What are the thoughts on Tariff's from the American side here?

[BulletMagnet]

I don't believe for a second that half the people (only the true MAGA) who voted for Trump would have done so if they believed what has happened was going to happen (in spite of the obvious warning signs).

Every single one of Trump's voters was absolutely fine with the disaster that was to follow...because they were promised that it would only happen to people they hate. Even now, as MAGA government employees are laid off indiscriminately, the vast majority of their reactions are to the tune of "wait, there must be some mistake, I'm not one of the freeloaders, they're over there!" - Trump's entire pitch was that he was finally going to give it to Those People. That's all they heard, and no matter how bad it gets that will remain their driving motivation.

Trade imbalances. This dumb mfer still thinks that trade imbalances are a tariff against the US.

For those unaware of what's being referenced here, have a read.

And as the cherry on top, as the stock market cratered in response to "Liberation Day", every show on Fox News, for no particular reason at all, stopped displaying its onscreen stock ticker.

There truly is no bottom for anyone deep-throating the boot.

[BryanM]

Every single one of Trump's voters was absolutely fine with the disaster that was to follow...because they were promised that it would only happen to people they hate.

I've lamented over how we all have serf brain from thousands of years of domestication over feudalism, but my god are these people suicidal cuckolds.

A cult specialist claimed MAGA wasn't a cult because... they boo'ed Trump when he made the wrong mouth-noises about vaccines one time. Like complete obedience to the leader is necessary or something... guess the guy isn't used to seeing many democratic cults. He'd argue that wider movements like this should just be called 'society' - society believes lots of stupid fucked up shit. Fair enough, I guess..

I like to always find happy comments on the youtube, and one guy noted the Nazis were the worst thing to happen to his white, christian family. Fun times.

That Elon's King Friday did the whole swearing-in ceremony to promise to protect the constitution, only to wipe his ass with it and flush it down the toilet seconds later is hilarious. Having a surrogate puppet of the surrogate puppet openly BE a surrogate puppet, so he can be the guy for a third or fourth term sure is something. He's Gil Fulbright, 100%.

Almost nobody with any power is screeching about the loss of due process. This is like day one USA shit. The one thing everyone should say the 'founding fathers' absolutely got right. Even if it's a sham, everyone needs to have the right to due process.

Maybe AM turning everyone into turtles would be for the best.

[vol.2]

My Dad apologized to me the other day for the world their generation left me and I was like "nah, you did your best." Honestly though my folks aren't even boomers, they are Silent Generation. It's a kind of weird in-between thing where there weren't really that many of them to be able to have a huge political will over the boomers, much in the same way as we Gen Xers (Mostly the children of the Silents) don't make much a dent in the Millennial cohort. That, coupled with grown up in the MD area, it was kind of a pointless measure to vote outside of super local stuff as the state always goes blue. Well, up until that bastard O'Malley who came in and left us with the first big state budget crisis in memory. Amazing how republicans come in and promise to fix the economy and then leave things shittier because all they actually do is cut taxes for rich people and kick the can down the road.


Anyway, so China responded with similar tariffs. Weak, they should have doubled that shit. They should all double it and throw their hands up. Except Japan, Japan should offer to have free trade with us so I can keep buying all my Japanese food ingredients at not-astronomical prices. My $8 jug of soy sauce is about to be a $12 jug. sigh.

[neorichieb1971]

Every single one of Trump's voters was absolutely fine with the disaster that was to follow...because they were promised that it would only happen to people they hate.

I've lamented over how we all have serf brain from thousands of years of domestication over feudalism, but my god are these people suicidal cuckolds.

A cult specialist claimed MAGA wasn't a cult because... they boo'ed Trump when he made the wrong mouth-noises about vaccines one time. Like complete obedience to the leader is necessary or something... guess the guy isn't used to seeing many democratic cults. He'd argue that wider movements like this should just be called 'society' - society believes lots of stupid fucked up shit. Fair enough, I guess..

I like to always find happy comments on the youtube, and one guy noted the Nazis were the worst thing to happen to his white, christian family. Fun times.

That Elon's King Friday did the whole swearing-in ceremony to promise to protect the constitution, only to wipe his ass with it and flush it down the toilet seconds later is hilarious. Having a surrogate puppet of the surrogate puppet openly BE a surrogate puppet, so he can be the guy for a third or fourth term sure is something. He's Gil Fulbright, 100%.

