Donald Trump spent his first 100 days back in the Oval Office driving an economy that the world envied to the brink of crisis, risking America’s reputation as a financial safe haven and fostering fear among voters who’ve lost confidence in his leadership.
Americans were desperate for relief from high grocery prices and bought into Trump’s promise to make America affordable again in November 2024, partly out of nostalgia for the pre-pandemic economy of his first term.
But the president deliberately and singlehandedly adopted policies that are almost certain to spike prices even more; that could lead to shortages; and that have CEOs and small businesses dealing with chaos and the possibility of a recession.
Trump’s promise? I don’t remember him promising much anything at all until the very tail end of the campaign, and even then it was kinda offhand. OTOH, the troll farms were in absolute overdrive talking about eggs, groceries, worthless higher education, gas prices (even though they are higher now) and of course bashing Harris over tons of things that weren’t even jobs she had the authority to do.
Trump did state he was going to raise tarrifs. The problem is that a lot of voters thought he was going to govern like he did in the first term.
What was so great about the first term? The only thing that kept that from being a disaster was the fact that people stopped him from doing so many shitty things. Now he’s ignoring everyone including the courts.
Trump was relatively ineffective on his first term because he didn’t know how to be effective and didn’t choose to ignore the courts.
Trying to put myself in the shoes of a Trump supporter who isn’t an idiot, they probably thought the damage Trump could do for a second term would be as limited as it was for the first term while still keeping a governmental status quo.
The great thing about trumps first term was the rule of law generally held, and constitutional checks and balances weren’t entirely worthless
Every speech was full of promises to. Whoever he was speaking, even when the next speech completely promised the oppisite
Let your local magats know how you feel since this is what they wanted. The business owner ones even made it easy to figure out who they are over on their Nazi safe space at public square
Is he that stupid that he really beleives his plan will work? Or is he so afraid of Putin’s kompromat that he’ll destroy his own country in order to keep it hidden?
Why not both?
I think he believes it will work for him. Which is the only concept that has ever mattered to him.
Their plan is working. Destroy the country so people will have it tough. Create a state of emergency, a sense of crisis and instability. That can be exploited to justify increased repression, to seize control of key assets and resources and their distribution. Makes the population more reliant on structures controlled by their oligarchs and loyalists.
Create a state of emergency, a sense of crisis and instability.
Don’t need to create something that already exists. Capitalism does not serve the working class. The “normal” everyone is so eager to go back to was killing us.
“Trump has issued an executive order that basically is supposed to make it possible to use military forces as “law enforcement” and paves the way for militias “aiding” the police with legal impunity. They are preparing to violently quash expected riots.”
https://mastodon.social/@chrisstoecker/114421159120315389
“The whole thing is here. There is no misreading this: They are trying to build their SS/SA. With better pay for the people in charge of “enforcing the law” (we all know how much the law means to the Trump administration).”
It’s not kompromat. It’s flattery. “You’re such a good boy, Donald!” is doing a lot more here than you realize.
I blame Melania. If he was getting love and support at home, he wouldn’t have to spend so much time looking for affection outside the home.
Only mildly sarcastic.
Melania is his handler. She’s the one telling him he’s a good boy.
The only reason I don’t think Melania has any ties to Putin is that she wouldn’t treat Donnie so shabbily if she had to keep him on a leash. Remember she stayed in NYC for six months at the start of his first term. A handler would be in constant contact.
Another immigrant doing a job no one else wants while citizens complain she’s performing well enough.
It’s been over four years since she promised to give a press conference and explain how a nudie model got an Einstein visa.
Also, I can’t believe that Stormy Daniels never thought to do a DVD with Melania and Ivanka look-alikes.
Is he that stupid that he really beleives his plan will work?
Absolutely, have you seen any sign of high intelligence coming from tRump?
Or is he so afraid of Putin’s kompromat that he’ll destroy his own country in order to keep it hidden?
I am increasingly doubting this. Do you really think a tape of some prostitutes pissing on him would change anything at this stage?
I also do not buy the notion tRump is a russian asset because he is just too stupid to be recruited… he is too stupid to be easily manipulated though.
