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> The cynic in me thinks that the US is going to roll over and take this fascist shake down. The optimist in me thinks that the people will rise up with a resou

by csa 2y ago

> The cynic in me thinks that the US is going to roll over and take this fascist shake down. The optimist in me thinks that the people will rise up with a resounding NO and do something about it. Right now I'm not sure which I believe. At this point, almost certainly the former. 1. Most Trump supporters do not think that there is a problem. 2. “Regular people” — that is, the folks who don’t track news — won’t notice any problems in their day-to-day lives until after said shakedown has been completed. The only way large swathes of people will demand action is if they are hit hard in the wallets in an immediate and clear way (e.g., rapid price increases to one or more critical goods or services) or if a critical process (e.g., social security checks) gets disrupted. I’m not sure the current types of changes will reach that level.

nerdponx 2y ago
I don't know why you're being downvoted. > 1. Most Trump supporters do not think that there is a problem. Talk to any conservative -- even people who are/were skeptical of Trump -- or browse any conservative-leaning social media. It's clear that the people who voted for Trump fully understood what they voted for: they wanted what's happening. Project 2025 is a good thing in the eyes of many. Maybe they think politicizing the whole executive branch is a little distasteful, but in the eyes of literally millions of Americans, it's a means to a well-justified and long-awaited end.
- csa 2y ago
  > Maybe they think politicizing the whole executive branch is a little distasteful, but in the eyes of literally millions of Americans, it's a means to a well-justified and long-awaited end. This is a very tight and succinct summary of many conversations I’ve had with conservative family and acquaintances. > I don't know why you're being downvoted. The votes on my comment are going up and down like a yo-yo. I’m pretty sure it’s because I used the term “regular people”, and I used it in quotes. I get the sense that some people are reading more into that phrase than I intended.
- WgaqPdNr7PGLGVW 2y ago
  > Maybe they think politicizing the whole executive branch is a little distasteful They believe it has already been politicized by people who hate them.
  - nerdponx 2y ago
    That's a great point as well. "They've been doing it to us for decades, what's happening now isn't any worse". The Project 2025 document is really interesting along those lines as well. It's close to 1000 pages, but you can skim pretty much any section that isn't about the military and get the idea. Politicizing the executive branch is an explicitly stated goal, over and over. And furthermore, the push to disband the department of education is specifically an overly political, not because it's ineffective in its mission, but because it's "a one-stop shop for the woke education cartel" -- and yes that is a direct quote.
- leptons 2y ago
  One thing conservatives are famously not good at is anticipating the consequences of their actions. What could possibly go wrong with immediately deporting all the people who harvest our crops?
  - DecoySalamander 2y ago
    But what if they are replaced by government workers who are made redundant? It might just balance out.
    - leptons 2y ago
      I'm not sure how a person working a desk job for the government suddenly being told to work long hours in hot fields picking crops is going to work out. And if you hadn't noticed, most people working for the government don't live in the middle of farmlands or anywhere near them. I'm not sure how you can think this could work out at all. Your comment also tells me that this was never about immigrants taking our jobs. You seem to be living in a right-wing fantasy world that really doesn't exist. Things are going to get really bad in the country with this administration, the first two weeks have been extremely messy. No, these policies are definitely not going to lower the price of anything - we're on track for wild inflation with these plans. The leopards are going to be well fed though!
thinkingtoilet 2y ago
These "regular people" that you seem to condescendingly speak about absolutely notice it at the pump and at the grocery store. They aren't mindless robots.
- TylerE 2y ago
  Boy are those folks gonna get what they voted for… Price of eggs dropped yet?
  - technothrasher 2y ago
    I just had a follow up conversation with a lady at work who had said she was voting for Trump because things like eggs were too expensive. Her comment about egg prices now was that she didn't understand why liberals were saddling Trump with egg prices, because the president can't control things like that. She literally did a complete 180 on the topic seemingly without any self awareness. I don't know how to reach people like that. I honestly don't.
    - nyc_data_geek1 2y ago
      I fear there is no reaching some. Orwell wrote about this in 1984 (and also, incidentally, fought fascists on the ground during the Spanish Civil War): "To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."
- csa 2y ago
