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.
Reagan, he is the starting point of everything: the tax cut from 73% to 28%. USA never got back on track after this.
Nope. Johnson.
No, not that one.
Andrew Johnson.
So many ways it could have been better.
He could have punished the Southern Aristocracy for starting the civil war. He could have ensured that the evil that led us there was exterminated forever.
Failing that, they could have actually removed him via impeachment instead of falling just short. That would have at least established forever that the presidency is not some sacred “unimpeachable” office.
But Raygun did a great break dancing set in the Olympics.
Remember when the entire world was convinced there was absolutely no way Bush, an idiot, fascist, religious bigot, etc could get re-elected?
Nobody thought that at all. Most presidents sitting during outbreaks of war retain their positions. You’d have to have been in a complete echo chamber to believe this stance. The moment 9/11 happened, it solidified Bush’s Second term in stone.
I assume you mean Jr. Because Sr wasn’t the moron that Jr was.
Yeah no, I’m gonna disagree. Being outside of the US at the time, most people did think that. And yes, obviously I’m talking about Jr since Sr didn’t get re-elected. 9/11 was a full three years before the election of his second term. And most importantly before he started the war in Iraq. A war that was widely viewed as illegitimate outside the US.
It was viewed as illegitimate inside the US too. And yeah, I remember, even as a 17yr old at the time, seeing the event happen live and lamenting to my mother that we were going to have another Bush term over it. Historically for America that’s always been the case.
It was viewed as illegitimate inside the US too.
You’re recollection of events is clearly skewed. Something like 80% of the population approved of it at first. Meanwhile there were protests in the millions of people around the world against it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq
A Gallup poll made on behalf of CNN and USA Today concluded that 79% of Americans thought the Iraq War was justified, with or without conclusive evidence of illegal weapons.
It’s so fucking disgusting to be honest… I’m just a worthless dumb shit uneducated factory worker and at 17 I could see right through that garbage… We’re a hateful group of people whether we care to admit it or not, there was a lot of anti-islamic/Muslim/Arab sentiment in the US at thst time. People were bloodthirsty.
I was going to join the military after highschool to get training since I’m poor and had no real direction to gamble on college, and then take it from there whether to stay in or not. Once talk started of invading Iraq I immediately said fuccccck that. I still blame Bush partially for my current situation. :/
You should read your own link, because it also mentions that by the end of his term, most disapproved. By 2006 it was viewed as illegitimate by most. My recollection of events is fine, thanks.
America will generally approve of measures when they are led to believe it affects their security and safety. It’s the years afterwards that determine if it continues to hold support.
You should read your own link, because it also mentions that by the end of his term, most disapproved
I clearly stated “at first”. Mind you by the end of his term a majority still thought it was the right thing to do.
Nucular. 🤦
9/11
What?!
The 80s were fucked, but if you’re saying it was worse than the response to the Civil Rights movement…
McCarthyism…
Jim Crow…
Or the KKK destroying reconstruction…
Like, I could see saying that last one was the point, only if you start the clock immediately after resolving the civil war. Cause obviously a Civil War is what really happens after a point of no return. We lasted a couple years in between the two points.
For as fucked as the last 40 years has been, as far as America goes we’re beating the average on basic human decency.
What’s happening now isn’t new, it’s a slip backwards, which is unfortunately common when you try to fight fascism with moderate politics. It works for a little bit because they’re coasting off the last people who really fought. But all moderate politcs really are, is giving fascist time to regroup in the shadows like fucking Sauron.
It’s a cycle, and we live in a time when you can learn pretty much anything about history in a few minutes on Wikipedia
America can not afford for voters to stay ignorant. We need people who know what happened last time, what worked then, and what might work again. Stop acting like we live in unprecedented times, and start reading up on how fascism has been defeated historically.
Cuz we’re up, like it or not shits getting real again. And the more people know what we’re doing then better.
You mean the 1780s, right?
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’ve never been more happy to be childless by choice.
And I’m childless, not by choice, and sadly glad too.
I don’t understand this line of thought. As in you are childless by choice BECAUSE of what is going on in the US?
I’m childless by choice because I don’t like children. I’m happy I don’t have kids because they’d be experiencing this shit storm during their formative years and I can’t even imagine how badly that would fuck them up.
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.
We may yet manage as a country, but the millions that die from this election won’t get to see it.
millions who die
how so?
Soldiers knocking down doors to arrest millions of illegal aliens and everyone who looks like an illegal alien and shoving them into camps, what could go wrong?
I don’t think we will see that, but i do think we will see ice raids on businesses that tend to hire immigrants and fake crackdowns on paperwork that dramatically increases the time and hassle for everything, and weird pushes for all paperwork to be in English.
It is literally what they’re promising.