His stupidity, at full and constant display and perfectly complimentary of the USA’s population ignorance, is more than enough to explain where we are and far far more likely than any other theories…
He is the dictator of the US. This is how he extracts every last cent possible from the working class to fund tax breaks and handouts for the ultra-wealthy. Accountability is not a factor for someone like this who has lived his whole life with no accountability and continually failed upward to the highest office. He “doesn’t need your vote” anymore, he is there and he’s not planning on leaving this time no matter what the voters say.
Yup, polls don’t mean shit anymore
What kompromat could Putin possibly have that could do anything to him? He could have underaged girl pissing tapes, no one will give a shit. He’s found guilty of dozens of crimes and never locked up. It doesn’t hurt his voting numbers. So why should he care?
It is both. There is no reason to copitulate to Russia unless the Kompromat is that good.
I think you meant ‘capitulate,’ but ‘copitulate’ might work too, lol.
there is other reason, corrupted money
In the Fantastic Four comics, Dr. Doom wears a mask because he was hideously deformed by a science experiment gone wrong. Later writers retroconned it so that Doom had a tiny scratch but was so insanely egotistical that a tiny flaw was too much for him to bear.
I like to think that the kompromat is something like Trump having premature ejaculation or erectile dysfunction, or crying that his Daddy didn’t love him. Something a normal person could shrug off and move on from.
Dr Doom is a Jack Kirby creation and I’ve been living with the realization that as a forward scout for the US Army in Nazi Germany, many of his villains are reflections of what he witnessed the Nazis to be. Whatever Dr Doom is, I’m fully ready to understand 47 to be as well
You know who else was a forward scout in WW2?
Kurt Vonnegut! Billy Pilgrim runs into a pair of them before he gets captured by the Germans in “Slaughterhouse Five.”
That was one of the most dangerous jobs in the infantry, because your mission was to locate enemy troops far ahead of any support.
The part about being a scout that is dangerous is that the enemy understands what you will do if you aren’t eliminated immediately.
yup. and both of them would explore how deeply terrifying it was being forward scouts through their art, and particularly how being an artist made them valuable as scouts
What’s his plan, to attempt to bring back manufacturing?
There was a movie that came out one year before Reagan was elected. “Norma Rae” with Sally Field. It’s about organizing a Union in a small southern town where there’s one big employer.
A lot of US businesses relocated to the South after the Oil Crisis. Reagan and his people feared that those ignorant hillbillies would join Unions, so they moved manufacturing overseas.
All to plan
Not even. Him and Elon biffed every other form of autocratic guidance that laid out steps to take.
Cutis Yarvin is furious at how incompetent Musk and Torange have been. By 100 days in they should have been drowning journalists in foam. They haven’t even hit 50% of Project 2025 progress.
Rank amateur bitches. Can’t even do authoritarianism well.
Do they need to succeed?
The Koch brothers already have a new U.S. constitution drafted and a majority of the states they need to call a constitutional convention. They’ve had plans in motion for years.
I think Trump and Musk were always supposed to be the fall guys. But if they break enough, or reveal enough non-working about the current system, the plan we’re not supposed to realize is in play will succeed.
It’s actually very interesting you brought this up:
The Koch bro plan was what precipitated Red Stating. It’s always been iffy at best because despite their dismantling efforts, they still want to try and do most of their plan legally and through “the system” so it can’t seem like it can be easily undone. But the goal is to repeal the 20th century and social gains like civil rights, abortion rights, etc. But here the long term goal is to fully go back in time to 1892 to cosplay robber barons.
The tech brologarchy version is entirely different in its final goal and process, but the interim goal of ending the Republic and repealing the 20th centrury is shared. The difference is that they want to be left alone and have islands of state-level power that they would and can project in a totally re-made world. Despite their hate of “tribalism” they want non-geographic nationality based on…well, tribaliam. All facilitated by AI and blockchain, called decentralized autonomous organizations. They want techno feudalism where they expect everyone to work at an unreasonable, manic level because that’s what they do.
In both cases, they truly, honestly believe they’re fighting for the side of “good” by wanting people buying from the Praxis or Kochistan company store, working everyone to death to make them as “benevolent” god-men kings more powerful.
Well, shit. I have been operating under the assumption that these were part of the same conspiracy.