  > These "regular people" that you seem to condescendingly speak about There was zero condescension in my tone or intent. I put “regular people” in quotes simply because I think most people who do follow the news absolutely don’t realize that the vast majority of people don’t. A simple litmus test for this is to ask random people you meet outside of your personal social and professional circles (e.g., the front desk person at the gym, a cashier at a grocery store, a rideshare driver… whatever) a simple question like “Who are our US senators?” or “What is the NIH?” I’ve done this, and the sentiment was largely “don’t know, don’t care”. This isn’t a criticism. It’s just an observation that some issues that some folks on HN care about (e.g., details about how lesser known parts of the government function — for example, what’s happening at the NIH and NSF) just aren’t on the radar for large swathes of the population. > absolutely notice it at the pump and at the grocery store. They aren't mindless robots. I think we agree on this, right? And my point is that price changes for most things won’t hit immediately. 1. There have been delays in most of the tariffs. 2. The impact of some tariffs will take longer to hit than others. Fresh food will be fast. Goods with longer shelf lives canned goods, alcohol, and prepared foods might take a while.
tremendoussss 2y ago
[flagged]
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  > How does a government become more fascist by spending less money and having less "employees"? Fascism isn't a spending level (and because corporatism is an element of fascism and blurs the lines between public and private institutions supporting the governing ideology, the level of resources that are formally in government is particularly irrelevant to fascism.) Also, employees are countable individual entities and not an undifferentiated mass, so fewer, not less.
robbiewxyz 2y ago
From what I gather, life for most of these "regular people" in Germany was still very much in the tolerable range until well into WWII. This was a very weird realization and one that left me pretty sad. Edit to clarify: I also mean no condescension toward "regular people".
- csa 2y ago
  > From what I gather, life for most of these "regular people" types in Germany was still very much in the tolerable range until well into WWII. Correct. I’ve heard some harrowing stories about the moment of realization straight from the mouths of some of these people. Edit: To be clear, I’m referring to my family and their friends who lived through it.
  - pizlonator 2y ago
    > I’ve heard some harrowing stories about the moment of realization straight from the mouths of some of these people. I’d love to know more.
    - csa 2y ago
      > I’d love to know more. Probably not news, but here are a few big ones that I remember from our conversations: 1. Family member lived in a rural area. They could see the train line that ran between two major cities. I can’t remember the exact order of events (e.g., construction), but at some point they noticed packed trains turning off the main tracks to go to a facility. Packed trains went in, and empty trains came out. At first they didn’t think anything of it… just resettlement stuff or war stuff or whatever. But then it continued. And continued. The rumors started. Everything was hush hush. Nobody dared to ask the authorities. Only later did they learn that it was a concentration camp and what actually happened there. That one kind of blew my mind… they had no idea about what was going on except vague rumors, most of which were wrong. 2. One family member had access to privileged information about the war (in the later stages of the war). One bit of info they knew was about causalities, and how certain assignments were less survivable than others. The propaganda machine made it seem like it was noble to go fight the war that would inevitably be won, but this person knew with a reasonable degree of mathematical estimation that some of the kids being sent off weren’t likely to come back. They said it was tough to look those parents, especially mothers, in the eyes when they made some comment about hoping their kid came home safely. My family member knew that these parents would likely never see their son again, and all for what was looking like a lost and/or questionable war effort that was still playing on nationalist sentiments. 3. This really isn’t that interesting, but… The propaganda late in the war made it seem like Germans in general and the troops specifically were eating well with an abundance of good food, while people who actually grew the food had to do things like use sawdust and straw as filler in their bread. They had a long list of accommodations that they told me that they made so that they didn’t feel hungry, and I don’t remember them all. The cool thing is that there were ways for the rural folks to get access to food beyond the rations. Sometimes they could sneak some extra food to the city-dwelling family members, but the folks in the cities seemed to have it tougher. They were sort of bitter about how the food situation got progressively worse as the war progressed as well as the total disconnect from reality that the propaganda was presenting. Note that these were stories that were told to me decades ago about stuff that had happened many decades before then. I’m sure that some stories were embellished while others were muted. I’m also sure that some of the details were “lost in translation” — either via my mediocre German, their mediocre English, or the limits of language assistance that some of the bilingual folks provided. I don’t really feel like I did these stories justice.
spacemanspiff01 2y ago
I am moving all of my assets to cash. Maybe no one else cares, but I do, and I would rather invest in a functional democracy. Never know, if enough people divest , people might give a shit. But I'm not holding my breath.