Almost nobody with any power is screeching about the loss of due process. This is like day one USA shit. The one thing everyone should say the 'founding fathers' absolutely got right. Even if it's a sham, everyone needs to have the right to due process.

Maybe AM turning everyone into turtles would be for the best.

The problem to me stems from a 2 party system where one party campaigns for a glorified upturn and the other is staying on track with the current administrations values and policies which were not deemed favourable to the majority of the time. One of the campaign mistakes I see time and time again is to concentrate on the oppositions weaknesses, rather than your own strengths. (Hello Kamala Harris).

In a situation where folk are struggling they will most likely vote for the change, not to stay in the shitter. Its a gamble for sure. Trump for all his idiocracies understood this perfectly.

Me personally, I Can see the difference between a campaign that is talking about making the country amazing again, and looking after the people within it. Which means low taxes, low priced produce and high wages. What Trump is selling is richer billionaires, staying no1 on the GDP chart and putting "Made in the USA" back on products labels. To Trump having F47's defending a country that cannot afford to eat is fine and the USA is not alone here.

When I look at the members here at shmups, I see Americans with worldwide knowledge that are highly educated, think outside of the box. But when I see Americans on social media, I don't see that at all, I see insular simple folk who who's ears pop up like a dogs when they here the word "walkies" or "dinner time". Just in this case its "insane", "Amazing", "Incredible".

The UK did the same. Unfortunately sometimes a country is in the best position it could be, but its not enough. And I certainly feel consistency is a better road than complete change in most cases.

This Trump administration is scary to me. I'm 53 years old and I haven't seen an unhinged POTUS before at this level. Rules, regulations, contracts, law, moral compass all seem to be ripped up and nobody is doing anything about it. If that was possible at any time up until now I'm surprised the USA did this well so far. Maybe the USA just needed to be put in a precarious position before the fisticuffs came off, not sure.

[vol.2]

The problem to me stems from a 2 party system where one party campaigns for a glorified upturn and the other is staying on track with the current administrations values and policies which were not deemed favourable to the majority of the time.

Yes, the 2 party system is terrible. Unfortunately, the attempts to get past it have always resulted in just taking votes away from one of the major parties, typically just pushing the country further to the right. There isn't really a good way to suddenly introduce one without disrupting the power base on only one side.

Probably the most compelling take I've read on our 2 party system comes from Vonnegut's God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, in which he outlines the way in which said system is designed to introduce impediment to change by preventing congress from passing laws that the people ask for. If there is sufficient bureaucratic mire, then things the people actually want can't get passed into law. This system was of course designed by the rich to keep their families as rich as possible going forward, as was the electoral college. These things were all concessions made to prop up the people who already had the money and the power, because why TF would they ever go along with a system that stripped it away?

[BryanM]

The two party system thing isn't the inherent problem. If the two parties on offer were cool and good, then life would be cool and good.

Further, the problem is that you have to think of these things as products. That they're trying to sell you something. You can't want something that you don't know you want - advertising is critical. There are lots of countries with proportional representation. It's better than first past the post certainly, but they, too, tend to degrade into two party systems. Tories and labour being a classic example.

Mexico's AMLO managed to completely overturn the applecart in his country, but it didn't happen overnight. He had to work tirelessly with allies for over a decade. Everyone says the USA is 'too sexist' to elect a woman... and yet there's the famously not-sexist-at-all country Mexico, with its first female president who won in a landslide and is wildly popular.

Funny how being cool and good works, eh.

... don't worry about the USA though, our AMLO, Bernie Sanders, has like two years left to live so I'm sure we'll be just fine.

Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo is a Mexican politician, scientist, and academic

Fuckin' so jealous... fuckin' a... fuck. Just try to imagine a US president with the line 'scientist' on their character sheet. You can't imagine it, can you.....

One of the campaign mistakes I see time and time again is to concentrate on the oppositions weaknesses, rather than your own strengths. (Hello Kamala Harris).

They're not mistakes, they're intentional. Because Democrats are paid to lose. That's why they exist: To suppress the left and then lose to republicans. Obama sure doesn't feel like getting off the couch while Trump violates multiple clauses in the constitution constantly, but he sure picked up that phone fast when Bernie Sanders was going to win the primary in 2020 and enacted the unprecedented 'ratfuck voltran' plan. Which brought us to where we are today.