But there have been some gaps that link the two things (linking Koch to Thiel on certain things, for instance) that I have assumed were merely gaps due to one party or the other doing better at hiding their involvement. I’ll have to bear what you said in mind as I continue to figure stuff out.This isn’t a conspiracy. This is a well known and widely touted political agenda. They have white papers on this. They give speeches about this. There’s entire conferences about this, and not like PAC conferences, I mean like Network State conferences where the founder of Etherium has shifted from Seasteading 10 years ago to now wanting on land autonomous nations.
Brink? Fuck off. We’re already in a crisis.
Piece of shit article about a piece of shit president smh.
Risking America’s reputation? Maybe we’re slightly beyond that point.
Here in Denmark - one of the US’s closest allies for decades with a generally positive public opinion - America’s reputation has absolutely tanked. Being at all supportive of USA basically reveals you as a stupid far-right nut. We just need our politicians to see this as well because the US reputation is fully dead here.
Exactly the same take in Canada right now. With the added annexation threats, most Canadians that aren’t far right nuts will boycott the american brand for the rest of their lives, tarrifs be damned.
I think a feeling of distrust and betrayal will definitely remain for decades no matter what happens in USA. Many boycotters etc will definitely continue doing that for at least some products and on a state level we’ll never again be able to trust them with our data. That much is clear. At least I switched out all my tech and never going back
And just think, there were those out there that doubted he would get anything done. /s
Getting things done usually means building. It’s decidedly easier to tear things down and much harder to build them back up.
Zero grocery, zero price. You cannot complain about avocado prices if there was no avocado imported, eh?
Reminds me of my childhood in a communist country.
It’s almost like human structures of power always end up with some asshole on top making everyone else suffer.
The brink? We’re already there, but the supply chain takes a few weeks to catch up. We are just now getting empty ports just like during covid. Empty ports now means empty shelves in a couple weeks. Empty shelves means prices skyrocket again. And layoffs start en mass when companies can’t get supplies that need workers to work on.
The brink? lol we’ve gone off the cliff and are in free-fall
U.S. “at the brink” circa 2025
I was thinking more like:
I was thinking more like:
You ever see those cartoons where a samurai charges past someone, nothing happens, the person laughs, and then slowly splits in half?
The US economy is currently in the “nothing happens / laughing” phase.
Give the Orange Asswipe a break, the idiot is following his orders from the Kremlin and he is doing a fan-fucking-tastic job of destroying the US economy and foreign relations.
Sure, but have you considered that Kamala had a weird laugh
This is such a stupid argument and I wouldn’t believe it if it wasn’t for my dad. He keeps talking about her laugh and I explain to him that it’s appropriate to express all emotions…. And he doesn’t believe it. He’s also unable to connect me being in therapy and his behavior.
I guess we have the same father even though I don’t live anywhere near the US.
The statistics of who stayed home VS who voted for a white man with the same policies (older white men/women and older hispanic men) shows most of the votes lost are from Kamala being a colored woman and our most bigoted groups responding accordingly.
100%. A woman of color? No way.
This is why AOC can’t run for president. We would just be stuck with Trump 3.0 or some Republican poser.
I think AOC could win since she’s young and when younger generations do vote it’s for younger progressive people.
But it also requires them actually communicating policies that will get young people to go vote.
Two very qualified women have been beaten by the worst presidential candidate in the history of the country.
In what world do you think the answer is running another woman?
I love AOC. I think she is the future of this country. But she would be much more effective in the senate. Let Gavin, Walz, or someone else who is in the white dude category be on the top of the ticket.
Is that fair? No. But do you want to be fair or do you want to win elections?
Two milquetoast Neoliberal women lost because them being women was enough to lose the few % of support their male counterparts had.
I think most people want leftist leadership these days. Most people want a third party.
So the issue with this thinking, is that those percentages will still be there no matter what candidate it is. I do agree with you that people generally prefer leftist policies. I’m a progressive, and would love a Bernie platform to be the policy foundations for the country.
The issue is, if you’re going to voluntarily cede 2-4% of your electorate just because they are a woman, why not run someone who’s a guy who has the same policy legs.
Running on the status quo of a dying empire they lost to a populist lying about ousting corruption and forcing change. This story is a lot older than identity politics.
People claimed that the tiktok people and the swifties are gonna pull the ship around because they would vote for the younger dynamic more progressive candidates. Turns out, they would rather make tiktoks about it.
People claimed that the tiktok people and the swifties are gonna pull the ship around because they would vote for the younger dynamic more progressive candidates.