by csa 2y ago

nerdponx 2y ago

I don't know why you're being downvoted. > 1. Most Trump supporters do not think that there is a problem. Talk to any conservative -- even people who are/were skeptical of Trump -- or browse any conservative-leaning social media. It's clear that the people who voted for Trump fully understood what they voted for: they wanted what's happening. Project 2025 is a good thing in the eyes of many. Maybe they think politicizing the whole executive branch is a little distasteful, but in the eyes of literally millions of Americans, it's a means to a well-justified and long-awaited end.

csa 2y ago
> Maybe they think politicizing the whole executive branch is a little distasteful, but in the eyes of literally millions of Americans, it's a means to a well-justified and long-awaited end. This is a very tight and succinct summary of many conversations I’ve had with conservative family and acquaintances. > I don't know why you're being downvoted. The votes on my comment are going up and down like a yo-yo. I’m pretty sure it’s because I used the term “regular people”, and I used it in quotes. I get the sense that some people are reading more into that phrase than I intended.
WgaqPdNr7PGLGVW 2y ago
> Maybe they think politicizing the whole executive branch is a little distasteful They believe it has already been politicized by people who hate them.
- nerdponx 2y ago
  That's a great point as well. "They've been doing it to us for decades, what's happening now isn't any worse". The Project 2025 document is really interesting along those lines as well. It's close to 1000 pages, but you can skim pretty much any section that isn't about the military and get the idea. Politicizing the executive branch is an explicitly stated goal, over and over. And furthermore, the push to disband the department of education is specifically an overly political, not because it's ineffective in its mission, but because it's "a one-stop shop for the woke education cartel" -- and yes that is a direct quote.
leptons 2y ago
One thing conservatives are famously not good at is anticipating the consequences of their actions. What could possibly go wrong with immediately deporting all the people who harvest our crops?
- DecoySalamander 2y ago
  But what if they are replaced by government workers who are made redundant? It might just balance out.
  - leptons 2y ago
    I'm not sure how a person working a desk job for the government suddenly being told to work long hours in hot fields picking crops is going to work out. And if you hadn't noticed, most people working for the government don't live in the middle of farmlands or anywhere near them. I'm not sure how you can think this could work out at all. Your comment also tells me that this was never about immigrants taking our jobs. You seem to be living in a right-wing fantasy world that really doesn't exist. Things are going to get really bad in the country with this administration, the first two weeks have been extremely messy. No, these policies are definitely not going to lower the price of anything - we're on track for wild inflation with these plans. The leopards are going to be well fed though!

thinkingtoilet 2y ago

These "regular people" that you seem to condescendingly speak about absolutely notice it at the pump and at the grocery store. They aren't mindless robots.

TylerE 2y ago
Boy are those folks gonna get what they voted for… Price of eggs dropped yet?
- technothrasher 2y ago
  I just had a follow up conversation with a lady at work who had said she was voting for Trump because things like eggs were too expensive. Her comment about egg prices now was that she didn't understand why liberals were saddling Trump with egg prices, because the president can't control things like that. She literally did a complete 180 on the topic seemingly without any self awareness. I don't know how to reach people like that. I honestly don't.
  - nyc_data_geek1 2y ago
    I fear there is no reaching some. Orwell wrote about this in 1984 (and also, incidentally, fought fascists on the ground during the Spanish Civil War): "To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."
csa 2y ago
> These "regular people" that you seem to condescendingly speak about There was zero condescension in my tone or intent. I put “regular people” in quotes simply because I think most people who do follow the news absolutely don’t realize that the vast majority of people don’t. A simple litmus test for this is to ask random people you meet outside of your personal social and professional circles (e.g., the front desk person at the gym, a cashier at a grocery store, a rideshare driver… whatever) a simple question like “Who are our US senators?” or “What is the NIH?” I’ve done this, and the sentiment was largely “don’t know, don’t care”. This isn’t a criticism. It’s just an observation that some issues that some folks on HN care about (e.g., details about how lesser known parts of the government function — for example, what’s happening at the NIH and NSF) just aren’t on the radar for large swathes of the population. > absolutely notice it at the pump and at the grocery store. They aren't mindless robots. I think we agree on this, right? And my point is that price changes for most things won’t hit immediately. 1. There have been delays in most of the tariffs. 2. The impact of some tariffs will take longer to hit than others. Fresh food will be fast. Goods with longer shelf lives canned goods, alcohol, and prepared foods might take a while.

