5 ms·

Everything's going to have to be replaced and it's going to be hugely expensive. But that's not going to happen until at least 2029 - plenty of time for bad act

by tjpnz 2y ago

Everything's going to have to be replaced and it's going to be hugely expensive. But that's not going to happen until at least 2029 - plenty of time for bad actors to get settled in and cause real damage.

c-linkage 2y ago
[flagged]
- aftbit 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Angostura 2y ago
    > Do you honestly believe there have ever been _fair_ elections in America? Yes.
    - baconbrand 2y ago
      Yes for part of the country. Gerrymandering, long lines, distant polling locations... Voting day isn't a holiday, voting hours aren't 24/7, and not all states have laws requiring time off of work to vote. For a lot of red states, elections simply are not fair.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >Do you honestly believe there have ever been _fair_ elections in America? With a confidence level of some 99.9%+ of votes being legitimate, yes. with 155 million voters in 2024 nationals, that leaves a margin of about 155k illegitimate votes. Elections can be super close (see 2000), but any fraud that went undetected would not sway most American elections. At least not with this electoral college system. >Do you honestly believe there will not be at least _some_ kind of election in 2028? Yeah probably. I'm not even sure if Trump will get that far, though. we'll have to see how damning this SAVE act is on women first and if the courts strike this down in the next 18 months or so. >Even if it's staged, form must be respected. When has Trump ever done that? most other leaders I disagree with still did this. But not him.
- setsewerd 2y ago
  Out of curiosity, since you appear to be very certain of this, what are you doing personally to deal with this? Are you leaving the country, moving into the hills, building a bunker, etc? I don't mean to sound antagonistic or anything, I genuinely would like to know.
  - tastyface 2y ago
    Not OP but of the same persuasion. Personally, I’m working on emigration plans. I don’t really want to live in an authoritarian state. And if I ever have kids, there’s no way I’d want to raise them in this environment. I should point out, though, that authoritarianism doesn’t necessarily mean that QOL drops for the average person (if you’re not part of a targeted group). Many people live quite happily in Hungary, Turkey, Russia. Local government will chug along as before, stonks might still go up. But you have to internalize a certain resignation over things you can no longer change or talk about, unless you wish to become a dissident and put yourself in danger. I’m not brave enough for that, so I’m opting out of the whole thing.
    - timschmidt 2y ago
      You're not at all wrong, but you've successfully described my entire life living in the US as a citizen born here. For that whole time we've incarcerated an absurd percentage of the world's prison population. I watched the crackdown on the Seattle WTO protests and Rodney King on the evening news. Perhaps the defining feature of the modern nation state is a monopoly on violence and power. Been that way my whole life.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    not OP: not sure. I'm in California so things can go crazy for a whole other litany of reasons if any single claim of Newsom starts to blossom. It's going to be a crazy ride if no one cheecks Trump early enough. I'm waiting it out for now. I'm "close" enough to communte to Los Angeles, but otherwise on the outskirts of the county as a whole. It's a weird place for any federal service to go out of their way to exploit.
  - UncleMeat 2y ago
- geoka9 2y ago
  Oh, there will be elections. After all, even USSR and Russia had/have elections of all kinds.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Legit inquiry, do you think Trump will last to 2028? I personally don't, but it can go all sorts of ways. As an aside, I also consider a civil war as "not making it". Having to wage war on the people you lead is fundamentally a failure of all systems.
  - trealira 2y ago
    Yes. The only way Trump is ousted is if Democrats somehow get a supermajority in the House and the Senate and impeach and remove him, which isn't going to happen. Republicans will always close ranks around Trump at this point. He definitely won't leave office peacefully, if at all. What happens after that, I don't know.
    - Hikikomori 2y ago
      Military coup when?
    - int_19h 2y ago
      Trump's health is a big open question, though. But even if Trump is out of the picture, that just means we'll get president Vance, which is likely to be even worse.
      - rcpt 2y ago
        Not even close. The whole Republican party is lock step with everything DT says. Not a single member of Congress will oppose him. DT pushes through all kinds of things that they don't want, eg. RFK is a lifelong granola Democrat with wildly unpopular opinions but every single Republican confirmed him. Nobody else in the party has this kind of power. Not JD, not Desantis, not the Koch brothers, nobody. When he's gone, it's over.
        int_19h 2y ago
        Trump didn't always have this kind of power; he acquired it. Why do you think it's impossible for another person - especially one that is effectively "officially anointed" as successor by Trump himself - to step into his shoes? Right now this is impossible because Trump sucks all the air out of the room. But with him gone, I don't see any reason why all those people who voted for him will suddenly not vote for the closest similar candidate, and that voting block is really where his power comes from. And looking at history, cults of personality often survive replacement of the figure around which they are built - examples are numerous in various dictatorships, just look at North Korea for one that is still ongoing.