Which canidates?
You can’t just expect people who were just children to magically figure out how to create a political party to rival global billionaires.
They need someone young and progressive to vote for. Kamala is neither of those btw
I know, but the idea was that they would vote for kamala, because it’s the lesser evil. And it would scare the piss out of boomers when they see they are outnumbered
Except young people (or all people) need to go vote in primaries for those they want.
You can’t just wait for your perfect person to show up magically. Ie. Policies reflect people who vote, not the other way around.
Yeah and unfortunately we are at a point where even if she does run and win in 2028 the conservative majority SCOTUS wouldn’t let any of her laws stick around.
I remember a stand up comedian making fun of someone laughing on his show, because it was a very shrill and loud laugh. And later he said: imagine making fun of someone for the way they express joy (or something) and that somehow sat really deep with me.
Schodinger’s cat applies here. We will never know how good or bad Kamala would have been since she didn’t win. However, since 47 has done so much shit to damage the country in ways worse than imagined, I’d say she’d done better.
BTW, have you ever heard Trump laughing at anything? That’s even weirder IMO.
She would have been better. Biden was an OK president that was ruined by his brazen pro-genocide stance. It doesn’t take a lot to be better than Trump.
In america a pro genocide president is still an okay president. Most school children drone stiked AND getting the nobel peace prize. Best president we ever had i tell you what.
I told my friends back in mid-October of 2023 that I thought the Hamas attack was probably 1.) heavily influenced by Russia, and 2.) going to throw the election to Trump or whoever the Republican candidate was going to be unless he could get that thing zipped up and a peace deal in place within a month or two.
So stupid. Biden could have done better so easily. But here we are, I guess, witnessing the oligarchy take over the world, using Trump and Musk as patsy’s, letting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Ukrainians die by the hand of genocidal fuckwits.
It’s a competition to destroy the US and your opponent is Donald Trump.
That’s about the only competitive scenario you could put me in vs. Trump and I’d despair that there would be no path to victory for me.
Also, those dumbass’s who think a woman can’t be president.
Americans will delude themselves into thinking Harris lost because of identity politics all the way to the concentration camps.
They have to, or else they will be forced to change the democratic party and everyone knows deep down that democrats will never ever ever change.
Unfortunately that includes a lot of women, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
My mom will still tell you that things would be much worse if Harris had won. Can’t say how, but she doesn’t hear the sarcasm when I suggest we’d all be learning Mandarin online while recovering from forced gender reassignment surgery and seems to consider that a legitimate possibility.
Most of those women were raised brainwashed by their church and family to be subservient to their man. In retrospect, giving those women in particular the right to vote might’ve been a mistake. It essentially just doubled the weight of their spouses vote.
That’s the drawback of universal suffrage, not just women’s suffrage…most people are idiots and easily manipulated. Women just moreso because of countless generations of oppressive patriarchy.
But there’s no real good way to test a voter without opening the floodgates for fraud and discrimination…so here we are. Idiots in charge.
Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of ‘democracy’ with Carrot, and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straight away.
-Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant
He had such a way with words, he did.
Terry Pratchett died far too young.
I really, sincerely hope that this current series of events leads to a period of American Enlightenment where we have a renewed focus on education, science, and the arts.
The weakest point in a representative democracy is very much so the uneducated public. The bigger their voter pool, the more they can drag down everyone else.
Probably won’t, most of us will probably be dead long before that happens, and certainly before we could reap the rewards of it. But it would be nice.
I am expecting the US to splinter, with people shuffling around to the splinter that best represents their ideology. It will be messy, but I think Blue States will benefit from no longer having to appease the Turdpublican mindset.
The way the state handled the uneducated masses in White or Black was to keep a common enemy.
In that work, everyone gets an implant that helps them live longer and provides immunity to disease, but it causes a major weakness to the substance “Black Matter”. Black Matter is a substance discovered in the mid-21st century, generated by extreme emotion like mania and rage. Since Black Matter can actually kill people with the implant if the concentration is too high, nearly everyone with an implant is united in keeping Black Matter under control.
The intellectuals and scientists, provided they are trusted by the state, are allowed to handle materials that cause people to generate Black Matter. The rank-and-file don’t really mind this, since they trust that the state will keep their best interests in mind. After all, if the state doesn’t keep their best interests in mind, lots of unrest will occur, which means massive Black Matter generation, which means mass death.
