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There are so many red flags with this administration that I lost count. Policing speech, suppressing information, cutting research funding, cutting social progr
by dgb23 1y ago
There are so many red flags with this administration that I lost count. Policing speech, suppressing information, cutting research funding, cutting social programs, increasing spending and intensity for deportations, deporting people for political affiliation, an unnecessarily disruptive economic policy and many reports of general incompetence, lying and corruption.
It's all so bleak. Where is the payoff?
- lotsofpulp 1y agoThe new tax bill, which benefits asset owners (wealthy), older people, and the beneficiaries of the wealthy. When you have a population age histogram that is flattening and eventually an upside down triangle, you need some way of extracting labor from the young and giving it to the old (the chosen ones who can afford it) to maintain the socioeconomic hierarchy. The young without inheritances won’t ever have it as good, so you’ll need to distract them and otherwise fool them into believing it is their duty to transfer their earned income via earned income taxes to the elderly.
- epgui 1y agoRight, because that’s a “smart” way to tackle the demographic collapse/crisis while totally not making the problem worse.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoI don’t see a way to avoid population decline, assuming women have freedom and access to 100% effective birth control. The whole process of pregnancy/birth//breastfeeding/infant rearing sucks, so that most women will opt for 1 or 2, max. Then you have to account for all the men and women who opt to stay single (or queer or whatever). The number of women that need to have more than 2 kids to offset those with 0 and 1 will never happen. The only possible mechanism to align incentives is to remove all old age benefits and wealth transfers, so that one likely has to depend on their children. But even then, I doubt it would work.
- epgui 1y agoImmigration.
- pstuart 1y agoYes, that's part of it but helping to ease the economic burden of child rearing would definitely help. The documentary Idiocracy has some interesting insights into the issue -- it's worth the watch.
- epgui 1y agoOf course. My response was overly simplistic, simply because the parent comment seemed to suggest that there existed no solution.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoWhat do you mean? I see no success so far across the world, and simply paying people to have kids is the wrong incentive (since badly raised children are worse than no children).
- pstuart 1y ago> paying people to have kids is the wrong incentive I absolutely agree. Childcare is horribly expensive and just easing the burden of that would make parenting far more palatable to those who would otherwise be good parents.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoEven the Scandinavian countries with world’s most generous childcare subsidies are nowhere near a replacement total fertility rate (~2.1). Expecting other societies less egalitarian and less rich than them is pie in the sky thinking.
- 1y ago
- triceratops 1y agoWhy do we need to "tackle" the demographic collapse? The CEO of Ford just said he expects 50% of white-collar jobs to be eliminated soon. Tax the AI and you'll have plenty of money for retirees. There's nothing wrong with naturally, and gradually, going back to the population levels of 1980 or whatever.
- cwmoore 1y ago[flagged]
- Loughla 1y agoI don't think it really has a whole lot to do with socioeconomic hierarchy; I think that's just a happy accident. Old people vote. Old people vote in midterms and odd timed elections. Therefore, old people decide the candidates. Any politician would be smart to court them as a voting bloc. As for the benefits for the wealthy; that's just the same old bullshit in a new protectionist wrapper. Get my friends and family as much benefit as I can while I have the ability sort of thing.
- Dumblydorr 1y agoNice theory, however you’re believing people vote for their best interests, and the above comment believes they’re deluded by misinformation. I think both are occurring. Young white men went GOP, why is that? Anti vaxx leftists went with Kennedy, why is that? Why do anti-immigration and pro-economics claim the top two republican policy slots, when they’re firmly opposed in their effects on the economy? This is the contradictory trend of delusion and cult of personality. If the BBB just passed is an indication, I think overall we are more on the deluded side, most of these deluded non-rich white folks are more anti-immigrant than pro-economics. Of course I do not believe GOP economic policies are better than the alternative, I’m not the one who voted for that policy regime however!
- pixelatedindex 1y ago> Why do anti-immigration and pro-economics claim the top two republican policy slots Pro-economics? This admin can’t tell supply from demand. Anti-immigration, definitely.
- pstuart 1y ago> Anti-immigration, definitely. Hold on -- the regime recently welcomed refugees from Africa! If only we could understand why that group, versus the ones they're actively deporting. If only there was some pattern, a clue or hint as to what matters to them... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/12/trump-administration-welcomes-59-white-south-africans-as-refugees-to-the-us https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/12/trump-administratio...
- pjc50 1y agoThe question is "for whom is the payoff?" and they've made that very clear.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- aisenik 1y ago[flagged]
- southernplaces7 1y ago>The payoff is very obviously genocide and the reestablishment of chattel slavery The Trump administration is deplorable, corrupt, grotesque and ridiculous in so many ways, not to mention dangerous, but seriously, get off it with these kinds of declarations. Such hyperbolic nonsense just shuts down genuine possible inroads into protesting against this government's uglier things and paints those who oppose it as hysterical lunatics. Genocide has a real definition, and so too does chattel slavery. They're literal, specifically barbaric things whose definition only gets watered down by every random idiotic accusation of either happening because someone can't get a grip on their emotional outrages. I see zero sign of Trump's government committing or even planning for genocide at the present time, and likewise for chattel slavery. The deportations to third-party country are deportations, not mass slave sales.
- aisenik 1y ago[flagged]
- southernplaces7 1y agoFeel free to point me to a single instance of Trump administration genocide and i'll happily reconsider my thoughts. I'm no fan of this government, but hyperbole does nobody any good.
- xerox13ster 1y agoThe progressively worsening attacks on the ability of trans people to exist in daily life. Depending on how you define the Ten Stages of Genocide, we for sure have crossed the 3rd stage of genocide with all the state level anti trans bills and Trumps executive orders, and they’ve also engaged in stages 4 and 6. They’re not pressing on the brake, there’s a lead block on the gas pedal and they have repeatedly professed to wanting to erase us from public life. Trump released a campaign video about it in Feb/March of 2023. https://www.genocidewatch.com/tenstages https://www.genocidewatch.com/tenstages
- tastyface 1y agoNot to be a dick, but these aren't "red flags" anymore: the actual thing is here, plainly visible.
- dyauspitr 1y agoThe payoff is exclusively a whiter America and women back in the kitchen. It’s not complicated and they don’t care about anything else.