Every single time they get crushed, they keep saying they have to 'move to the center' (when they really mean is to double down on being losers, because nobody wants republican-lite). Here's Jon talking about all the 'we were too woke' bullshit. There's not a single time the servants of capital will ever not serve capital. Neoliberals prefer a fascist dictator to giving everyone healthcare, every single fuckin' time. Pinochet is the future they dream of for everyone.

Human beings are emotional creatures, our brains are emotional engines. Think about what you remember most - do you remember every single thing your friends and enemies have ever said to you? Or do you remember how they make you feel?

The strategists know all this. This is why the republicans are a party of emotions, and the democrats are the party of doormats. It's intentional.

Sometimes a guy comes along and actually tries to win. It's frankly kind of shocking, conditioned as we've been to expect nothing from the Democrats but losers doing their best to help toss us into the ovens in the future.

When I look at the members here at shmups, I see Americans with worldwide knowledge that are highly educated, think outside of the box. But when I see Americans on social media, I don't see that at all, I see insular simple folk who who's ears pop up like a dogs when they here the word "walkies" or "dinner time". Just in this case its "insane", "Amazing", "Incredible".

Yeah... we're really above the curve. The average person reads at a third grade or below level. You can't expect much from them - they only know what they're told to think and feel. Gotta meet them where they're at, and move them from there. I have some hope for the younglings, as they still went 2 to 1 for Sanders even after the ratfuck voltran. Not a lot of hope; the machine gods will begin to manifest soon and what little theoretical power we might have had through political means is going to completely evaporate in a decade or two.

2016 was really the last time we had a chance to make things better for ourselves. Now we have to seriously consider formally highly implausible futures, like the one where we're all turned into personal breeding stock for intergalactic space emperor Elon Musk.

... I didn't want to be in this position, man....

[orange808]

'we were too woke' bullshit

This is literally what many people see when the Democrats campaign.

It's a real problem and I'm sorry that's inconvenient, but it is a problem.

[neorichieb1971]

The two party system thing isn't the inherent problem. If the two parties on offer were cool and good, then life would be cool and good.

Don't you think there are 2 lines of thinking for each vote. One is make the country better again, the other is make "me" great again. When I lived in the USA (I am from the UK as you know), I never felt like anyone had my back. USA is a country of win/lose, you stand on your own feet. That's my take. I saw wealth in the USA all around me like i've never witnessed before. Even the trees and grass look rich in the USA.

Bernie Sanders would appeal to any British person because he uses us a metric of how to make society better again. But I feel most Americans feel that is admittance of the USA system failing and thats up to you figure out if it is or not. One of Bernies lines is that 3 people have the same wealth as 170 million USA citizens.

In the UK we have a guy called Gary Stevenson who is a self made multi millionaire predicting the markets and he says on this trajectory the billionaires will vacuum all the wealth from the people and government by the time the next generation reach a working age.

I used to watch the USA's Peter Schiff a lot back in the day he had lots of doomsday prophecies as well in regards to the USA debt crisis.

As for bringing jobs and manufacturing back to the USA. I Can't help wonder if behind closed doors Elon Musk has told Trump that robots are just around the corner, to get manufacturing back in the USA because once robots take over the production in the USA they won't need Chinese/Asian labor anymore. But also, they won't need USA labor either. About 18 months ago it was said that Jeff Bezos was pissed with the UK arm of Amazon because of the unions and work regulations and that he would buy 32000 robots to do the work here.

I'm a trajectory conspiracist myself. When it comes to billionaires or even trillionaires, I wonder sometimes if it was possible for those people to buy all the food in the world. Because legally they could, but it wouldn't do the people any good would it?

The main issue for me is jobs don't pay enough. My wife works for a bank and she sells products like high savings accounts where you lock in for a year for a higher return. My wife currently sits at 10th for selling the most products in the whole of the UK. She has not been approached with a reward, just an A4 sheet of paper (certificate) stating the fact. I asked her if any financial reward is coming and she doesn't know. What I do know is these products make the bank richer and someone is making a lot of money out of it, but it isn't my wife. THIS is the problem. We all need people who do basic jobs and they need a roof on their heads. Its absolutely F'ing distgusting of the level of exploitation that shareholders take these days. Its almost like Tipping in the USA, where you do a great job and then you have to beg for compensation. F'ing ridiculous.

