In the past week or so, the courts have begun to try to set some boundaries on the Musk–Miller–Trump administration’s early blitz of recklessness.
. . .
This judicial review provides at least a small reprieve, hope that some of the administration’s most destructive impulses will be stopped. Or at least pared back. But even with the courts stepping up, and even with the reality of the administration’s ineptitude sinking in, this early Musk–Miller–Trump blitz remains very—maybe irreparably—damaging. Of course, there are a lot of moles to whack: the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are being dismantled at an alarming rate, and the court system is not known for being nimble. The administration is betting, perhaps rightly, that at least some of its thoughtless, lawless efforts will slip through the cracks.
But even if the courts caught them all—and even if every court facing each lawless escapade said, “Nope, that’s not a thing”—still the entire process would be doing serious damage to our institutions. Think of it as someone spoofing your identity and going on a shopping spree with your credit cards. Even if the goon gets caught, you still have to go store by store to argue that the fraudulent purchase wasn’t legitimate and hope the debt is forgiven. And all the while, perhaps long after all the debts are dealt with, the torrent of uncertainty kills your credit score.
I’m a federal employee. You have no idea the stress my family and I have been dealing with since that motherfucker swore in.
He didn’t swear in. Elon just showed up.
No, he bought his way in and probably holds dirt over Trump. This wasn’t random chance.
Dirt? Guy is a convicted felon, says and does monstrous things openly, and denies things he just did on video the day before. He promoted a violent attack on his own government. He is dirt, he lives dirt. Unless it’s a video of him literally beheading dozens of kittens, I can’t imagine it would give him any leverage. Not even sure if that would either sadly.
A relative of mine is a state employee… he had two reports that’d applied for transfer to the equivalent federal departments… and those two have now withdrawn their requests.
I wish you the best of luck and I thank you for your contribution to public well being.
I just need to shout this into the void:
Fuck this fucking bullshit. What the hell is wrong with this country. I fucking hate this timeline.
blame democrats for not having a primary
No, blame the people who did this. Blame the people that voted for Trump.
The most blame goes to billionaires and allowing corporations to be people.
Most people that voted for this have been brainwashed heavily for many years by the super wealthy to think they want this.
It’s not an excuse but think about it: if our country had provided better over all education and actually kept the super wealthy and our media in check then this wouldn’t be happening.
We should have been fighting really hard to reinstate things like fairness doctrine and to have more news outlets that didn’t rely on ad revenue this whole time.
The problem with progress in the US is we are never able to focus on the most crucial issues first. There’s so many people and views etc. and everyone has different priorities. Rich people don’t have this problem because they all have the same driving goal: money.
So, there’s blame to go around but citizens pointing at each other is not going to fix anything.
Blame? They did what you did, vote for the better candidate. That chunk of people was bigger than the chunk who voted for the other side. Isn’t that what the US is all about since the 1780s? Blame should be given to the people who sat on their arses and did not vote. We all know there are more democrat aligned people than republican.
yes and also democrats for not having a primary
I think she would’ve won the primary anyway.
I’d like to cordially invite you to go fuck yourself.
I think your country’s terrible voting and political system is largely to blame… Given that it’s so easy for an unelected official to sweep in and dismantle everything.
True, but Dems made a terrible system even worse by refusing to hold a primary. When you add that in with liberals funding a genocide, promising to add fascist Republicans to their cabinet, and offering zero policies that people actually care about like free healthcare, it is painfully clear that Liberal capitalist politicians did everything they could to throw this election.
The U.S.A. is done. Such sabotage by Trump, Musk and MAGA takes decades to recover from. 40 to 50 at least; rebuilding the civil service, amending all the laws back to normal, fixing the Supreme Court, probably needing Constitutional amendments. This easily echos for a hundred years.
Even if they get rid of pedo-Don, Fox will tell them everything that went wrong is because of Clinton and the woke and they will be like “YeAh dAMn woke-dei-sjw-blm dEsTroyIng ma cUntrY”.
