Indeed, the cold-turkey effects are already starting to be more visible. Until November traffic here had recovered to > the pre COVID levels, but since then it has dropped considerably, enough to notice, and we're only a few weeks into this.
The interesting bit to me is that everybody just plays along. Rather than that he gets thrown off his perch and replaced by someone sane. Trump is an idiot, no doubt about it. But all those that voted for him and that continue to enable him are the bigger idiots, and if they're not idiots they are probably hoping to profit from the chaos he's creating.
That's because chaos is a good time to do some grabbing. You could see this during the downfall of the former Soviet Union, which in spite of being dirt poor still made a handful of families obscenely wealthy. Now imagine being able to do a similar resource grab on the scale of the modern United States.
Trump 1, COVID, Trump 2, the Russian war on Ukraine, AI and a couple of more wars... It's a miracle things haven't gone further down - yet. But I'm really wondering how long our social constructs will be able to withstand this kind of concerted assault.
> Trump is an idiot, no doubt about it. But all those that voted for him and that continue to enable him are the bigger idiots, and if they're not idiots they are probably hoping to profit from the chaos he's creating.
For all the assurances that the US military is an army with the ultimate task to protect the Constitution and bound to democratic principles, they sure seem to view the Commander in Chief as the sole authority, even if his orders are evidently illegal or undermine the democratic system (because Congress was bypassed).
As the war is currently going, I'd have expected at least some generals or officers to refuse orders, not because they suddenly switched sides, but simply because the orders are not democratically legitimized anymore. But nothing like this seems to have happened so far.
Oh, I think that has definitely happened. A lot of very high placed career military have been fired recently and even if they're not saying much the fact that it happened speaks volumes. These were people with decades of service. I think at least some fraction of those firings was because of refusal to carry out certain orders.
What they should do is speak out, but possibly their future income depends on not speaking out.
Ok so who is the sane replacement you have in mind? Cackles and Autopen?
I’m reminded of many conversations during the last Indian election. “Modi is terrible. Anyone else would be better.” “Such as…?” “Uhhhh” Unsurprisingly despite all his many blunders and missteps, Modi won. (“But NoT bY As MuCh” was the subsequent cope.)
Nationally, Democrats are viewed even more unfavorably than Republicans. Internationally there is no alternative to the US. Maybe one day but not today. So Trump rolls erratically along.
To another point (I’m a three time Trump voter in a solidly blue state fyi) the point of electing him in the first place was to assault “our” (i.e. your) social constructs. The MAGA critique of Trump is he is not being concerted enough.
I'd say JS Bach was one of the fruits of our labor, so were Newton, Einstein and van Gogh.
Olympic Athletes are a combination of luck in the genetics department and a lot of effort, but ultimately do not seem to be sufficient to help the athletes themselves.
Given enough people enough guns and school shootings are inevitable.
Allow a handful of people that grab the economy and all means of production and violence will be the result.
At this point in time it is simply cause and effect, the surprising thing to me is how long it is holding together. But at the rate the economy is being wrecked I fail to see how it will do so for much longer.
Effectively the French elites started the French revolution by being a little bit more greedy than the population would have tolerated. That set off an avalanche of what were effectively a series of mini revolutions ultimately resulting in modern France, which is in many ways unlike any other country in the world. The United States had its war of independence (aided by France, by the way), and then its civil war. But it never had a class war - yet - and this article presages that class war.
It could well be that the small number of rich people that are currently effectively a government outside of the government genuinely believe that their wealth and power insulate them from the consequences of pushing their greed and wealthy to ridiculous levels. But I suspect the author is right in that this is approaching some kind of threshold and I have no way of seeing across the divide, I'm hoping for another France rather than another Somalia.
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