this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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You know, DOGE, fascist president and corporations dictating what people can do, institutions being ruined, laws being ignored. Is there any way out of that or is it over? Is the USA done?

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 71 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (8 children)

In the short term, yes.

If trump remains in office after this term, absolutely yes.

If we get a different admin - not just another republicrat trump clone - they’re going to have to spend an inordinate amount of time fixing all of trump’s fuckups. One of which should be restricting any wannabe monarch’s ability to rule by decree in the US. So yeah, we’re fucked, and we’re gonna have to spend a lot of effort getting unfucked, digging ourselves out of an oligarchy hole, instead of moving forward from a continually advancing starting point.

E: allies are already turning away from us, politically and economically. They’ll form new alliances and relationships that the US doesn’t get to be a part of, or at least won’t get a leading position in. Same with things like soft power from international aid. China will step in, maybe the EU or even Russia. We lose the goodwill, stability, and any economic “ins” we could have achieved with that soft power. We’re fucked in lots of ways.

[–] superkret@feddit.org 56 points 3 days ago (1 children)

During my lifetime, the view people have of the US has completely changed.
It used to be "When I grow up, I want to move there." and "Oh, you went to the US on vacation? AWESOME".
Now it's "Why the fuck would you go there, are you stupid?"

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[–] jaemo@sh.itjust.works 46 points 3 days ago (8 children)

We lose the goodwill

Gone. It's gone. I'm your neighbor. There's no more goodwill. It's been completely replaced with desire to see your hubris teach a collective lesson, and a process of internal reflection on how we can not end up like you.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

a process of internal reflection on how we can not end up like you.

Better focus on that really hard, because the rise of far-right parties around the world shows a lot of people are heading in the same direction. Absolutely condemn us, but watch your own back yards as well.

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[–] blasphemous@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Although there's a lot of knee-jerk reaction in some circles, Trump issuing EOs that are illegal and unenforceable only go as far as all the other vitriol that slides it's way out of his mouth creases. Plenty of things he does are blocked by judges, including his demand that only him and his AG are allowed to interpret the law. It just doesn't work like that. Although the possibility of things being escalated and allowed through a compromised supreme Court still exists, it hasn't happened yet. I'm not giving into the mania while checks and balances still actually do exist.

Corporations dictating what people can do has been happening basically my whole life.

DOGE is another story. It's very bad, yeah, but I'm not sure how it affects me personally in my day-to-day.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's erroneous to claim the judge orders blocking the executive orders have done anything.

As judge of Lemmy, I order you to stop posting. /s

^ There, that statement alone had just as much effect as the judicial orders. Fact is, DOGE still has extensive access to most of the systems that they breached, and judges have largely been ignored, or have given rulings complicit with Trump's actions.

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[–] StructuredPair@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

All government services will start going to shit. You will not notice immediate effects of this, but roads will be worse, food and drugs will become unsafe as the already inadequate monitoring becomes no monitoring, etc. It just won't all happen overnight and everything will slowly get more dangerous and shinier as all government oversight is destroyed.

Even more indirectly, data products that companies use for deciding investments will become increasingly unreliable. This will increase uncertainty and risk in any corporate investment and lead to decreased corporate spending and an eventual economic contraction.

More immediately, a large number of the people fired this week and last week work in rural areas and the sudden loss of so many jobs in those areas will lead to significant local recessions as the federal money being added to the economy through paychecks disappears overnight.

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[–] sumguyonline@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

So long as there is people living in a place, having kids, and trying to improve their lives, the places will remain. The government may change, social structure's get overhauled, but the same fact that people are having kids and building a life means those places are unlikely to go away. The old republic is dead. We have supreme court justices taking bribes then passing judgments saying they can. We have the position of President where anyone in it can legally say "I was doing it for my country the laws don't apply." And get away with it. The United States of America as a Democratic Republic, is over. But there still exists a United States of America that has transitioned to a Democratic Empire/kingdom. So to the question; "Is the USA screwed?" The simple answer is No. It will continue on so lobg as the population does. Is the Democratic Republic of the United States screwed? Bitch be dead, screw the corpse if you like.

[–] TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca 234 points 3 days ago (39 children)

In the short term: Yes. Unless the US military decides to remove a sitting president but that is extremely unlikely.

In the long term: Yes, but also no. Fascism is extremely inefficient and expensive and the US is destroying its own economy and pushing away all of its allies and former trade partners. Things will get very rough but it will not last forever. There will be a lot of rebuilding that needs to be done.

Unfortunately this has been a long time coming. The United States has never really been united and it was only a matter of time before another possible civil war loomed on the horizon.

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[–] NoxAstrum@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Not yet, not necessarily. The further this goes, the closer they come to the point of no return.

[–] Azal@pawb.social 2 points 1 day ago

Oh we're past the point of no return. The question we're at now is how much damage can we mitigate from here forward.

The US has killed any of it's power it's had in the world beyond military and economic. The power it had through friendships and trade deals, they're fucking gone. Trade deals have been shown to be temporary and based on whims so why would anyone do it. And friendships? HAHAHAHAH.