It’s over. That’s the consequence of decades of under-educating their citizen and raw capitalism. The only question that remain is how much of the world down they will bring down with them.
Putin is getting such great value from Trump. It’s clearly the best deal ever.
a century of “Red Scare” has made you believe that everything evil in the world is russian.
While such a simplistic worldview might help you retain sanity in this world, if you look closely, it is the opposite of helpful, as it prevents you from seeing things as they are, and taking effective action.
Red Scare refers to the Commies under the bed fantasies of the Cold War. Russia hasn’t been communist/socialist since Yeltsin. Russia is now a mafia kleptocracy. And mafia Russia is a hostile foreign power. Opposition to Putin and Russian criminality is not a red scare thing because communism isn’t what’s the problem or the source of opposition to Putin’s Russia. It’s Russian mobsters who all report to Putin, who also owns and controls Trump and much of the GOP
I don’t think russia controls Trump or the GOP.
Russia controls Krasnov. And Krasnov controls the GOP
are u going thru my comments for a reason? do i seem like an interesting person? i’m flustered
Far too many Americans will argue with you about how every single thing Trump and Musk do, is good. There is no way to change their mind and I am surrounded by them.
To bad there is nothing we can do. We call our reps and they say “we agree, but there is nothing we can do”. The Republicans definitely won’t do anything so until midterms we are basically stuck.
There is more far, far more we could do, but it would require courage and class solidarity.
Like what?
I have so many ideas about it, before it even began. Good luck to you all, may we survive this next fascist cycle
After surviving the last 4 years Americans have proven they can survive anything.
Another asswipe Ivan. The Russian infantry is accepting applications. Don’t worry, the NATO tungsten will greet you.
Another armchair general who seems more inclined to see others suffer than to advocate for peace. Perhaps they should consider directly engaging in the conflict in Ukraine if they truly believe in such an approach.
I have an idea, normal thinking Americans do
I also have an idea of how many billions of dollars in lawsuits taxpayers will be on the hook for in the coming 25 years
So am I. I’m still doing ok.
For now, you may not be next but eventually you might be in their crosshairs.
I’m fucked either way, as a mailman lol between the contract debacle and the privatization threats. I’m just sick of it all. Just saying that I’m not worried about it. Yet.
What I don’t understand is that no one is stopping this from happening. They’re all just letting it happen. Perhaps because they are afraid to lose their jobs but at what cost? I’ve lost all hope for this country and I wish to God I could move. Oh well.
you have to make leftists understand that the only answer is violence. we have to say this over and over until it finally clicks. the people are the last line of defense.
You don’t include the Dems in “the left”, right?
that’s a complicated answer.
practical answer: yes
idealistic answer: no
EDIT: i think the most important answer for right now is that it doesn’t matter. this situation will not be resolved through voting. the mid terms might help alleviate the problem, but that’s a long time from now and things could get a lot worse if people don’t pull their heads out of their asses now.
Not personally and directly, no, but broadly, yes - I do know the irreversible damage they’re doing.
And here’s the real key to it all - none of it is accidental. The damage is the point.
Their goal is actually very simple - it’s to utterly destroy every aspect of the government that benefits the common people or inconveniences the wealthiest few, in order to convert it explicitly and entirely into a mechanism for protecting and expanding the privilege of the wealthiest few at the expense of everyone else.
And they announced it and fully laid out a plan ahead of time. This should come as a surprise to no one who is literate.
Majority of the population supports it. Anything else is pure cope.
No, the majority of the voting population accepted Trump’s lies as truth. That doesn’t mean they support what’s happening, it means they were credulous enough to believe that it wouldn’t happen.
Wallowing in mistruths about your fellow voters may feel good, in a righteous anger sort of way, but it will blind you to the real opportunities for resistance that exist and can be exploited if enough people try.
They want you to be demoralized. Why are you doing their work for them?
With 96% of the vote in, Trump has, according to the Associated Press, 49.97% to Vice President Harris’ 48.36%, or 76.9 million votes to 74.4 million.
