No Stupid Questions

In the short term: Yes. Unless the US military decides to remove a sitting president but that is extremely unlikely.

In the long term: Yes, but also no. Fascism is extremely inefficient and expensive and the US is destroying its own economy and pushing away all of its allies and former trade partners. Things will get very rough but it will not last forever. There will be a lot of rebuilding that needs to be done.

Unfortunately this has been a long time coming. The United States has never really been united and it was only a matter of time before another possible civil war loomed on the horizon.

The funny things is americans were like "We need guns to protect ourselves from tyranny." But of course, the ones with the guns are precisely the ones siding with tyrants.

I hate to say it, but yes. Everything we've predicted from trump has come true thus far.

The insurrection was predicted

The migrant camps were predicted

The ice raids were predicted

Roe v Wade was predicted

~~Selling~~ Giving Ukraine to Russia was predicted

Banning DEI was predicted

The list goes on but more importantly these were all seen as hypothetical worst case scenarios. We should stop treating the next steps like they are hypothetical. America has fallen, and civil war is next.

Former presidents at least recognized they had the responsibility to take care of both the people who voted for them and the people who didn't. Trump only sees the people who voted for him and the people he needs to make an example of.

I hate to say it, but the DNC is weak and won't help us anymore. I supported Kamala like hell and believed that they could figure it out but they just don't and won't.

I'm not a violent person. I hate the thought that I'd ever be forced into a situation where I need to either learn how to fight or die (because right now I'm SOL). I never wanted to find myself rooting for assassins and feeling like the world would be better off of certain people were dead. I'd rather believe the world would be better off if certain people were alive.

But all I see in the future is a federal coup backed by sycophants in the Senate and supreme Court that then collides with the governors of blue states who won't bend the knee.

TL;Dr if we don't go full dictator, we are going to civil war, and we deserve it.

Yes.

The amount of harm already done to your country by Trump and Musk is immeasurable, and will take a generation or more to recover from.

The amount of harm done to your standing in the world is equally bad. The world was skeptical after Trump's first term fucked over the rest of the world, but we were hopeful that maybe the US had learned their lesson?

Nope. They elected a fascist. They RE-elected a known fascist, felon, rapist, idiot-child, psychopath. Worse, they bolstered Musk to get into a seat of unauthorized and unimaginable power.

When Trump announced his idiotic tarrifs, Canada collectively said "that's it - we're divorcing." When he pulled back on the idea for 30 days, Canada said "don't care, still divorcing."

Trump is following the exact model of Hitler, and it's only a matter of time until he actually invades either Greenland or Canada if he's not stopped. The USA has to collapse into ruin and rebuild from scratch before anyone is going to trust them again.

In the short term, yes.

If trump remains in office after this term, absolutely yes.

If we get a different admin - not just another republicrat trump clone - they’re going to have to spend an inordinate amount of time fixing all of trump’s fuckups. One of which should be restricting any wannabe monarch’s ability to rule by decree in the US. So yeah, we’re fucked, and we’re gonna have to spend a lot of effort getting unfucked, digging ourselves out of an oligarchy hole, instead of moving forward from a continually advancing starting point.

E: allies are already turning away from us, politically and economically. They’ll form new alliances and relationships that the US doesn’t get to be a part of, or at least won’t get a leading position in. Same with things like soft power from international aid. China will step in, maybe the EU or even Russia. We lose the goodwill, stability, and any economic “ins” we could have achieved with that soft power. We’re fucked in lots of ways.

We live in a criminally stupid country but Musk is doing his best to show everyone that being a billionaire should be a crime.

Edit: the tweet is fake, btw

Well, it depends on how you define the USA. You mean the Republic of the United States of America? Yeah, no, that's dead. It is currently dead. It died when the SCOTUS made the president functionally beyond criminal prosecution, and everyone has just kind of been playing weekend at Bernie's since then (though the Trump administration is dropping the pretense pretty quickly). Don't get me wrong, it's been dying for a long time, but that was the exact moment it was declared dead. No matter what happens, the republic as we knew it is dead and is not coming back. Nobody believes in the constitution anymore; among our leadership there are only either those who are in a hurry to destroy it, or those who are unwilling to defend it. I think a lot of the American populace haven't sincerely believed in the constitution as an effective charter for governance for a while, too. Imo, we're less than a year from the legislature being dissolved in some fashion of another, unless they just hang on like some ceremonial vestigial organ.

What we get to decide now is what comes next. That's what nobody's sure about. Are we going to have a middle-east style theocratic government? Italian fascism? Maybe the military defends the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic and we re-form the republic? German fascism? Neofeudalism? Peaceful balkanization? Hot balkanization? COULD IT BE?! BY GOD, it's the ghost of Lenin with a steel chair! Or maybe we'll get something entirely new? It's frankly impossible to guess while we're living in it. I think cold balkanization is both the most likely and most optimistic scenario. IN THE MEANWHILE, yeah, you're still going to see all the window trimmings of the USA; the maps will still say USA, we'll at least nominally still have the things that make America America (like the constitution still sitting in its fancy protective case, as though the GOP didn't just wipe Trump's ass with it), it'll all look weirdly normal while they make the republic's corpse do a funny little jig.