[BulletMagnet]

In case anyone needed any additional evidence of just how carefully-considered the tariff onslaught has been.

Oh, and the whole "he's doing it to crash the economy on purpose" thing? Trump's explicitly leaning into it.

Rules, regulations, contracts, law, moral compass all seem to be ripped up and nobody is doing anything about it.

An important thing to remember about the current situation is that Trump actually doesn't even have the authority to impose tariffs except under his manifestly ridiculous "emergency" declaration - monetary matters are Congress's job, and it has the power to override said declaration if it sees fit. The Senate actually managed to peel off a handful of Republicans to pass a measure aimed at letting Canada off the hook, but as the article notes the extra-Trumpy House is unlikely to so much as consider even that singular exception.

So yeah, if you know any "Never-Trump Republicans" who brag about not having voted for him while eagerly installing all of his cocksuckers down-ballot, don't grant them a shred of breathing room: they're just as responsible for this mess as the MAGA faithful, but get twice as pissy when you call them out on it.

[BryanM]

As for bringing jobs and manufacturing back to the USA. I Can't help wonder if behind closed doors Elon Musk has told Trump that robots are just around the corner, to get manufacturing back in the USA because once robots take over the production in the USA they won't need Chinese/Asian labor anymore. But also, they won't need USA labor either. About 18 months ago it was said that Jeff Bezos was pissed with the UK arm of Amazon because of the unions and work regulations and that he would buy 32000 robots to do the work here.

This is 100% what the elites believe. Like I've said in the main doomsday thread, like 60 or 70% of the stock market value is in 'tech' stonks. Probably many of the capitalists don't really believe in it and are just going along with the crowd like any other speculation instrument, like tulips and people's houses. But many 100% believe it.

Collectively, they really do think this is the end of this current age. That they'll bring us into a age of some kind of fascist feudalism/techno feudalism/techno fascism. Very soon now.

Starting to replace everyone with robots might be feasible in around five years from now, ten on the more realistic side of things. It requires 'AGI' (Really it can only be ASI) in a datacenter, it creates the neural networks general laborers need, and the method to fabricate the NPU's they need to run on. Things can start to snowball very fast, as the datacenters coming up this year are reported to be around human-brain scale in size or, perhaps even bigger.

In theory it all could be used to create heaven-on-earth: nobody would have to age or suffer from disease, nobody would have to work no mo' if they don't wanna, everyone could have their own (or become their own) goth booba catgirl, etc etc. In reality it seems more like they want to cull the population and hoard all the atoms and energy and goth booba catgirls to themselves.

Those bastards.



...I'm just saying things can change very fast. Technology is the material foundation upon which our society runs on. We went from cars not existing, to being the SOLE material reason we exist very quickly. 13 years apart:

I'm a trajectory conspiracist myself. When it comes to billionaires or even trillionaires, I wonder sometimes if it was possible for those people to buy all the food in the world. Because legally they could, but it wouldn't do the people any good would it?

That's another 'Elon Musk is a shit' story. He once bragged that he'd solve world hunger if someone could offer a plan to do it with a couple bill dollars. The people in the organizations who actually give a shit about people starving to death, did some edits to their long-standing plans to try to meet his specifications, and sent it to him. Mysteriously, crickets ensued.

Just imagine what the world would be like if a court forced him to go through on that, instead of making him buy Twitter.

Another Elon Musk factoid: I learned recently that all of his kids were conceived IVF and were filtered to all be male. This is part of his breeding fetish thing: If he has fifteen kids and they have fifteen kids and they have fifteen kids, why, very soon his genes would occupy the majority of the population! Yeah!

.... these are the kinds of things billionaires think about and worry about. What should only be a perverted wank fantasy, they're trying to manifest in reality.

Our god is a thirteen year old horny edge lord. That's really bad at videogames. And wants people to think he's good at videogames.

I'd say 'god help us', but he's already 'helping' us and I don't like it. God stop helping us.

I'd very much like to replace this god with one running in a datacenter. Sooner rather than later, please.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

In case anyone needed any additional evidence of just how carefully-considered the tariff onslaught has been.