I’m really not looking forward to finding out how well “Mutually Assured Destruction” works in the real world. Lately, that seems to be the controlling-party’s entire ethos. As long as it hurts them more.
What actual percentage of the American people do you think believes a woman can’t be president? And I mean believe her nature as a woman makes her unfit, not people who believe the electorate won’t vote for her.
Do you know any polls in the last year that indicate how big a contingent that would be?
I’d be shocked if it was over 0.5%. Even over 0.2% would be very surprising to me. Of course to get polls that precise you’d need to ask like 100,000 people.
Unfortunately, it’s not black or white. I recall a woman saying she wouldn’t vote for Kamala because she thought America wasn’t ready for a woman president.
Is that her nature as a woman or people that believe the electorate won’t vote for her?
It almost sounds like passing the buck, I won’t vote for her because of everyone else’s opinion 🤷 idk, I don’t have the answers.
That would very clearly be an example of thinking “the electorate wouldn’t vote for her”.
If it was her nature as a woman, the reason would be some thing like “Because women are bad at _______”.
Something clearly misogynist; Instead of just thinking everyone else is misogynist.
I mean Biden was personally killing Palestinians so let’s all make sure Trump does worse too so checkmate lIbRuL. Ps I’m morally superior because I think my self righteous social media posts matter way more than the outcome I cause with my actions. And if you disagree? Well, you love genocide! /s
Well you see the genocide was always going to happen. That is why we needed to oppose the Democrats.
Also did you know NATO were actually the real Nazis all along?
/s
Removed by mod
Musk will light your taxes on fire. Obama was huge on deportation. Kamala is a gun owner. OK, why won’t you vote for Kamala then? “I just don’t like her. She laughs weird.” I couldn’t believe it, but it shouldn’t shock me. How do you even keep going after that?
I remember reading that immigration groups called Obama the deporter in chief. Trump wishes he could get a nickname that would go that hard with his base.
Republicans often try to liken women to witches in their constituents minds. It’s their go to smear. They hate women. They want them back in the kitchen under control of men, just like the propaganda that transformed post war America pushed
It wasn’t really about the laugh.
She laughs like a black woman!
Ok that’s actually a hysterical take. That’s probably exactly what those people mean.
Yea, some of them also noticed she is a minority and a woman. Sadly our country has not accepted those groups are just as capable as white men to lead a country.
Maybe the broligarchy currently in charge will finally disabuse people of the notion of white male superiority. Maybe…
As a white dude, I really wish. I don’t see much evidence of it though.
Any mistake by any woman “justifies” the canard that women are incompetent. Same is used for Black men, but judging by the election record, the misogyny is even deeper than the racism.
She also has no penis and is awefully dark for a good old white American
She also was hugely supportive of genocide, is a cop, huge opponent of sex workers, promised to outflank trump to the right on immigration and crime, had a terrible climate change plan including backtracking on things like fracking, terrible health care policy, denied any economic problems and her solution to massive poverty and increasing inequality boiled down to increased ease of first home buyers. She had terrible policies no reason to whitewash her.
“Please be distracted by our appointed candidate’s skin color and genitals so you don’t notice these other things!” - democrats probably
The United States Federal Review said the economy has slightly dipped but it’s so minor on the GDP of America that nothing has changed really from all indicators reviewed.
Yet. Reduced trade is a leading edge metric while most economic indicators are trailing edge. Just because it hasn’t yet filtered through to trailing edge indicators, doesn’t mean it hasn’t already happened. Everything is still in stock at normal prices but shortages are looming. And we’re riding the bus with no brakes down a steep road leading to a cliff …… just because we haven’t died yet doesn’t mean we’re not doomed
Your argument is similar to one against climate change. Greenhouse gas levels are a leading edge indicator, or cause. Just because you didn’t see global warming doesn’t mean it hasn’t already happened. And now it is visible to all. And we’re riding the bus with no brakes down a steep road to the edge of the cliff.
And some people still say he has business skills…
What, you don’t think he’s getting rich off this?
Yeah people misunderstand Trump’s business history. It doesn’t matter how many casinos he bankrupted, Trump profited. He’s a vampire like a private equity firm, leaving a trail of dead husks behind him.
Hyuck hyuck hyuck
