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I think the former is most likely. The people are largely unhappy with how things have been and it's unlikely to get materially worse for the majority of people

• mcphage 2y ago
  > it's unlikely to get materially worse for the majority of people in the near term That’s pretty optimistic…
• Dalewyn 2y ago
  >The people are largely unhappy with how things have been This is an understatement to say the least, and the fact it's been denied and even refused by the powers that be until today is why the pendulum has swung as hard as it has. Americans wanted change, and they finally got it with ferocious retribution because it's been held back for so long.
  • lanstin 2y ago
    Like the old Mencken quote: `Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.`
  • pstuart 2y ago
    The sentiment I get in this regards is that people are angry and want to "burn it to the ground", without any thought of what might possibly take its place.
    • kenjackson 2y ago
      The weird thing is these same people will tell you the US is the greatest place on Earth and if you don't like, then leave!
      • allturtles 2y ago
        The real U.S. In these people's minds, the federal government and its millions of employees are a parasite sucking the blood of the real U.S., not a part of it. I will leave analogies as an exercise to the reader.
      • kristjansson 2y ago
        Exactly. Freeways and airports and fallow fields fully paid for. Cheap imports and complete and utter physical security. BLM land to hunt and graze and drill and fell. Rivers that don't catch on fire, not even a little bit. And it would be so much better without the got-damn'd feds.
      • pstuart 2y ago
        They literally worship the flag. “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” ― George Carlin
  • jltsiren 2y ago
    More like Americans repeatedly vote for change, because the change they got four years earlier was too bad. It reminds me of Chile, which keeps oscillating between socialist and conservative presidents every four years.
  • mastersummoner 2y ago
    I'm confused. Are you saying specifically that you think the experiences described in this article are for the good of the country? Or do you think they're an exaggeration/lie.
    • pizlonator 2y ago
      I don’t think that’s what the comment said at all. You’re extrapolating too much. Explaining the pendulum swinging violently because folks didn’t feel heard is not the same thing as saying that it’s a good thing that the pendulum has swung so violently.
      • Dalewyn 2y ago
        I'm a Trump voter (2016, 2020, and 2024) so I obviously find all this a good thing, just for transparency. That said, that is tangential and irrelevant to explaining how and why the pendulum swung back as hard as it did. Trump won his first term in 2016 because Americans were fed up with the Bush+Obama status quo of endless wars and waste. Drain the swamp, fuck the establishment! As the sentiment of the day went; remember Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party? Biden winning 2020 was a sharp rebuke by the powers that be; how dare the people demand change and elect an outsider, how dare the people demand peace and effective government. Biden and Harris's 2024 campaigns likewise were based strictly and ultimately on continuing the status quo; Harris "had no policy" in large part because the "policy" was the status quo. Trump winning again in 2024 with a historic campaign is a sharp rebuke to that, he is the people's retribution for being denied and refused for so long time and time again. For voters like me and us, NASA and the like having their funding slashed and denied is merely collateral damage for a greater and long-awaited cause.
        • tmerse 2y ago
          Trump won his first term in 2016 because Americans were fed up with the Bush+Obama status quo of endless wars and wast Does this include threatening Greenland with military action or does it not count as war if there is little resistance to be expected?
• aqueueaqueue 2y ago
  It just needs something small to be taken away or happen that ignite and capture the collective imagination.
  • jacobgkau 2y ago
    Something small like in-person gatherings for several years in response to a pandemic? Like someone else in the thread claimed was a made-up problem that's only in peoples' heads? It's really interesting seeing how widely varied peoples' definitions of these things are.
    • mastersummoner 2y ago
      The pandemic was a national emergency. Covid was an extremely contagious disease without a lot of existing immunity. The right call was made for the safety of several hundred million Americans. Most other countries made the exact same one.
      • jacobgkau 2y ago
        I wouldn't say most other countries made the exact same call, only because there are plenty of people who think we didn't go far enough. When the comment I was referring to said "Covid response in the US wasn't that bad," I actually wasn't sure whether they were saying the lockdowns weren't that bad or their effectiveness wasn't that bad. (I can kind of assume the former based on the rest of their messaging, but still, there's a range of opinions people had/have about it.)
        • aqueueaqueue 2y ago
          I'm glad to have lived in a country where they had strict lock downs pre-vaccine. I imagine there are funerals I didn't have to go to as a result. But flip side people could claim I was under martial law etc. stripped of my freedoms. I thank NZ for leading the way.
          • 2y ago
• UncleOxidant 2y ago
  The majority of americans aren't paying much attention and aren't going to notice things are off until things have really gone off the rails, but by then it'll be too late. There's also a lot of "It can't happen here" attitude (apparently because we're special or something) which is exactly the kind of conditions that make it more likely to happen.
  • MandieD 2y ago
    Living in Germany quickly made me understand that Germans were not special - as in, did not have some unique weakness that made them particularly susceptible to fascism. The corollary, that Americans did not have some innate virtue that prevented it, took longer to really get through my thick head. American Exceptionalism is a hell of a drug.