The silver lining here is that with now 8 years of abolishing civil/workers rights, technology and social development being suppressed and Americans falling so objectively behind in most measurable fields, hopefully Americans can get over their blatantly false sense of exceptionalism and become comfortable just being another part of the world.

If we can't get enough people protesting and taking action, yes. The window is closing.

Just wanted to say: react now. Their actions will slowly get normalized and it will be a much harder fight once culture starts working against you

Not even close to being done. Right now the biggest changes are a reduction in non law enforcement/immigration government staff and contracts being paid out. The biggest thing coming down the pipeline is Trump clearly wants to free himself of the courts and congress. But it's far too early to say he's won that. And even that wouldn't be the end of things. In the US the states have a lot of autonomy. They are actually the ones responsible for holding elections. So let's look at a worst case scenario, where he tries to say we shouldn't have elections.

The first thing that's going to happen is all the blue states are going to tell him to fuck off and hold them anyways. The second thing that's going to happen is some red states will also do so, although they'll likely be less coarse with the language. Then a few more red states will be pressured into having elections by massive protests of people angry they can't vote anymore. Then while Trump is having a fit because there's no real way for him to stop this process, we get to learn about a fun feature of the US Congress. There is no law requiring it to meet in D.C. Trump would likely try to claim whatever is left over is the real congress, but without having been elected the Constitution is clear that those states forfeit representation until they hold an election.

So we'd be left with a House that is majority anti-Trump, after all, he tried to make them irrelevant at best. In the Senate we'd likely be looking at something of an even split in 2026. There's probably 5-7ish red states that would hold elections anyways and combined with the blue states and senate democrats leaving DC they would be able to convene elsewhere with a majority to declare rules of the Senate without Trump's interference. The new Congress would likely swiftly vote to impeach Trump. The remnants of the old one would protest this but they don't have any legal power. Only the backing of Trump and propaganda power.

This leaves Vance with a choice. This would be by design because our democratic party leaders only appear to be stupid when convenient. Vance can throw his weight behind Trump and get impeached himself or he can order Trump removed from the White House thus acknowledging the primacy of Congress. If he chooses the first option then Congress simply repeats the process and the presidency goes to the next person in line, the speaker of the house. Yes, Congress can effectively vote one of it's own members into the White House at any time. This president then declares an emergency and orders the military to secure DC. The military loves process, and loves the Constitution. It is highly likely this order would be followed.

However all would not be well, it's not a fairy tale. It would likely be the start of an American Insurgency that would take decades to root out. It would certainly be the end of the US as the hegemonic world power. Our Aircraft Carriers would rust in port and our projection of soft and hard power over the world would wither. But we would still be here, just much diminished and never the same in our lifetimes. This is certainly scary but if we all do our part this is as close as we would come to losing our democracy. Far more insidious is the threat of slowly revoking the right to vote. They'd start by raising the age, then by requiring you to not have any debt of specific kinds, then by making harsh punishments for illegally voting, and other such things until voting is effectively restricted to land owners. Certain factions would like to get it to white christian male landowners but that's probably a decade or more down that line if at all.

Notes -

Why wouldn't he just send in the military?

2028 isn't enough time to purge and train enough people to make the military loyal to him. He would be mid project on that at best and the states could effectively counter him into a stand still with their national guard. This would make many people stay home, but the determined voters are likely to be anti-trump because that's the change incentive. Loyalists will feel like the elections don't matter.

What's stopping SCOTUS from declaring the elections invalid?

The states. SCOTUS is only relevant as long as they have reputation of being an impartial arbiter of Constitutional Law. That opinion is already in the trash heap. They could not make such a decision today, or after 4 more years unless they spend the next 4 years setting themselves as at least a mild opposition in a long game. But they haven't shown that kind of patience.

What happens in Trump surrounds himself with thousands of armed loyalists in DC?

We select a new capital and wish him the best of luck dealing with DC. There is no law requiring DC be the Capital. The Constitution doesn't even require the states to give up a district, it only provides the legal possibility. There's no need to engage in that kind of a conflict. Such a group would be arrested bit by bit by Maryland, Virginia, and Federal authorities until it could be resolved swiftly.

Intensionally, the USA is going to lose its status as a hyperpower. Europe is going to decouple from American defense policy to the point where I can see American military bases close in Europe. An anti-Chinese military alliance will function with or without the USA anchored by India and Japan, but I see that force yielding some territory to China in the near term. There will probably be an increase in the number of wars in general as regions go into conflict without an American threat to maintain borders. Nothing the USA does is likely going to fix this.

Domestically, the administration is the greatest threat to the republic since the Civil War. If Trump is able to be pushed out in the future, there is going to need to be a major re-evaluation of how the American federal government works. This is going to require constitutional changes and the removal of major powers that the President has collected as the federal government grew.

When it's all done and dusted, I hope it's the beginning of the end for corporate capitalism as we know it. Allowing them to become that big and powerful through corruption that they literally think that they can control the world, is insane.

