America 2025: What Guard Rails If Any Are You Most Counting On?

Other: Infighting among the assholes

Oh good one.

Academia? When higher education has more turnover than ever before and charter schools are more corrupt than the healthcare industry?

Never underestimate bureaucratic inertia.

^^^

The certainty of death for us all sooner or later

No rats in a sack option, pfft.

Voted states pushing back because I know my home state will.

Liberating invasion by a neighbouring country, to be commemorated in the future as "C-Day".

I would count on inertia and peoples’ distaste for change

I guess my vote is "are you fucking kidding me"
Otherwise, them fucking it up all by themselves is my preferred option, with the opposition / media acting as commentators and stoking the fire. The earliest the better for maximum pressure by midterms.

Incompetence/infighting. There is no political opposition to speak of, not as long as Chuck Schumer is still alive. And the media have no role to play, because Republicans no longer give a fuck what the "mainstream" press thinks or says. So basically they can only destroy themselves. Fortunately, they're pretty good at that.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/2024/march/local-governments-us-number-type

In the most recent Census of Governments, which was conducted in 2022, the Census Bureau counted 90,837 governments in the U.S. In addition to the federal government, the 50 state governments and the government of Washington, D.C., there were 3,031 county governments, 35,705 township and municipal governments, 12,546 independent school districts and 39,555 other special-purpose local governments.

not much. i live in a pretty safe place unless an earthquake hits and we get punished for being a blue state, but i'm not counting on anything. I'm sure infighting will delay some big-ticket items while everyday evil shit happens like clockwork. The only thing I hold onto is the knowledge that nothing is certain and strange things can happen. Who would have predicted what June 2020 would look like on Jan 1 of that year?

Almost none of Trump's appointees understand politics or governance. Chaos, incompetence and infighting will leave a huge mess for his successor, but most of the structure intact. The voters will remain as confused as ever about how the power structure operates and will continue to facilitate dysfunction by demanding instant solutions. Inertia will guide us until entropy reigns supreme. Please clap.

Reading about the history of the French Revolution — it’s actually an interesting analogy even if the actual ideology is way different, I feel like “the horrible people” view themselves as liberators and revolutionaries. Incompetence and infighting were a major part of the French failure. But I also think (in this context) that state governments (and local to a lesser extent) will play a major role, much as they did in France, when many were used to following their own customs and had different economies.

I am not “in the weeds” enough to be able to point to what French province = California.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The result was predestined.

Other = you will all be fine.

Other = you will all be fine.

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, January 2, 2025 4:14 PM

other = ilx poster xyzzzz__

Reading about the history of the French Revolution — it’s actually an interesting analogy even if the actual ideology is way different, I feel like “the horrible people” view themselves as liberators and revolutionaries. Incompetence and infighting were a major part of the French failure. But I also think (in this context) that state governments (and local to a lesser extent) will play a major role, much as they did in France, when many were used to following their own customs and had different economies.

― sarahell

one of my obnoxious pundit-isms is referring to america as "the ancien regime".

one can talk about infighting and incompetence, to me, though, i think it's worth pointing out just how difficult america is to rule at this point

all of those guard rails they've taken down... the funny thing is, those guard rails were always helping them, protecting them, a lot more than they were actually working to my benefit. i was persuaded, convinced, that they were acting in the best interest of "everyone", including me. i was on the inside of the guard rails, on this side of the boundaries, and once those guard rails were taken down, i crossed over to the other side.

i don't think of in-fighting and incompetence as guard-rails, personally. america is supposed to _do things_. increasingly, the people in charge of america aren't able to do those things. i've read the wikipedia page for _this war of mine_.

i'm not sure what scares me more - the remote likelihood that Project 2025 or whatever will be able to accomplish its goals, or the far more likely possibility that the trump administration won't be able to do _anything meaningful at all_.

What meaningful things are you hoping they'll do?

Other = you will all be fine.

The result was predestined.

lol yes I knew that would win. I voted for it myself tbh.

What meaningful things are you hoping they'll do?

― Muad'Doob (Moodles)

provide postal mail service
make cost-sharing payments to state healthcare programs

shit like that
the federal government does quite a lot actually, even beyond federal-level programs like medicare. most state governments can't exactly step in and take over if the federal government stops doing those things, particularly since i don't exactly expect that the federal government will stop collecting tax revenue

provide postal mail service

― Kate (rushomancy)

like i spent all day today trying to mail a letter

can't mail letters from my apartment complex

the nearest mailbox is too far to me to walk, and the weather outside is terrible

didn't manage to do it

got a friend says she'll come over tomorrow to pick up the letter and mail it

hopefully she does, i'm trying to get the gender marker updated on my passport while it's still legal

i don't expect to actually be able to get out of the country if i need to

i don't feel like there's anywhere else that, like, i could live a better life than here

america leads, other countries follow

when indian fascists go after muslims they use george bush's rhetoric to justify it

i see friends hoping canada will "invade", lol, they're going to put their own fascists in power this year, next year, soon enough

i got canadian friends. being trans in canada isn't really that much better than being trans in the city i'm in

the president-elect tried to "pacify" portland once, in 2020, sent people in unmarked black cars to kidnap people off the street

the president denied it until people started talking about it and documenting it on twitter

well

i guess the fascists solved that problem

there are stencils all over town here

"EVERYTHING WILL BE OK"

we say it because we need to believe it

not because it's true

Ok, i guess by do meaningful things, you mean not breaking things that already exist as opposed to enacting their agenda. To me, that's the opposite of doing things. The best case scenario for me is if they don't actually accomplish anything that they set out to do and they let things tick along. For example, I'm pretty sure the Trump administration version of accomplishing something re: USPS would be to privatize it, which would because horrible shitshow.