• lanstin 2y ago
  The weird spanner in the works is that while people may be unhappy, they are unhappy because of things they believe that aren't true. Covid response in the US wasn't that bad; global warming really is causing the floods and fires and hurricanes and the EVs really are helping, as would methane emissions rules and so on; if people think the bi-coastal elites are looking down on them (and they are), like so what; that's not a serious problem. If the wealthy don't pay enough taxes, the middle class will be harmed. Making sure black folks and other historically disadvantaged groups do better will raise the quality of life for all of us; if we don't encourage the successful migration and acculturation of people from around the world, our population will decline and our economy will decline. If we don't invest in science, we will loose power and knowledge to those that do. The entitled white folks that teased all the kids that were good at math and science in the 1970s etc. might wish it weren't so, but it is so. But they now believe that movie actors are drinking the blood of babies and that China somehow rigged up the increase in CO2 as a way to confound us. They think scientists are mostly lying. It's not clear from an information theoretic perspective how to restore stability to the US system. Maybe once they've killed a million immigrants, I'm sorry had excess mortality in the camps in the hot SW and in Cuba, and things all around them are worse for their own children and families, they will repent and embrace truth, justice and the American way. One can hope.
  • pstuart 2y ago
    It's a third rail to touch but important: "wokism" has been weaponized by the right, and for low information voters (i.e., a majority of the population), voting is an emotional act. Hate and anger are powerful emotions.
  • Dalewyn 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • _yb2s 2y ago
      > Lockdowns were in violation of the right to free assembly But we don't have a right to recklessly infect other people with a disease against their will either. Personally, as someone trying to keep elderly and immunocompromised friends and family alive through the pandemic, some of whom ended up dying from COVID, I am still angry at anyone who disobeyed or fought against those lockdowns: they were killing other people. > equity initiatives like DEI and Affirmative Action have always left me a bad taste Affirmative action is illegal in the USA, and nearly all DEI initiatives and efforts are based on making sure people are hired on merit instead of race, and that the workplace culture doesn't make it impossible for people from other backgrounds to participate and succeed, e.g. is inclusive. Trump's claims about meritocracy are a red herring. The core premise of the MAGA movement is the idea that only white people are qualified, and anyone else is a "DEI hire." If you’re a Japanese American you can bet these people think you are unqualified and should be replaced. > The sheer amount of tax dollars being spent with wanton abandon is ridiculous science US academic research is the 'engine' that drives industrial/tech dominance in the USA, and is practically a rounding error in federal spending. Go look up any successful engineering or science professor at a well known research institution and you will typically find a large number of companies that exist spun off just from the research of a single lab.
• switchbak 2y ago
  The president just threatened Greenland with military action. That is absolutely fucking unprecedented in living memory, and well before. And that passed without much more than an exasperated sigh. No, I think the populace will go along with whatever these folks deem acceptable. It’s like a bad movie.
  • unsnap_biceps 2y ago
    The latest is that the US is gonna take over Gaza and deport everyone there. I do wonder if there's any hot button items anymore.
    • lovecg 2y ago
      My (perhaps naive) take is that we all got “Trump immunity” from the first time around the rollercoaster and understand that a lot of it is ineffective bluster that never goes anywhere. Look at the tariffs that’s already been “delayed”.
      • paulgb 2y ago
        In a normal administration, gutting the NSF would be the main story. If his statements on Gaza are indeed just bluster, they still succeed in focusing attention away from his current actual actions.
    • nrawe 2y ago
      I'm not American, but my read of this announcement looks something like: * The Trump Administration doesn't believe in the two state solution stalemate. * They have leverage over The Netanyahu Administration in Israel due to the ongoing military support needed. * The Netanyahu Administration wants to incorporate Gaza into Israel as also doesn't believe in two state solution but cannot do so without repercussions. * US could take over Gaza as the West won't sanction it, China needs to sell to it, RoW not an issue. * Trump wants US to take over Gaza, use US corps and workers to rebuild paid for by Israel, and then sell back to Israel at a later time. I don't agree with that position but I think that's what the deal looks like overall.
• iterance 2y ago
  Nine missed meals.
• bamboozled 2y ago
  If it gets bad enough that most people are starving, rather then just struggling, we'll see action, but I doubt it'll get there anytime soon. It's mostly too late to do anything at that point. People won't even have money for ammo.
  • bilbo0s 2y ago
    Something depressingly self defeating about people paying money into the system to acquire ammo for the purposes of.. bringing down the system? Win or lose, I'm thinking money is flowing up to the same people.
    • bamboozled 2y ago
      lol yeah...
• leptons 2y ago
  Deport all the people who harvest crops, and people in the US will be starving pretty quickly. It could happen within 1 year. And this is exactly the track we are on right now.
  • AlexandrB 2y ago
    I don't really get this argument or why it's adopted by left-wing commentators. It assumes that supply and demand don't exist and the agricultural industry couldn't get workers if they paid market rates for such labor. It's basically advocating for immigration as a way to subsidize the agricultural industry by giving them a desperate workforce they can exploit.
    • leptons 2y ago
      You can't make a change like this, this quickly, and expect people not to starve. Crops will be literally rotting on the vine while farmers desperately plead for people to work long hours in hot fields for low wages. Do you know anyone who would do that? No? I don't either. I'm not sure how you expect farmers that work on thin margins to suddenly be able to offer a higher wage that Americans would do this work for. It's honestly insanity to expect this to work out in the short term. I'm not sure why conservative commentators can't see the result of this knee-jerk policy of deporting every illegal immigrant, and even those with birthright citizenship. It's a scorched earth policy, and you are only going to reap ashes from it.