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Trump only ran to stay out of prison. Now he's ripping the copper out of the walls to get as much money as he can before it all collapses under his ineptitude.
Elon thinks he's gonna be a trillionaire at the top of a technofeudal oligarchy. (He wants to be Arasaka from Cyberpunk but he's gonna have a hard time doing that while all his businesses fail.)
PLEASE let them both end up in the poor house. That'd make me SO happy!
Project 2025. The goal is to remove all tariffs and other limitations against the US.
Canada for instance has laws on antibiotics for dairy, foreign ownership for banks and telcos, various things like that. India has tariffs on everything.
The document outlines crazy things like capital punishment and a border wall, its clearly Trumps handbook. It's all in there.
Simple actually, it's the good-ol American Exceptionalism kool-aid
Europe is socially progressive, and Russia conversely is anti-woke
Good ol meaningless buzzwords to justify any stupid ass idea.
To own the libs
Trump treats his friends in Europe like America usually treats Middle Eastern and African nations.
I'm not a Republican, but I'll bite.
The U.S. is kinda in a bad spot right now. Not just politically but economically as well. Our National Debt is the highest it's ever been. While I'm 100% for taxing Billionaires and their Trillion dollars companies more, by like, a lot, the Billionaires of course don't want that. So they're trying to cut what they can and wheel and deal. Why support Climate Change (French EU thing, I don't remember) acts when you can [pocket the money] use that to pay down debt? The War in Ukraine has unfortunately been drawn out too long for us to stay financially invested in it. Our allies across the sea won't be able to help our country balance our debt when they have Ukraine to worry about as well. So they've decided to put pressure on every external source of revenue while cutting what they can without getting lynched.
Let's talk about Canada and Mexico, but first, a bit of H I S T O R Y. Back in the 90s or 00s the Clinton Administration implemented NAFTA. The agreement sounded good on paper: Strength our border countries. Lifts us all up by giving all the countries jobs, more opportunity, more demand. While outsourcing our manual labor we can focus on the future: Technology! Hindsight is 20/20 though. Why not move our business to a country where we pay lower wages and will end up with higher profits for future investments (like yachts)? Why not get cheaper parts instead of paying the U.S. prices? A ton of manual labor jobs were lost, and many cities (car manufacturing cities, steel cities, etc.) simply never recovered. NAFTA stayed in place more or less until Trump Trumped it into the USMCA in 2020. That gets renegotiated in 2026 with all 3 countries either coming to an agreement or dissolving the agreement.
From all accounts, NAFTA certainly seemed harmful to the American industry at the time, but can that industry recover, and should it? Personally, I don't think so, but they seem to think so. So, from my point of view, the reason they're alienating allies is to extort them for money to help pay down the National Debt and hopefully grow back American industries lost over 2 decades ago.
The ''aid'' we send to Ukraine is the US goverment using US money to buy US products and have the military drop them off. Those millions we send to Ukraine is money we have and keep in our economy, why conservatives are so fucking stupid they can't figure this out is infuriating. Yes. Saw off you legs to lose weight. You'll lose SO much.
It's a bit more complicated than that. We're not just sending missiles, some of it is logistical, funding, training - some of it doesn't just come back into our economy, and not in full. For example, there is a fund in the billions for Ukraine and allies to buy weapons from us on a need by basis - but like not immediately. It has been years, it could be years.
More importantly though a good portion of these funds were out of bounds of the National Budget causing National Debt to grow. Now, I'm not saying Ukraine is the sole reason the National Debt is out of control, it's been a long time coming, but we're peaking. We print more money, the value of the dollar drops, things get more expensive not just national but worldwide since the dollar is an international currency reserve.
American industry at the time, but can that industry recover, and should it? Personally, I don’t think so, but they seem to think so.
I would just say that not everyone is cut out for "advanced" jobs. There is a need for more industrial/mechanical jobs that those of us can occupy and still make a decent living.
I don't mean that as a way to disparage other people, I'm referring to myself and people like me. I'm far too stupid for tech jobs.
You right, I think there's always going to be a need for industrial and mechanics. Like, we're for sure always going to need transport, lumber, steel, infrastructure, logistics, more. When I wrote that I was mostly thinking Steel as we really just don't have as much a need for it as we used to. Like, sure we need to keep up with infrastructure and national security, etc. but we're not at war, we're not expanding as a nation (like big cities) anymore so it'll never recover to times before NAFTA.