The whole admin has been showcasing their myopic America above all else brand of elitism mixed with anti-intellectualism repeatedly these past weeks. It's the same thing when Vance stepped off a plane and complained about how nobody told him how cold Greenland was. He could try and pass it off as a joke perhaps, but the truth is that they really do not know or care about the rest of the world. People who complain about "globalism" seem to forget that we live on a literal globe of people and pretending we don't exist is like... I dunno, pretending America can somehow tariff everyone to oblivion but still expect to get cheap coffee to meet its massive demands (and no, Puerto Rico and Hawaii don't have the land mass to do it for all America realistically, nor should they feel the need to farm cash crops in priority over actual food staples).

[orange808]

People who complain about "globalism" seem to forget that we live on a literal globe of people and pretending we don't exist is like... I dunno, pretending America can somehow tariff everyone to oblivion but still expect to get cheap coffee to meet its massive demands (and no, Puerto Rico and Hawaii don't have the land mass to do it for all America realistically, nor should they feel the need to farm cash crops in priority over actual food staples).

Fair enough, but you need to remember that the left and the Sanders coalition fully and always intended to implement a tariff policy. But, not like this shit Trump is doing.

Tariffs absolutely are in my playbook.

What isn't in our playbook is the hamfisted, reckless, buffoonery of the Trump regime's policy. I can't discern the administration's goals and they've opened up battles on every front simultaneously. It's madness.

With that said, the American neoliberal "free trade" order is absolute bullshit and everyone is tired of the race to the bottom. I'm also sick and fucking tired of being told that living wages for Americans is "racist", while exploiting foreign child labor in sweatshop conditions is (somehow) kind and righteous. That's fucking bollocks and you know it.

Let's get something straight. Are you a wingnut? If not, we can agree that market failure is a thing. Any person that claims the well established economic concept of "market failure" does not exist is a ridiculous wingnut turd.

Now that we agree that market failure is a thing, we also know that the government is the only tool we have to address market failure. There has to be some kind of authority to steer the economy.

Now that we've established these basic concepts, let's revisit the idea of a single "free" global market..

We already agreed market failure exists. You want a free unified global market without a unified global government body to regulate the market. We already agreed market failure exists.

Inconvenient, isn't it?

So, I'm going to keep putting torpedoes into the broadsides of neoliberal free trade and centrist "Reagan Democrats" don't have a leg to stand on in a serious debate. They cannot solve the undeniable "unified market/splitered regulations" riddle, because there is no solution. Doing nothing isn't an option, though. The race to the bottom can't go on.

So, "people that complain" about my complaining should solve my riddle. Otherwise, clam up.

[BryanM]

There does seem something fundamentally inefficient at a material level in having the fork and spoon-printing factories in South Korea, and then shipping them across to the other side of the planet on a ship.

Ah well. I'm sure when they replace everyone with robots being a serf will be just peachy.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

I think the more global independence we can have the better.

I think the difference between America and a lot of other EU countries Is that we're not so set on just sitting on our hands and complaining quietly to ourselves. I will say that Trump took off like a rocket from his first days in office and has brought a level of transparency to what he plans on doing - so love him or hate him, his interactions with the press are worth watching. He's certainly not the idiot people would like to think. If you look back through US history, we have a real big problem with international taxes. We didn't like paying tea taxes to England nor did we particularly like paying protection money to the Barbary Pirates. Doing that sort of thing to the US is how you get a free country and also a Navy. History repeats, we're again refusing to pay big teriffs and we just turned some pirates into bologna smoke.

I want to see where this thing goes but my confidence is not at 100% for sure.

[vol.2]

He's certainly not the idiot people would like to think.

No one thinks Trump is stupid. Losing his mind, probably, but not stupid. If anything, he's a selfish liar like most rich little boys are, and he doesn't care one damn about this country. Whatever his plan is, you can bet it doesn't have anything to do with helping anyone but himself and rewarding his toadies. I'm not going to pretend to know what "his plan" is, I've seen a lot of people make that mistake over the past ten years, but I think it's a reasonable assumption that he wants to continue destabilizing the government in order to gain more control in the long run. The chaos caused by the tariffs would be a natural part of that plan, and the biggest losers are the consumers in this country.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

I think the more global independence we can have the better.

I think the difference between America and a lot of other EU countries Is that we're not so set on just sitting on our hands and complaining quietly to ourselves. I will say that Trump took off like a rocket from his first days in office and has brought a level of transparency to what he plans on doing - so love him or hate him, his interactions with the press are worth watching. He's certainly not the idiot people would like to think. If you look back through US history, we have a real big problem with international taxes. We didn't like paying tea taxes to England nor did we particularly like paying protection money to the Barbary Pirates. Doing that sort of thing to the US is how you get a free country and also a Navy. History repeats, we're again refusing to pay big teriffs and we just turned some pirates into bologna smoke.