Source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election
Most of the country shifted to support Trump, even in safe blue states most people shifted right:
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/21/nx-s1-5198616/2024-presidential-election-results-republican-shift
I’m sorry but please stop spreading copium misinfo
Google greg palast 2024 election and read his information on voter suppression.
You’re only talking about the votes that were counted. There were millions of people that voted and had their ballots rejected due to right wing shenanigans.
Look up vote challening in Georgia in partcular.
This is “voter fraud” and “stop the count” and “count them all” tier copium. Why do I need to Google some conspiracy theory of yours when I have the facts right here?
Vast majority of Americans supported Project 2025, supported trump and voted for him. Do you have any actual information to dispute these facts?
79 is a vast majority of 340?
We had their playbook with p2025 and did nothing. They started enacting it, and we still do nothing. We could have shock-and-awed them right back with prepared lawsuits and movements blow for blow, and nothing.
We had their playbook with p2025 and did nothing.
Liberals ran out their strongest champions
- Chuck Schumer
- Richie Torries
- The Cheney Family
- The UK Labor Party campaign staff
- Ted Cruz’s former chief of staff at the Lincoln Project
- Some very reputable and trustworthy staffers from AIPAC
And spent over $1B of donor money in order to tell people that only
Joe BidenKamala Harris can Beat Trump, after a no-contest primary. A full year of campaigning. They brought Jeff Flake up as a surprise guest for the DNC!You can’t reasonably call that nothing. It felt like less than nothing.
At least they brought war criminal Dick Cheney on board, that made sure they would be completely useless.
How dare they show they have support of both sides of the aisle!
Yeah gotta make sure the war criminals know Democrats are on their side…
Good
Good for whom?
Tax payer
How does this help taxpayers?
By cutting waste
I have no idea why you think this is what money is being wasted on. We’re already seeing the effect of downsizing the FAA. Do you think regular plane crashes are going to lower taxes?
First that’s a strawman, I never made that argument, but if I did you would have to provide evidence that downsizing the faa would cause regular plane crashes.
It’s literally already happening.
And it’s hard to know what argument you’re making when your responses are one and two words.
They aren’t interested in cutting waste. If they were, they would be slashing the Pentagon budget. Notice how all this talk of cost cutting, nobody is breathing a word about the Pentagon?
Because that’s where the fraud, waste and abuse is.
Remember the last time someone was supposed to take Pentagon waste seriously? No, of course not, because it was 9/10/2001.
This person has reached the absurd point with me of “it’s fine that Trump is firing the people responsible for safeguarding our nuclear weapons [which he’s in the process of doing] because they aren’t all that important to the safety of our nuclear weapons,” so I wouldn’t hold out much hope for their understanding what you’re saying.
I actually do.
We’re entirely fucked.
We’re going to spend the rest of our lives witnessing the enshitification of this nation. Even if we completely turn this crash and burn around, we’ll then spend the rest of our lives watching things being slowly rebuilt as traitorous Republicans continue to obstruct.
I don’t think a lot of Americans are grasping exactly how hard we fucked ourselves by refusing to responsibly inform ourselves even to a minimal degree.
As someone currently living in Canada, the US is badly fucking up a lot of it’s international relations too. I’ve heard several people here say that even if if the US unfucks itself right away (which it won’t), it’s still going to be a long time before things will be right again.
You don’t go around threatening neighbours and allies like this and then expect to be able to just walk it back overnight.
USAID was, more than anything, a means of positive international relations. It was a 2 prong approach of foreign aid and foreign good will. The mid 1900s US made a lot of fucking enemies, and USAID was one very solid method of trying to overcome the damage wrought by our government.
And now TB supplies – that were already paid for – are rotting in warehouses (among many other issues). Not only will that harm people, it will harm our reputation, AND increase antibiotic resistant TB, which will in turn affect the rest of the world including the US itself.
And that’s only one piece of the very large clusterfuck.
USAID was a great investment, a cheap investment that returned good value, even beyond things like lives saved and people brought out of poverty. In many ways it was being a good neighbor.
