China can decide how and when a country’s infrastructure can be used, China gets a lot of influence in that country’s domestic politics. And it does use that influence.
Source: The American Burger-freedom foundation for advanced jingoism research. That $1,600,000,000 the US government earmarked for anti-China propaganda definition getting returns.
USA destroying Iraq doesn’t make China any less colonial.
No, but it demonstrates there’s a vast, vast difference between actual colonial violence, and the bullshit that American chauvinists try to describe as colonialism.
China helping rebuild Iraq in a way that will make Iraq a vassal of China… That does make China more colonial.
“Yes, America destroying an entire country and killing hundreds of thousands of people is bad, but have you considered that China helping to rebuild that country is actually just as bad?”
Ghoul. You are a ghoul.
And it will do it much more than before
And thank God for that: the world doesn’t need amoral monsters who think that building infrastructure is the same thing as mass bombing and murder fucking with the rest of the world.
I’m sorry but you sound like the people who call DOGE “auditors” who “look for corruption and end it”.
China has been trying to get into big infrastructure projects in Finland as well, with the precisely same kind of loan arrangements. And it’s very good that we declined the offer. We were a colony of Sweden for 600 years. We don’t need to become one of China’s now.
I’m sorry but you sound pike the people who call DOGE “auditors” who “look for corruption and end it”
What the fuck kind of argument is that? “Oh you sound like the people who say [completely unrelated thing with no resemblence].” OK then, well you sound like the people who say that black people should be sterilized.
China has been trying to get into big infrastructure projects in Finland as wel
Infrastructure projects? Oh GOD NO! THE HUMANITY! THEY MIGHT AS WELL BE CARPET BOMBING HELSINKI!
And it’s very good that we declined the offer. We were a colony of Sweden for 600 years. We don’t need to become one of China’s now.
Yeah, building infrastructure is exactly like invading a country, massacring the natives, and forcibly taking control, definitely.
You’re fucking disgusting, colonialism apologist.
China is building military infrastructure on contested islands in the south china sea with the goal of controlling the whole area firmly including the first island chain and Taiwan.
Countries go with China’s because it is a better deal with fewer strings attached.
There’s also no historical baggage with Chinese colonialism in Africa. Fewer strings also means China doesn’t care about democracy, human rights, and such.
Fewer strings also means China doesn’t care about democracy, human rights, and such.
Neither do Western powers. Their support for the genocide in Gaza proves as much. From sending weapons and ignoring the ICC and ICJ rulings, to crushing protests and arresting journalists. You really can’t come and talk about democracy, human rights, and such as if the West is the good guys after we all witnessed the genocide in Gaza, you can’t. It is hypocritical and racist. You are basically saying “only we are people”, or at a minimum “the Palestinians aren’t people”.
As for China building some artificial islands, who cares? As far as “crimes” go it is really down at the bottom of the crimelist. You could probably learn about the expulsion of the Chagossians to put things into perspective.
who cares?
Literally all other countries in the region.
It really is illustrative of the absolute depths of westerners complete thoughtless hypocrisy that they think building a few shacks on uninhabited islands is remotely comparable to what the USA does.
Fewer strings also means China doesn’t care about democracy, human rights, and such.
Looooool. As if the west does.
American’s continue to be the most propagandized people on Earth.
all the colonialist projects China is doing in Africa
Westerners love changing the meaning of words like “colonialism” so that they can use it to attack their enemies, as if their new definition still holds all the moral wait that it did when it was properly applied. Honestly, calling China’s relationship with Africa a “colonialist project” is a fucking disgusting insult to all the people who suffered under actual, real colonialism perpetrated by Western nations.
I would absolutely not say that “China is focusing on itself”
No, there isn’t, you absolute ghoul.
What you’re saying suggests that France’s current behaviour is not colonialist. What are your thoughts on that?
France still has literal, actual colonies, you dumb fascist.
Haha, everyone is a fascist now?
Yeah, the French colonies, such as French Guyana, are not okay. But neither are the things France is doing to many of the countries that used to be France’s formal colonies. Even though those countries are not colonies of France, what France is doing to them is colonialism all the same. Or do you disagree?
Also, calling me “dumb” was impolite of you, even though factually correct. Calling me a fascist was outright weird.
Haha, everyone is a fascist now?
No, just colonialism defending ultranationalist white chauvinists like you.
Yeah, the French colonies, such as French Guyana, are not okay
Great, conversation over, not reading the rest of your comment now that you’ve admitted your previous one was spurious.
The US Constitution had plenty of ways to control someone like Trump. Not the least of which is the absolutely clear barring from public office for life of anyone participating in an insurrection. It’s just that the people in charge of enforcing these statutes lacked the courage to enforce those statutes. Legal statutes and so forth are useless if they aren’t enforced.
When it’s all done and dusted, I hope it’s the beginning of the end for corporate capitalism as we know it. Allowing them to become that big and powerful through corruption that they literally think that they can control the world, is insane.
This is happening because of greed.
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Hopefully we get something out of this fucking bullshit
At the current trajectory, it be at best a renewed appreciation for how good things used to be.
/r Collapse warned us…
And it’s up to the people in the 50 State’s National Guard, and law enforcement, and the military to decide between the constitution and fascism.
Okay but you do remember we were here before and the national guard and law enforcement extremely made it very clear who’s side they were on… right?
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The fact thats only as far back as you went is sorta my point.
Yall dont remember before that, when Trump last was president as well, the crowds getting kettlepotted and gassed out, the peaceful crowds getting dispersed just so trump could take a photo op?
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What does that have to do with my original statement.
I feel like Trump could just make up any half assed excuse for why the voting stations need to be shut down though and they’d buy it.
Like it Trump says it, it is rule of law to them
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Hmmm, it seems the modern way for autocracies to deal with elections is to control the information space. I don’t see election being called off, but major social media platforms boosting one side while attenuating the other goes a long way. We know Musk is all in on this and the other big players like Zuckerberg & Co seem all too happy to oblige. Tiktok is an open ended question at this point.
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No, I don’t think so. Large portions of government like the CDC, USAID, FEMA and the IRS will take 20 years to rebuild, but the dialed in states like the West Coast will probably be largely fine. It’s just such an unnecessary waste of time, resources, and human lives.
Apparently some of us don’t remember our values unless they get their mouth curbstomped every 70 years and remember some serious pain and suffering. Then the majority of people start voting for people that weren’t dropped as babies and we will go back to a democracy again. Fuckin idiots.
In the meantime, enjoy the unencumbered spread of diseases like measles and HIV, preventable economic meltdowns from disassembling shit like the Fed, SEC and IRS and infrastructure stagnation due to gutting tax infrastructure and the firing of educated and experienced public workers that keep out road, bridges and internet working to say nothing of shit like sewers, water, power, rail, aviation, etc.
And just think, all of this rebuilding could have been prevented with one single vote for a normal candidate. We could have had 20 years of relative progress under our belt instead. 😊
It’s never over.
Even the worst dictatorship can collapse. They get internally couped until the dictator learns to purge anyone capable of challenging them, then human mortality fixes that dictator and the government collapses
It’s not good though. The best time to fix it was ages ago before Reagan. The second best time is right now before the police state is firmly in place