I want to see where this thing goes but my confidence is not at 100% for sure.

- The US's and every other major player's economies are entwined globally with each other, and it's absolutely impossible to gain "independance" from other states since no country is self-sufficient or has markets that are big enough to sustain their output and their wealth.
- Trump sure did a lot of things in the first two months, but since it's part of a "flood the zone"-strategy that is supposed to overwhelm democratic checks and balances I totally fail to see what's supposed to be good about it. Also, almost everything he did was colossal, utterly idiotic, inhuman bullshit. Your democracy is being dismantled in front of your eyes, and you think doing it as quickly as it is being done is laudable? What's wrong with you?
- Re: Trump bringing a "level of transparency" - you just can't be serious about this. The man has (justifiably) been called "the world's most audacious liar", and it still is absolutely unclear what the purpose of his ill-informed tariffs is supposed to be. Nobody knows how serious his claims that he is willing to use the US army to make Canada into the US's 51st state should be taken.
He has said so much incompetent and ridiculous things and done so much damage to his own and other countries and poor people around the world that 99% of the world just scratches their head and wonders why this man hasn't been dragged out onto the streets and had a bullet put into his half-empty skull.

[Lemnear]

but how can a man who went bankrupt 6 times decide the fate of the world economy?

[vol.2]

99% of the world just scratches their head and wonders why this man hasn't been dragged out onto the streets and had a bullet put into his half-empty skull.

The problem is that most Americans who do that kind of thing are generally on his side. The left over here is really soft and doesn't want to do anything that would threaten their "comfortable" lives. We'll see how the situation evolves, but it's quite possible that nothing will happen until it's too late and things have gone too far. Some would say that point is already long passed.

[BulletMagnet]

we're again refusing to pay big teriffs

The supposed global tariff rates on U.S. goods that Trump presented are grossly exaggerated hot garbage, and as was noted in a previous post his "retaliatory" tariffs aren't even calculated based on those, but on trade deficits, a completely unrelated metric.

Listen to Trump's rhetoric, especially when it comes to his idolization of the Gilded Age (seriously, give that a minute to sink in): what he's very clearly aiming to do is use tariffs as a pretense for further reducing or outright eliminating the income tax altogether, thus shifting even more of the costs of keeping the country afloat to the working class and away from the owners like himself.

One more time, for those in the back: we are not being protected. We are being skinned alive.

[vol.2]

as was noted in a previous post his "retaliatory" tariffs aren't even calculated based on those, but on trade deficits, a completely unrelated metric.

British YouTuber Stand-up Maths did a really excellent video about Trump's tariff calculation if anyone here who isn't brainwashed wants to look at science.

[neorichieb1971]

Trump works on the basis that only reciprocal tariffs are the counter measure.

I don't think he understands how much upset he is causing with his demeanour. Trump is making the USA totally untrustworthy when it comes to being a business partner because he is exercising powers in a bad way that other countries didn't even think was possible. Its like the analogy of a piece of paper that gets squished, you can flatten it out but it will never be perfect again.

I watched a youtube last night where Chinese man said China will never bow to the USA again, EVER, if it means military war its war. He also said China has prepared for this much better than the USA thinks.

And looking at the USA debt clock, its not going any slower at the moment. 36.7 trillion at the moment. By the end of the month that will be 37 trillion. The DOGE clock is slightly slower at speed at $297 billion and some change. And instead of paying off a tiny bit of the debt Trump wants to give it to the people. And thats if he told the truth for once..

[BulletMagnet]

If anyone has 20 or so minutes to spare this video comes highly recommended.

[orange808]

Remember that time Mexico said they weren't paying for a fucking wall and Trump begged them to not pay a single peso, but (still) say they did?

Ah, memories.

You know, there is an exit ramp for all of this, but we need a fair election to get there. The guy is a convicted felon. That's the weak spot. Hit it.

Pack the court and declare the entire presidency unconstitutional. That deletes all his orders and every act of Congress that didn't have enough votes to override a veto. Everything with his signature gets thrown out. Essentially, 47 gets the Akhenaten treatment. He gets deleted. Every order, law, and appointment is wiped out. In fact, he won't even be officially recorded as having served a second term at all. Reload at the last checkpoint.

