What does it mean for the US now? Like what does second term of Trump mean for the US now?

[CharonY]

The Republicans have frequently proposed budget cuts to especially basic research (e.g. NSF-funded projects). So it is a likely outcome. They appear also to be on war path with public health now, apparently because they suck at it.

[Airbrush]

Higher prices because of new trade wars and tariffs.

Higher prices due to deportations of working illegals from agriculture, construction, domestic, services, etc.  Trump would not deport very many, undocumented, but he would make a big show of it.  Magnifying and exaggerating it.

More borrowing (than the $7.8trillion he borrowed in 4 years) because of a wealth-weighted tax cut, so wealthy people at the top save even more.

[pzkpfw]

The per capita crime rate will go up.

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, pzkpfw said:

The per capita crime rate will go up.

Why? Because of fewer immigrants? BTW, crime rate is always calculated on a population basis.

[Phi for All]

FOX News host and former National Guard Captain Pete Hegseth is the nominee for SecDef, because the US probably won't need its military in the foreseeable future.

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

FOX News host and former National Guard Captain Pete Hegseth is the nominee for SecDef, because the US probably won't need its military in the foreseeable future.

Yup, the goat rodeo has begun already, earlier than even I thought it would.

I’ll be fascinated to see what happens when they try to deport 2m (or is it more?) immigrants. To where? Will they dump the population of a large city, just across the Mexican border, without any agreement with the Mexican government? What will happen then?

Then the tariffs will kick in, raising prices of imported goods and provoking a trade war on all sides that will cripple exports.

Meanwhile, that 6-cylinder nutcase Kennedy will be charge of the nation’s health - a dead bear in every hospital, perhaps?

 Musk will try to sack a third of the nation’s civil servants, presumably starting with those responsible for protecting the public from unscrupulous business practices and then going on to disband the Dept of Education. That should lead to a better informed electorate, right?

 Trump will pardon himself for any crimes he is convicted of, if he can’t get the supine Supreme Court to overturn the verdicts.

Putin is right: the USA is in decline. And so is democracy.

[pzkpfw]

14 hours ago, CharonY said:

Why? Because of fewer immigrants? BTW, crime rate is always calculated on a population basis.

Trump liked to play on the "migrant crime" thing, and in many speeches during this campaign (and before) pretty much claimed every single migrant came from a prison or asylum.

But the stats show migrants as a group commit fewer crimes than born Americans. (Various reasons.)

So if he actually did follow through with mass deportations, I'd suspect crime rates will go up.

(Slightly tongue in cheek of course, I just find it astounding Trump could make people think he'll make them "safe" and thus accept his fascist leanings. Meanwhile, kids will continue to be shot at school - and the the coming VP will just say that's a "fact of life".)

 

Edited yesterday at 07:01 PM by pzkpfw

[Phi for All]

48 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Putin is right: the USA is in decline. And so is democracy.

He's helped a lot, for sure. Did he really air nude photos of Melania in the same news segments congratulating TFG on his win? Yes, he did! https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/russian-tv-melania-trump/

[TheVat]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Yup, the goat rodeo has begun already, earlier than even I thought it would.

IIRC Trump was boasting at rallies many months ago that he would start solving the nations problems the day after the election.  Pretty sure "goat rodeo" was one of the first phrases that popped in my head, on hearing this. 

As @Airbrush noted, it's all for show and very little of his harebrained plans will ever be implemented at full scale.  Though a lot of the RW in the US has had their wet dream of shrinking the federal government and giving states more autonomy (and no money).  This could happen to some degree.  One of their dreams is to eliminate income tax entirely and run the fed on a sales tax.  As nutty at that is, it has a shiny surface appeal.  

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

He's helped a lot, for sure. Did he really air nude photos of Melania in the same news segments congratulating TFG on his win? Yes, he did! https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/russian-tv-melania-trump/

Well Trump is a troll so it's quite funny he got trolled by Putin. Putin will be overjoyed at the result. Autocrats all over the world will see this result as confirmation that democracy - both in the US and more widely - is a weak and flabby system whose time is up. And there is no doubt it is in retreat now.  

20 minutes ago, TheVat said:

IIRC Trump was boasting at rallies many months ago that he would start solving the nations problems the day after the election.  Pretty sure "goat rodeo" was one of the first phrases that popped in my head, on hearing this. 

As @Airbrush noted, it's all for show and very little of his harebrained plans will ever be implemented at full scale.  Though a lot of the RW in the US has had their wet dream of shrinking the federal government and giving states more autonomy (and no money).  This could happen to some degree.  One of their dreams is to eliminate income tax entirely and run the fed on a sales tax.  As nutty at that is, it has a shiny surface appeal.  

I learned this splendid N American expression through a Canadian negotiator's commentary on the US/Canada trade talks, when Trump was in office before. A journalist texted this guy to ask how it was going and got a 2 two word reply: "goat rodeo". Invited to elaborate, he responded: "This. Is. A. Total. Goat rodeo."  

Very Canadian. 😁 

[toucana]

3 hours ago, exchemist said:

Yup, the goat rodeo has begun already, earlier than even I thought it would.

I’ll be fascinated to see what happens when they try to deport 2m (or is it more?) immigrants. To where? Will they dump the population of a large city, just across the Mexican border, without any agreement with the Mexican government? What will happen then?

Then the tariffs will kick in, raising prices of imported goods and provoking a trade war on all sides that will cripple exports.

Meanwhile, that 6-cylinder nutcase Kennedy will be charge of the nation’s health - a dead bear in every hospital, perhaps?