That being said, I really do think we should be making automobiles in house which could bring more Steel back, but on the other hand, do we really want more automobiles? Like, drive by any dealership and there always seem to just be an abundance.
I recognize you're doing some form or devils advocate and I appreciate that. I grew up in the ruins of one of those cities and it really helped define my political beliefs. I think it's important to not suddenly frame NAFTA as this wonderful thing just because trump opposes it. There is a real reckoning we need to have as a country when it comes to rebuilding our industrial base. Are tariffs the answer? Almost certainly not, but that doesn't mean that the people asking for them are completely delusional. Trump is capitalizing on a real pain that people are feeling, and have felt for a generation now. I wish we had a proper progressive to reframe the debate. It's not about us vs Canada, it's about the disgustingly wealthy vs everyone else. You don't want people to support tariffs? Then we need real left wing populist arguments.
I know it's stupid. Being right should be good enough. But it's not. We need to be convincing. And not 'republican lite' convincing - more like teddy Roosevelt f'ing come at me unabashed progressivism convincing.
Yeah, I agree I don't think NAFTA was a wholly wonderful thing - a lot of people lost their jobs, had families at the time, and really, it was poor planning to not realize that what happened happened. I think NAFTA had some good ideas, like trying reduce carbon emissions and trying to ensure workers are being taken care of, but I think overall the transition from industry was fumbled.
I honestly have no idea if tariffs are the answer, but if they aren't, it seems like people are going to start to realize the quality in life difference. And I mean, it could have a rubberband effect. History has shown that when conditions get bad, workers revolt, pretty much always. If the country is going to be run like a Corporation trying to recoup costs, what's the percentage before it gets noticeable? Maybe, optimistically, at the end of all this, we can get money out of politics, corporate money specifically, funding transparency, stock? idk about that - stricter rules or something. Then we could actually focus on real things that matter without this weird age of commercial politics.
At the end of the day, I think people of all parties and backgrounds can come together on the idea/conversation to remove money from politics. Having our representation (vote/politician) able to be bought by some billionaire through backchannels (donations, crypto, favors) is simply not fair or in our best interests.
What about a good, strong third party? A green party or a working class party of some sort? It's fully evident neither Reps nor Dems give a single fuck about the working class, they just pretend so they can use them while pocketing the money of the rich and stuffing their wallets. I feel like I'm not the only one who is 100% fed up with the bullshit of both parties and just want an actual party throwing the best candidates based on their policies and hosting proper primary elections so we can choose who tf speaks for us.
It's 2025 ffs. I don't care about the candidates' fashion or their goddamn tours and rallies. You can get the word out there in any number of ways. Engage with your target audience. Your voterbase. Get one of the practically nonexistant parties to step up. I'm tired of dealing with a tug-o-war between two sides of the same goddamn coin. We need a party that will focus on keeping us rooted to the constitutional values and ensuring everyone has access to the rights of the basic human necessities of this century. Let the goddamn donkey and elephant Duke it out over policies neither of them really care about. Idgaf. I just want more goddamn options. Some real fucking options.
Funny you think they're going to actually pay down the debt.
I'm cautiously optimistic. They cut 22 Billion in Social Services. If things keep getting worse, regular people are going to start wondering where that money is going and the veil will be lifted.
Regular people are dumb af they elected that orange shit stain while he spit in our faces.
So I'm not really confident they're gonna connect any dots.
You won't get logical answers to this because there isn't one. Maybe they're just that dumb. Maybe they just want to tank the economy a bit so the rich and gobble up more during the dip. Maybe they just actually love Russia. Maybe they're being secretly black mailed by Russia.
I do think it's a Russia thing. Putin getting America to alienate all of its closest allies, so that it's only Russia left to aid.
Easy answer. The entire Government of Putin is working for shit Kremlin.
fascism must always create more outsiders, must always create more enemies to keep control, to keep things directed.
remember, fascism appropriates genuine upset and the fact that to the privileged, equality feels like persecution. it steers itself by creating enemies to hate. remember: people's lives are genuinely fucking miserable. there is dystopian shit happening. and all of that is really complicated, and if people stopped to think about it for five minutes, they would pull a 1789.
so they just keep adding more enemies, and more derangements like what the qanons call 'baking' but hitler just said was the way everyone should read books, until they live in a totally unhinged fantasy world, and any method of social control must engage with the fantasy.
tl;dr: sacrificing external allies to fuel a persecution complex, keep control, entrench the madness, keep attention off the american elites that were at least rhetorically some of the initial targets.