This is happening because of greed.

I mean, don't be so defeatist. Thats what they want you to feel.

We still have a last line of defence: Federalism.

We'd just have to hope the Democratic governors have the spine to stand up against Federal tyranny when the time comes, when they use the military against the people. And it's up to the people in the 50 State's National Guard, and law enforcement, and the military to decide between the constitution and fascism.

As for the federal firings, that's not something that state governments can do anything about, so that's unstoppable. But if you are talking about soldiers on the streets nazi style, probably not happening yet. We still have a bit of time to change course.

I'll tell you this: if the 2026 midterms elections is cancelled, or if republicans win both houses, there's probably no hope (since the opposition usually gains during midterms). That's just civil war, and you'll have to hope the pro-constitution side wins the civil war.

TLDR: You'll have to hope elections still exist, and hope that democrats win in 2026, hopefully both houses. And also they'll have to win 2028 with a trifecta.

And States run elections btw, the federal government will literally have to deploy troops to stop elections. And the governors can try to use the National Guard to blockcade federal troops from entering.

No, I don't think so. Large portions of government like the CDC, USAID, FEMA and the IRS will take 20 years to rebuild, but the dialed in states like the West Coast will probably be largely fine. It's just such an unnecessary waste of time, resources, and human lives.

Apparently some of us don't remember our values unless they get their mouth curbstomped every 70 years and remember some serious pain and suffering. Then the majority of people start voting for people that weren't dropped as babies and we will go back to a democracy again. Fuckin idiots.

In the meantime, enjoy the unencumbered spread of diseases like measles and HIV, preventable economic meltdowns from disassembling shit like the Fed, SEC and IRS and infrastructure stagnation due to gutting tax infrastructure and the firing of educated and experienced public workers that keep out road, bridges and internet working to say nothing of shit like sewers, water, power, rail, aviation, etc.

And just think, all of this rebuilding could have been prevented with one single vote for a normal candidate. We could have had 20 years of relative progress under our belt instead. 😊

It's never over.

Even the worst dictatorship can collapse. They get internally couped until the dictator learns to purge anyone capable of challenging them, then human mortality fixes that dictator and the government collapses

It's not good though. The best time to fix it was ages ago before Reagan. The second best time is right now before the police state is firmly in place

Going from decline to fall. To be fair it took Rome 200 years or so I'm sure the US will limp on for a while yet. But it won't ever be what it was again.

Yes.

In the short term not much will change and no one will react. By the time they want to react, they'll play into a fascist crackdown.

Look into the Business Plot. This is basically the result of a century of planning between business interests and religious fanatics with too much money.

As long as capitalism is propagandized as a good thing, civilization will continue to face this issue of the few exploiting the many.

Do you believe every human deserves the same rights and dignities? It's not possible to make a cell phone without relying on slave labor in the supply chains.

Profit is unpaid labor. As long as we normalize giving at the profits to those that already have everything, civilisations will continue to implode until one makes a mistake of such hubris everyone dies. Look at PFAS. One day we will unleash something we can't contain and we'll be dead before we can detect it or treat it.

Our species simply will not survive because we're too eager to shit where we sleep just so we don't have to walk all the way to the bathroom.

It won’t end without armed conflict

Fascists don’t understand anything else

Centuries to build

Weeks to destroy.

Good luck.

Short answer? Yes. Long answer? Absolutely.

I heard there was a mentor coming to fix this soon....sorry, I apologize. I mean to say Meteor. Chances of landing up my own ass have increased once more. I probably won't feel it so I'm not too worried about it.

In a sense it is done. That sense is being a beacon of progress. All presidents before Trump understood the relationship America had with the world as being a world power. While there always was a conservative voice in America, conservative presidents were always able to mask self interest under the flag of progress, bringing democracy, peace and free markets. Now ultraconservative fascist are no longer masking, Trump and Musk are literally not smart enough to understand. The USA played a very important role in the world order and the current administration is basically giving that up.

Trump and Musk, because they really aren't smart (i can't stress this enough, they lack the mental capacity), are not considering the value of that role, the services the US provides. They only think about the value of things and of money. More rockets, tarifs on goods, expenditure... And see these as things along which progress is measured.

While that does, to a small extent, captures progress. It forgets the foundations of progress, peace, education, financial security, social cohesion, to name a few. Sorry, i say forget... But really what i should be saying is dismantling. They are also clueless about the value of services and the service economy. Which is, or has become, another measure of progress.

Anyway the point is, the US can't maintain their position in the world order. They can't maintain a government that understands their responsibility in that order. They abandoned their classic role without providing the world with a new/better one.

The US has been degraded to a trade partner.

It's telling that nowhere in this thread there's mention of the US demolishing it's relationship with its most important ally, Europe.

The US is a lost cause, nationally and globally. It might save it's state, but repairing a (already wobbly) international reputation will take decades.

Yes, and we knew this would be the outcome the second he won the election. I'm staying in the U.S. because my life is worthless anyway and I'd prefer death in glorious revolution than survival, but anyone who values their life should have started their plans to leave in August 2024 when it became obvious he was going to sieze control.