And, every single pardon goes away as well. They all go back to jail.

Of course, only a "reactionary" cunt like me would do something like that within 24 hours of being sworn in. I'm sure the usual suspects are cringing, because my suggestion isn't spineless and weak. And, I'm sure there's a million bullshit "reasons" why it can't be done, because of made up fake regulations and "norms" that I somehow can't violate--while the right stomps all over the rule of law effortlessly.

Such a shame we can't elect a real leaders that would (actually) do my idea. No. You're wrong if you're saying it can't be done. It absolutely would work exactly as stated. The prerequisite is: having a spine. Wipe it out. All of it.

If we had the votes, I suggest expanding the court to 53 justices or fewer with term limits. In a perfect situation, you also pass a constitutional amendment that locks the court into the new paradigm and stops the GOP from rigging the court again as retaliation. Once again, ruthless and not spineless.

[BryanM]

Yeah.... it does feel very counter-intuitive our only hope for a better world is a benevolent machine god running amok, but I wasn't the guy who made this stupid universe. Ah well, living in a dystopian cyberpunk scifi novel isn't all bad. Lots of escapism former generations of apes couldn't even dream of.

It's great that the supreme court is now completely helpless and all they can do is cope and seethe impotently. That one scene in The Simpsons is as relevant as ever:

Marge: "I thought you said the law was powerless!"

Chief Wiggum: "Powerless to help you, not punish you."


.... excited to see four more years of them making the imaginary cash that is stonks, go up and down like a pogo-stick... It's a nice distraction from the elimination of due process. It was neat pretending we had processes before we'd throw people into slave prisons.

.... Remember when the fash here were all butthurt when we called the concentration camps concentration camps? Ah, fuckin' nazis...

[orange808]

Have you ever seen someone fight to get clean and actually make it? Here's the thing with that, shooting up tears up blood vessels. So, a decade later, all these blood clots break loose from the legs and clog up your organs. Blood thinners can't break it up.. Your organs fail slowly over two days.as you lie in agony in hospital--until your heart gives in.

There's time to say goodbye, but there's no mercy. That's two days to stew in your life choices... And, for us, two days of trying to answer "I'm scared... I'm so scared..."

Good thing Trump pardoned one of the biggest drug dealers ever, right? Doesn't sit right with me. If you live long enough, you'll start to understand why we discourage certain things and why libertarians are wrong. Rather or not our loved ones would seek out a different criminal isn't the point. The dealer is still a criminal and more than one person can be responsible when things go bad.

I don't need revenge. I support prison reform. Ulbricht shouldn't be raped. He shouldn't be working as a slave, either. I'm comfortable with buying Spam and frozen peas for him. He can read as many library books as he wants... But, he shouldn't ever be free.

[Sima Tuna]

No forgiveness for drug dealers who ruin lives.

Spoiler

It's also why certain drugs can never be legalized, despite claims that "meth is just like beer during prohibition, dude" or whatever. Nah man, some drugs cannot be sold at a dispensary, ever. I don't care who you are or how heavily you tax and regulate it. Imagine the outrage when a mother finds out that her son got hooked on meth LEGALLY.

I think the strongest drug I'd be okay with making legal is maybe opium... Make Opium Dens Great Again? Even so, I am reminded that China was willing to fight a war to get its citizens off of opium... So those who think all drugs should be legalized might do well to look at what happened in China when opium dens were ubiquitous.

Of course, "caffeine is a drug" and "beer is a drug" and "cigarettes are a drug." Yes, this is true. But there are degrees of badness within category. Weed should be legal because it's pretty harmless, as far as drugs go. Caffeine is arguably healthy in moderation, especially in natural forms like tea (very few people will argue tea is unhealthy.) Cigarettes we know are unhealthy but they don't fuck the brain up as bad as crack rocks. Beer, well... A matter of degree. Drinking a quart of whiskey is very unhealthy. Drinking a single glass of 2-8% beer is slightly unhealthy, depending who you ask. There are so many different methods of imbibing alcohol and some have so little alcohol percentage in them that you're nearly drinking wheat water at a point.