tremendoussss 2y ago

[flagged]

dragonwriter 2y ago
> How does a government become more fascist by spending less money and having less "employees"? Fascism isn't a spending level (and because corporatism is an element of fascism and blurs the lines between public and private institutions supporting the governing ideology, the level of resources that are formally in government is particularly irrelevant to fascism.) Also, employees are countable individual entities and not an undifferentiated mass, so fewer, not less.

robbiewxyz 2y ago

From what I gather, life for most of these "regular people" in Germany was still very much in the tolerable range until well into WWII. This was a very weird realization and one that left me pretty sad. Edit to clarify: I also mean no condescension toward "regular people".

csa 2y ago
> From what I gather, life for most of these "regular people" types in Germany was still very much in the tolerable range until well into WWII. Correct. I’ve heard some harrowing stories about the moment of realization straight from the mouths of some of these people. Edit: To be clear, I’m referring to my family and their friends who lived through it.
- pizlonator 2y ago
  > I’ve heard some harrowing stories about the moment of realization straight from the mouths of some of these people. I’d love to know more.
  - csa 2y ago
    > I’d love to know more. Probably not news, but here are a few big ones that I remember from our conversations: 1. Family member lived in a rural area. They could see the train line that ran between two major cities. I can’t remember the exact order of events (e.g., construction), but at some point they noticed packed trains turning off the main tracks to go to a facility. Packed trains went in, and empty trains came out. At first they didn’t think anything of it… just resettlement stuff or war stuff or whatever. But then it continued. And continued. The rumors started. Everything was hush hush. Nobody dared to ask the authorities. Only later did they learn that it was a concentration camp and what actually happened there. That one kind of blew my mind… they had no idea about what was going on except vague rumors, most of which were wrong. 2. One family member had access to privileged information about the war (in the later stages of the war). One bit of info they knew was about causalities, and how certain assignments were less survivable than others. The propaganda machine made it seem like it was noble to go fight the war that would inevitably be won, but this person knew with a reasonable degree of mathematical estimation that some of the kids being sent off weren’t likely to come back. They said it was tough to look those parents, especially mothers, in the eyes when they made some comment about hoping their kid came home safely. My family member knew that these parents would likely never see their son again, and all for what was looking like a lost and/or questionable war effort that was still playing on nationalist sentiments. 3. This really isn’t that interesting, but… The propaganda late in the war made it seem like Germans in general and the troops specifically were eating well with an abundance of good food, while people who actually grew the food had to do things like use sawdust and straw as filler in their bread. They had a long list of accommodations that they told me that they made so that they didn’t feel hungry, and I don’t remember them all. The cool thing is that there were ways for the rural folks to get access to food beyond the rations. Sometimes they could sneak some extra food to the city-dwelling family members, but the folks in the cities seemed to have it tougher. They were sort of bitter about how the food situation got progressively worse as the war progressed as well as the total disconnect from reality that the propaganda was presenting. Note that these were stories that were told to me decades ago about stuff that had happened many decades before then. I’m sure that some stories were embellished while others were muted. I’m also sure that some of the details were “lost in translation” — either via my mediocre German, their mediocre English, or the limits of language assistance that some of the bilingual folks provided. I don’t really feel like I did these stories justice.

spacemanspiff01 2y ago

I am moving all of my assets to cash. Maybe no one else cares, but I do, and I would rather invest in a functional democracy. Never know, if enough people divest , people might give a shit. But I'm not holding my breath.