It would still be a great way to spend our money if we doubled it or tripled it or more
It was a great source of corruption too, we must be real at this point, end USAID is a joke and a stupid move but probably half of it was doing corrupt business with Americans money. Its not an easy subject
I very much doubt it, and the white house press secretary holding up a contract that was lawfully fulfilled as an example of fraud, is not going to cut it
I’m more worried about future fraud, if we really do continue spending the money but at personal whim and with no one to manage the process. A no-bid procurement order describing $400M of “armored Tesla’s” is a much clearer case of fraud, as-is firing inspectors and watchdogs for doing their job
Yeah, even just kicking out these crazies isn’t a good fix because they’ve already demonstrated they’re more than willing to lie, cheat, and steal to hold on to or gain power.
The only justice I’d trust would need to come at the end of a rope, and it’d need to include a LOT of colluders at the very least in cells as well. That includes certain media organizations that helped enable this shit-show as well.
After all that, the American public needs to force better, including proper regulation and enforcement of public over corporate interests. While some of it has been astroturfing, the embedded cleptocracy and corporate interest in the Democratic party also needs to be fixed (or both parties turfed and new better choices), because “lesser evil” is not good enough.
Other countries should also take heed from the US situation. This is what happens when you continually tolerate the intolerable, and when your government is owned by a billionaire+ untouchable aristocracy with a corporate shield protecting them from consequences.
I would argue that America needs a whole new economic system. A big problem with what we had up to now, is that people are too poor, tired, unable to form communities, and lack the time to do all the things that are needed for a democracy. If you can’t afford the price of travel, shelter, food, and losing your job, you can’t visit Washington to protest, let alone long enough to make a difference with like-minded people.
The wealthy, on the other paw, can freely travel, network, and simply not worry about being ruined if they dare to do something beyond basic survival.
America needs an economic system that promotes agency of every single citizen. That means guaranteeing survival, ensuring enough vacation time to permit protesting, and decent wealth accumulation for the poorest American. Without that, it isn’t possible for the ordinary person to exert meaningful political influence.
You mean we should stop enslaving citizens to corporations yes? That is practically capitalist kryptonite.
I don’t believe anyone should be able to be worth billions if we actually value humanity.
Indeed, could you simply annex all the Blue States?
I don’t think a lot of Americans are grasping exactly how hard we fucked ourselves by refusing to responsibly inform ourselves even to a minimal degree.
This! Methods that lower general intelligence:
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Content Streaming - its starts with Bluey
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Gaming - iPads have replaced paper in schools, in car trips colourful gems pop instead of engagement with the world. Adults game the night away, streaming live. Kids aspire to be them.
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Social media - Algorithms, echo-chambers, bots, keyboard warriors, content cencorship and manipulation, advertising, yuck.
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Dating Apps
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AI - We’ll become dependent and lower general critical thinking skills.
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Legalisation of marijuana. - Its political support should be a concern. While it may be seemingly harmless at an individual level, there seems to be issues with mass use. How many users abstained from voting?
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Underfunded, cookie cutter lower education. There is no flexibility for the diversity of people and development potentials. Teaching children non-denominational meditation and concentration, or helping them observe but reconcile simple contradictory expressions of duality in existence, would strengthen their conciousness significantly.
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Over emphasis on technical STEM in higher-education without equally supporting the arts and philosophy.
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Cultural over-emphasis towards individual monetary wealth over knowledge, spirituality or even concern for the wealth of those around them. Prevents empathy.
All of these focus on separating the individual from other individuals. The darkness does not want connected families or communities. It wants you to feel alone, helpless and willing to hand over your power.
We have all seen the US police force’s brutality under democratic law. How much worse could it be under authoritarian rule? My advice would be to immediately set up public meetings with local law enforcement at the officer level, start a collaborative dialogue and get to know each other, fast.
Legalisation of marijuana
Ridiculous take.
You had me on your side until you went in on weed. Let’s focus on the bigger issue of alcohol addiction and drunk driving before we go after something less harmful.
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a purge could fix it all tomorrow.