by tjpnz 2y ago

c-linkage 2y ago

[flagged]

aftbit 2y ago
[flagged]
- Angostura 2y ago
  > Do you honestly believe there have ever been _fair_ elections in America? Yes.
  - baconbrand 2y ago
    Yes for part of the country. Gerrymandering, long lines, distant polling locations... Voting day isn't a holiday, voting hours aren't 24/7, and not all states have laws requiring time off of work to vote. For a lot of red states, elections simply are not fair.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >Do you honestly believe there have ever been _fair_ elections in America? With a confidence level of some 99.9%+ of votes being legitimate, yes. with 155 million voters in 2024 nationals, that leaves a margin of about 155k illegitimate votes. Elections can be super close (see 2000), but any fraud that went undetected would not sway most American elections. At least not with this electoral college system. >Do you honestly believe there will not be at least _some_ kind of election in 2028? Yeah probably. I'm not even sure if Trump will get that far, though. we'll have to see how damning this SAVE act is on women first and if the courts strike this down in the next 18 months or so. >Even if it's staged, form must be respected. When has Trump ever done that? most other leaders I disagree with still did this. But not him.
setsewerd 2y ago
Out of curiosity, since you appear to be very certain of this, what are you doing personally to deal with this? Are you leaving the country, moving into the hills, building a bunker, etc? I don't mean to sound antagonistic or anything, I genuinely would like to know.
- tastyface 2y ago
  Not OP but of the same persuasion. Personally, I’m working on emigration plans. I don’t really want to live in an authoritarian state. And if I ever have kids, there’s no way I’d want to raise them in this environment. I should point out, though, that authoritarianism doesn’t necessarily mean that QOL drops for the average person (if you’re not part of a targeted group). Many people live quite happily in Hungary, Turkey, Russia. Local government will chug along as before, stonks might still go up. But you have to internalize a certain resignation over things you can no longer change or talk about, unless you wish to become a dissident and put yourself in danger. I’m not brave enough for that, so I’m opting out of the whole thing.
  - timschmidt 2y ago
    You're not at all wrong, but you've successfully described my entire life living in the US as a citizen born here. For that whole time we've incarcerated an absurd percentage of the world's prison population. I watched the crackdown on the Seattle WTO protests and Rodney King on the evening news. Perhaps the defining feature of the modern nation state is a monopoly on violence and power. Been that way my whole life.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  not OP: not sure. I'm in California so things can go crazy for a whole other litany of reasons if any single claim of Newsom starts to blossom. It's going to be a crazy ride if no one cheecks Trump early enough. I'm waiting it out for now. I'm "close" enough to communte to Los Angeles, but otherwise on the outskirts of the county as a whole. It's a weird place for any federal service to go out of their way to exploit.
- UncleMeat 2y ago
geoka9 2y ago
Oh, there will be elections. After all, even USSR and Russia had/have elections of all kinds.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
Legit inquiry, do you think Trump will last to 2028? I personally don't, but it can go all sorts of ways. As an aside, I also consider a civil war as "not making it". Having to wage war on the people you lead is fundamentally a failure of all systems.
- trealira 2y ago
  Yes. The only way Trump is ousted is if Democrats somehow get a supermajority in the House and the Senate and impeach and remove him, which isn't going to happen. Republicans will always close ranks around Trump at this point. He definitely won't leave office peacefully, if at all. What happens after that, I don't know.
  - Hikikomori 2y ago
    Military coup when?
  - int_19h 2y ago
    Trump's health is a big open question, though. But even if Trump is out of the picture, that just means we'll get president Vance, which is likely to be even worse.
    - rcpt 2y ago
      Not even close. The whole Republican party is lock step with everything DT says. Not a single member of Congress will oppose him. DT pushes through all kinds of things that they don't want, eg. RFK is a lifelong granola Democrat with wildly unpopular opinions but every single Republican confirmed him. Nobody else in the party has this kind of power. Not JD, not Desantis, not the Koch brothers, nobody. When he's gone, it's over.
      - int_19h 2y ago
        Trump didn't always have this kind of power; he acquired it. Why do you think it's impossible for another person - especially one that is effectively "officially anointed" as successor by Trump himself - to step into his shoes? Right now this is impossible because Trump sucks all the air out of the room. But with him gone, I don't see any reason why all those people who voted for him will suddenly not vote for the closest similar candidate, and that voting block is really where his power comes from. And looking at history, cults of personality often survive replacement of the figure around which they are built - examples are numerous in various dictatorships, just look at North Korea for one that is still ongoing.