Yeah, but so was build a wall. I really think/hope that there’s too much infighting and shitslinging for them to follow through on much. They’re good at blocking thanks, but not super great at passing things. Concepts of plans and all…
Their wishes and promises are not the only thing involved here.
Hm. Okay.
I love how you have downvotes for asking for clarification. As if asking for it is an argument deserving of downvotes.
A fellow Lemmit who enjoys split score totals!
I’m not sure I’ll be here for long if it’s just more groupthink similar to reddit. I like how Tildes works though. Everyone seems nicer too.
Tildes?
Women. Queer people. Non-white people. Hell, even white straight cis evangelical Christian rich men who die from being sick.
There will be so much death.
It will be unending.
That does not clarify anything.
I’m not about to provide you with masturbation material.
It doesn’t clarify anything because so far I’ve been told
- People are going to die (I asked why)
- Those people are minorities (which doesn’t say why they would die)
Well la de da. Swish!
deleted by creator
I think that the us perspective on politics is surprising self-centered. If millions will die remains to be seen, but an unpredictable us leadership will certainly shift power dynamics on an international scale. The trump administration might randomly decide to side with land grabbing dictators, might embolden Israel, or switch to Doge Coin as the main currency. Those things might not directly cause death, but will disrupt the world stage to a degree which might overpower currently stable institutions. Which in turn might lead to death and suffering as a consequence. I’m not trying to say that everything should remain as is. Things are awful in a lot of places, but one of the biggest and most powerful nations with a “leader” that might throw a world ending tantrum over a Twitter thread is nothing anybody, but the most nihilistic acclerationists want. Also Trump’s plans to withdraw from climate change mitigation will certainly add to the pile of dead bodies which we will inherit in the next 50 year as a consequence of our actions today.
And progress without testing it’s resiliency against malicious actors will not last. As much as we hate Trump being elected and staffing clowns in each position, it will test what has been made so far. Row v. Wade, as we now know, should have been stronger. The Voting Rights Act too. The states that required the law to be fair have pulled back the law and reveal little has changed.
No one likes getting burned but fire is useful for showing us what burns easily and what withstands the heat. We will rebuild stronger and know what works.
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.
The next line of defense is 3/4 of state legislatures.
Nah.
That was Reagan. You’re about 40 years late.
If you want to play that game, it was likely Nixon and the southern strategy.
But neither of those were point of no return. They were just foundational groundwork to set up this moment that likely is.
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.
Just feels life another goal post moved… He literally worked to overthrow the American government and have his VP killed on live TV and was then clinched of dozens of felonies. . There can’t always be a *“yeah, but if THIS next thing happens…”*I
He failed to overthrow the American government and have his VP killed. And the reason he wanted his VP killed was because he wouldn’t help him overthrow the American government.
It’s undeniable that some very powerful people want US democracy dead, but from that to the actual death of US democracy is a long way
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.
Why would US collapse though?
I am not following.
The current regime showing zero signs of distress, in fact they could extract even more and it seems plebs will accept it.
Half the country is doing OT on bootlicking and regime whore worshipping.
Most people on here too, and fedi is pretty redical by mainstream lol
In the near term, people increasingly not being able to afford basic necessities like housing and food will lead to increased societal violence, but that likely won’t cause collapse.
Climate scientists are increasingly warning of ecological collapse, meaning core climate systems will fail, like the Atlantic Gulfstream which will cause global famine and destruction, and that might be the end of human civilization all together, we won’t know until we do it within the next half century, and see the full extent of our fine work, a climate hostile to agriculture, dependable fresh water, possibly even standing structures not made of steel and concrete.
But man are we speeding towards that cliff for short-term private shareholder profit, wheeeee!
Yeah but even the bleakest estimates would take generations. Owners are getting paid today.
Also, us is the holy land, food and energy sufficient. So us itself can survive the climate change unlike most other countries.
Sure some plebs will die but that’s a small price to pay for success.
Time will tell
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.
I’m way more concerned with Vance. Like you say, Trump does what’s best for Trump. If Vance becomes President for whatever reason then ideology takes center stage.
Vance and Bannon
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
- 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.
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.
Free and fair elections have never been anything but an ideal in this country. It started with voters were wealthy landowning men, often who owned slaves.
What we’re seeing is years of undermined reforms by the momentarily wealthy after the previous empires in europe tore themselves apart.
Meh, I would’ve given 3/5 stars to U.S. democracy since the Voting Rights Act. Stars taken away for FPTP, gerrymandering, campaign finance, “lobbying,” and the electoral college. I believe we’re going to go to 0/5 stars with completely rigged elections rather than just manufacturing consent and lightly tipping the scales like they’ve been doing.
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.
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
Yeah, we’re a strangely resilient nation. Things that topple other nations have been crises to us. This may be the end and this may be a disaster so great we dismantle the right wing media dominance or any number of things.