 Musk will try to sack a third of the nation’s civil servants, presumably starting with those responsible for protecting the public from unscrupulous business practices and then going on to disband the Dept of Education. That should lead to a better informed electorate, right?

 Trump will pardon himself for any crimes he is convicted of, if he can’t get the supine Supreme Court to overturn the verdicts.

Putin is right: the USA is in decline. And so is democracy.

 

Trump has nominated Matt Gaetz - yes that Matt Gaetz - as his pick for Attorney General.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/13/politics/matt-gaetz-attorney-general/index.html

A guy who was recently under both criminal and Congressional Ethics Committee investigations for Mann Act offences involving the sexual trafficking of minors across state borders, and a 'legislator' who wants to abolish both the DOJ and the FBI.

[CharonY]

19 minutes ago, toucana said:

 

Trump has nominated Matt Gaetz - yes that Matt Gaetz - as his pick for Attorney General.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/13/politics/matt-gaetz-attorney-general/index.html

A guy who was recently under both criminal and Congressional Ethics Committee investigations for Mann Act offences involving the sexual trafficking of minors across state borders, and a 'legislator' who wants to abolish both the DOJ and the FBI.

Perfect pick on so many levels. I am just glad that Hannibal Lecter wasn't a real person.

[iNow]

And Tulsi Gabbard will head US Intelligence. 

[toucana]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

And Tulsi Gabbard will head US Intelligence. 

A ventriloquist’s dummy and полезные дураки or ‘Useful idiot’ for Vladimir Putin, who was outed in 2018 by Hillary Clinton as someone the Kremlin was thought to be  grooming as a third-party candidate and proxy.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/18/politics/hillary-clinton-tulsi-gabbard/index.html

Edited 23 hours ago by toucana
corrected typo 'Hillary Clinton'

[CharonY]

5 hours ago, iNow said:

And Tulsi Gabbard will head US Intelligence. 

Haha, just perfect. Couldn't get an actual Russian, it seems. Not unexpected, but still.

[toucana]

9 hours ago, CharonY said:

Perfect pick on so many levels. I am just glad that Hannibal Lecter wasn't a real person.

So, Matt Gaetz resigns from Congress on the back of his AG pick by Trump just two days before a *Republican* controlled Congressional House Ethics Committee was due to vote on releasing a highly damaging report on its investigation into accusations of sex-trafficking and drug abuse against him on Friday. Funny that ..

[swansont]

'This process includes the replacement of all first-rate talents, regardless of their political loyalties, with crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is the best guarantee of their loyalty.' (The Origins of Totalitarianism, renewed version, A Harvest Book New York, 1976, 339)

I think Trump’s recent picks qualify. He’s pushing to see what the GOP senate will accept, and I doubt there’s enough GOP backbone among the non-MAGA-diehards to reject all of them. There aren’t many well-known loyalists left around, so I expect later picks will be more obscure names

—-

I don’t think there’s anything keeping someone on the ethics committee from entering the report into the congressional record

[CharonY]

I was thinking a little bit about what (up to this point) has been the biggest damage done by this new form for right-wing populism. And the element I keep getting back to is the full erosion of trust in institutions.

While folks might have distrusted politicians, which is a good thing in terms of checks and balances, it has become a lack of trust into virtually anything, be it media, public health agencies, scientists and so on. This created a situation where anyone could appeal and win over folks, and especially giving algorithms and their companies outsized power over the public.

[iNow]

2 hours ago, swansont said:

He’s pushing to see what the GOP senate will accept

Part of it too is likely to get these obvious boneheads rejected primarily so their far more dangerous sleeper choices will get approved as seemingly saner fallbacks. 

50 minutes ago, CharonY said:

the full erosion of trust in institutions

Part of Putins playbook for decades and aligns with the rise of strongmen authoritarians globally 

51 minutes ago, CharonY said:

lack of trust into virtually anything, be it media, public health agencies, scientists and so on

See also the wedge strategy used to combat claims cigarettes cause cancer then used with great effectiveness by oil companies in context of climate change denial. 

[CharonY]

4 minutes ago, iNow said:

Part of Putins playbook for decades and aligns with the rise of strongmen authoritarians globally 

I do think that this is also, and perhaps primarily driven by societal inclinations. Malicious actors exploit it, but it only works because folks were already half way there.

 

5 minutes ago, iNow said:

See also the wedge strategy used to combat claims cigarettes cause cancer then used with great effectiveness by oil companies in context of climate change denial. 

Indeed, though one could argue that over time (at least for cigarettes) evidence was amassed and eventually became a fact in public consciousness. In this current information climate, I am not sure whether that would happen anymore.

[iNow]

6 minutes ago, CharonY said:

In this current information climate, I am not sure whether that would happen anymore.

Which brings us back to our exchange about getting news from NPR versus TikTok and X. Those getting information from the latter overwhelmingly voted Trump whereas those getting news from traditional sources overwhelmingly went Harris. ✌️

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, iNow said:

Which brings us back to our exchange about getting news from NPR versus TikTok and X. Those getting information from the latter overwhelmingly voted Trump whereas those getting news from traditional sources overwhelmingly went Harris. ✌️

By this time next year, there will be no NPR or PBS.

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

By this time next year, there will be no NPR or PBS.

You might be right about that. My guess is he may try to get the NY Times shut down. He's hated it for years. He can almost bankrupt it by court cases, tax investigations and so on  - and then see it sold off to one of the tech bros: maybe Musk, or a milquetoast like Bezos. That will be a warning to the MSNBCs, CNNs etc. to play ball or face the consequences.

[swansont]

kakistocracy    kak·i·sto·cra·cy

government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state

(from Google dictionary)