Ok, i guess by do meaningful things, you mean not breaking things that already exist as opposed to enacting their agenda. To me, that's the opposite of doing things. The best case scenario for me is if they don't actually accomplish anything that they set out to do and they let things tick along. For example, I'm pretty sure the Trump administration version of accomplishing something re: USPS would be to privatize it, which would because horrible shitshow.

― Muad'Doob (Moodles)

you don't have to intentionally break things for them not to work, you just have to fail to do the work necessary to keep them working

that was what i saw a lot of in the first trump administration. a lot of scrambling behind the scenes to try and make up for the federal government's inability to do the things they were supposed to. a lot of duct-taping. not a lot of sustainable alternatives.

so many of my friends are on disability. so many of them. the government doesn't have to _end_ ssi. i'm not sure they _could_ end ssi if they wanted to. they were elected by a populace that, as far as i can tell, doesn't actually want them to do any of the things they've pledged to do, and that's gonna make things more difficult. it doesn't actually matter whether whether someone is _unwilling_ to do something or if they're just _unable_. the results are the same. you don't need to privatize the USPS if you make working conditions so horrible that nobody wants to work there. for all the jokes about "going postal", the USPS used to be a place where you could make a career without a college degree or a bunch of highly specialized skills. it was stressful and fast-paced, but it did a lot of people a lot of good. my impression is that it's not _like_ that anymore. working for the government is brutal and demoralizing. if people can leave, they do, and there's nobody there to replace them. a lot of people in government are devoting their jobs to making things _look_ like they're running ok, like all the checkboxes are ticked off, even though we're incapable of actually helping anyone in any meaningful way. performative compliance is about the only kind of compliance there is these days. i don't think that's something that's indefinitely sustainable.

sure, people can look the other way. i used to look the other way. now people look the other way when i talk about my life. that's not poetic justice, there's no blame there, no guilt, shame, none of that. it's just how it is. i got that letter mailed finally. i found someone who could pick it up and send it. my first plan was to get my ex-girlfriend to mail the letter for me, but she tried to kill herself on tuesday night, so i had to find other plans. people can look at that and say "oh my god, that's horrible", and that changes nothing, you know? it's my life. they can't change things. i can't change things. i don't say these things because i'm looking for sympathy. anybody who can't imagine living like that should probably start. whether people want to or not, most people are gonna be about where i am eventually. that's what i believe.

Yes, if by "doing meaningful things" you mean making sure that key services and agencies continue to run or even improve rather than finding ways to undermine them either through actions or neglect, I absolutely think that would be great, but I just don't believe the Trump Admin conceptualizes their job in that way.

you don't have to intentionally break things for them not to work, you just have to fail to do the work necessary to keep them working

For many Republican members of Congress this failure and its outcome are intentional. Given the present state of Congress these representatives and senators do not need to be especially numerous to be decisive. We've been treated to several demonstrations of this in electing a Speaker of the House, including today's.

i mean it doesn't _matter_. if the work doesn't get done it doesn't get done. the american federal government failed under biden, and it'll fail harder under trump. what matters to me is that it is a daily struggle for me to function, and that the same is true for a lot of people - all kinds of people but _particularly_ people who are not white cishet men. and when i look for the helpers - there are lots of helpers. most of the people i see aren't white cishet men. that's what matters to me.

you're right that for the fundamentals of getting through life each day government action is on the periphery of importance, and almost all the stuff that government does which matters on that daily basis is done at a state or local level. but the federal government is in charge of the really big overarching stuff that you don't want to get fucked up, like wars (conventional or nuclear), food stamps, medicaid, climate policy and generally figuring out who benefits when the $9 Trillion budget gets spread around. or the kind of stuff Trump fucked up when covid hit so that several hundred thousand people died beyond what was necessary. so maybe it matters a little.

so maybe it matters a little.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless)

i can't _do_ anything about it. it affects me, but i can't _do_ anything about it. it doesn't help me to focus my energies on things i can't change. it helps me to focus my energies on things i have actual power over. sadly, posting to ilx is, like, one of the biggest ways i can change the world, haha.

So, leaving aside WhatIsFascismAIDTAF, it seems pretty clear that a small group of rich men have hijacked America.
It's a plutocracy.
Maybe kleptocracy is more accurate.
It's a heist.

I keep thinking about that scene in Death Of Stalin, where they know they're going to shoot the guy, he knows they're going to shoot him, and they still go through a charade of proper process...

In some sense it's kind of a wonder that the people in control in this country have ever accepted any limits on that control...

Which leads me to guardrails...

If the gloves are really off, and the Trumpistas are not even pretending to follow laws and process, then the last-stop guardrail is the "security" apparatus. I'm talking about entities of state sanctioned violence; the military, ICE, ATF, CBP, local police forces, etc...
It's already started, with little standoffs between ICE and police, but if we're really just doing naked power, and pushing it to the limit, that's what power is.

(and speaking of standoffs, religious groups may end up as a wildcard guardrail, would be good to see...)

I think another potential firewall might be if the regime starts negatively affecting their supporters directly, and the corruption and thievery is so blatant that they can't use their usual misdirection, and the "libertarian" faction of their supporters realize they're being fucked by plutocrats...
Basically if it gets so bad that someone can explain it to Joe Rogan...

Sorry if the post's a little disjointed, and maybe should have gone in DoompostingContainment, but I'm just trying to figure out where this might end up....

Other = time to burn it up

Pretty sure that’s what our Tech Overlords are doing right now.