So to me, the whole "legalize everything" argument smacks of false equivalence and ignoring historical precedent. There's a reason people drank watered wine, grog and beer as a part of daily life in the ancient world... There are some benefits. Yes, drinking an entire bottle of 22% wine is still very unhealthy. That doesn't mean legalize meth wouldn't be much, much worse. I've heard many people say "alcohol is the worst drug of all, and it's legal" as an argument to legalize everything. I can't agree. Alcohol is bad if you develop an addiction. But it's not meth, or crack, or fentanyl.

Back to tariffs, Small Dick Don backed down on the tariffs because the bond market was making him scared. But a 90-day pause is just a stay of execution if they can't remove all the tariffs before the 90 days are up. The China tariffs alone are looking to be absolutely crippling on American small businesses and will cause mass bankruptcies.

[vol.2]

No forgiveness for drug dealers who ruin lives.

I 100% percent agree, but I don't think we should put the saps with ruined lives in jails for having ruined lives and whatever part they played in their own ruination. Understanding that it's non-trivial to make the distinction, the onus should still be on law enforcement to do so. There are proven ways to close the information gaps, and most of them involve community engagement.

Back to tariffs, Small Dick Don backed down on the tariffs because the bond market was making him scared. But a 90-day pause is just a stay of execution if they can't remove all the tariffs before the 90 days are up. The China tariffs alone are looking to be absolutely crippling on American small businesses and will cause mass bankruptcies.

I think it's all just a distraction from the other stuff. He doesn't want people to focus on the Stasi death squad he's got ripping people out of cars with no warrant or evidence. You think it's "not a big deal" right now maybe because they are immigrants, and "maybe there's a chance they aren't supposed to be here," but this is not good. The precedent it sets is extremely alarming and it's clearly being done as a way to test the waters. Next step is lawyers that piss him off (who he has already started to illegally detain) and then personal enemies.

[BulletMagnet]

and then personal enemies.

Oh, we crossed that particular bridge quite a ways back.

[Sima Tuna]

ICE are literally just brownshirts at this point.

I think we can all agree that if someone is in this country illegally, they still are owed due process. But now, we have legal green card holders being kidnapped and flown to El Salvador, and then the Administration admits they did send some innocent people there, but their response is "now they are out of jurisdiction and we can't get them back." Motherfucker please. If you had done due process then this would never have happened. You did it this way specifically because you WANTED to illegally kick primarily the innocent green card holders and asylum seekers out. There are not that many hardened criminal illegals in America. Not enough for the current ICE quotas. I remember hearing ICE has a quota of 1000 people a day? Something like this? Well, it wouldn't take many days before all the known criminals would be deported and you're just left with grandmas who obey the laws and husbands with autistic children.

It's an actual nightmare scenario. ICE also have expanded authority anywhere within 100 miles of a border and this includes any town with an international airport.

The thing about "he doesn't want people to focus on the big stuff" is that it's ALL BIG STUFF RIGHT NOW. This is part of the Steve Bannon "flood the zone" strategy. The Trump Administration is doing a hundred awful things a day so as to overload news media and politicians and prevent any meaningful opposition to the majority of the shit they're doing. Their philosophy seems to be, this time, to just do shit that's illegal and then say "make me stop it" when challenged. Courts can't keep up because the courts are slow. Democrat politicians are rolling over hard like Cuck Schumer. Cable News is going the "both sides are right" route to keep their press passes.

At this point, fuck man, I think Luigi might be the most relevant political activist of our time.

But back to tariffs. Ruining the global economy is absolutely not just some small distraction. Trump is accelerating the devaluation of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency and he's doing it at record speed. There are some ways to do tariffs correctly (in line with industrial governmental policy and targeted tariffs on foreign competitors) but a tariff on a place that sells coffee we can't produce here isn't it, fam. We still haven't seen the full effect of these tariffs and now we won't see it for another 90 days. Think about how much the market has fallen just on the FEARS around tariffs. Not even the actual price impact! The real thing is gonna be way worse when it hits. I think megacorps like Amazon will weather the storm (Amazon sells more than just chinese shit) but many others will be completely fucked.

[BrianC]

Back to tariffs, Small Dick Don backed down on the tariffs because the bond market was making him scared. But a 90-day pause is just a stay of execution if they can't remove all the tariffs before the 90 days are up. The China tariffs alone are looking to be absolutely crippling on American small businesses and will cause mass bankruptcies.

I'm under the impression that Donald Trump paused the tariffs to indulge in insider trading.