So now it's economic... and oh look, we're about to start tearing that apart and probably look at a depression that will be compared to the OG Great Depression, while the trade deals are going across the world and China is definitely willing to step up to the plate to be the "adult in the room" in trade deals.

So last it's military power. And with getting rid of officers to only have loyal ones... that means strategy and tactics will be going out the window for "We have a big hammer."

That's the US's interaction with the world, which most of our lives we've been in the dominant position. So that'll get rough. Now on to the things internally that DOGE has gone through and cleared out, it'll take years to unfuck the stuff already done.

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[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 47 points 3 days ago (55 children)

Intensionally, the USA is going to lose its status as a hyperpower. Europe is going to decouple from American defense policy to the point where I can see American military bases close in Europe. An anti-Chinese military alliance will function with or without the USA anchored by India and Japan, but I see that force yielding some territory to China in the near term. There will probably be an increase in the number of wars in general as regions go into conflict without an American threat to maintain borders. Nothing the USA does is likely going to fix this.

Domestically, the administration is the greatest threat to the republic since the Civil War. If Trump is able to be pushed out in the future, there is going to need to be a major re-evaluation of how the American federal government works. This is going to require constitutional changes and the removal of major powers that the President has collected as the federal government grew.

[–] Jumpingspiderman@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

The US Constitution had plenty of ways to control someone like Trump. Not the least of which is the absolutely clear barring from public office for life of anyone participating in an insurrection. It's just that the people in charge of enforcing these statutes lacked the courage to enforce those statutes. Legal statutes and so forth are useless if they aren't enforced.

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[–] Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 177 points 3 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (14 children)

The funny things is americans were like "We need guns to protect ourselves from tyranny." But of course, the ones with the guns are precisely the ones siding with tyrants.

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[–] maplebar@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (11 children)

None of this is good, and it's going to cause a lot of big problems across just about everything but, theoretically at least, none of it is unsalvageable.

Remember that elections are run by the states, not the federal government.

So unless you live in one of the most hardcore Trump-sucking red states, you likely will be able to vote in 2026 and 2028, your vote will probably be fairly counted, and you will be able to determine not just the makeup of Congress 2 years from now, but also the types of people that we send to represent our interests and fight back against Trump.

Of course, Trump is wasting no time grabbing power, but it still remains to be seen whether or not Congress and the Supreme Court will surrender their power enough for him to get away with it. As much as the massive cucked-out bitches in Congress and SCOTUS pretend they love Trump, they actually hate his guts and are just as hungry for their own power as he is for his.

Finally there is the possibility of a genuine constitutional crisis in which Trump rejects the concept of shared power by coequal branches of government, in which case the entire constitution is rendered null and void and the USA completely ceases to exist as a federal entity and the union breaks down.

This would probably lead to a civil war, in which case the side that wins is the one that has the best logistics and strategy. I'm confident that the blue states, especially in an alliance with Canada and Mexico, would have no problem beating the land-locked redneck morons in flyover country. All that would be required is to bring the fight to the Southern coastal areas. They'd be totally surrounded and blocked in from trade on every side.

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[–] Dozzi92@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My brother sent this to me the other day and I gave it a watch. It feels pretty unbiased (although I'm uneducated), and seems to have a more macro, zoomed-out view of America and just nations on the whole. I thought it was pretty interesting and it helped to put some things in perspective.

[–] CallMeButtLove@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Very interesting, but I don't feel better after watching that... :(

[–] Dozzi92@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Ha, I should've mentioned that you definitely won't. It seems to paint this damned if we do damned if we don't picture. But it at least paints a picture, versus what can at times feel like this great big unknown. It may also shed some light on some of the motivations for what's happening. I dunno.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

its been screwed since OBAMA was president, conservatives including poc cant get over the fact they had a half-AA as a president. ever since putin and the gop have been riding on racism and sexism as thier key election goals, and only recently anti-lgbtq+

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[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago (4 children)

I heard there was a mentor coming to fix this soon....sorry, I apologize. I mean to say Meteor. Chances of landing up my own ass have increased once more. I probably won't feel it so I'm not too worried about it.

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[–] Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Unless you get good with a sniper rifle its going to stay screwed for ever. Or if you actually have the gall to try to annex one of your neighbours. Then we'll take care of your problem for you.

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[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 51 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (17 children)

Not even close to being done. Right now the biggest changes are a reduction in non law enforcement/immigration government staff and contracts being paid out. The biggest thing coming down the pipeline is Trump clearly wants to free himself of the courts and congress. But it's far too early to say he's won that. And even that wouldn't be the end of things. In the US the states have a lot of autonomy. They are actually the ones responsible for holding elections. So let's look at a worst case scenario, where he tries to say we shouldn't have elections.

The first thing that's going to happen is all the blue states are going to tell him to fuck off and hold them anyways. The second thing that's going to happen is some red states will also do so, although they'll likely be less coarse with the language. Then a few more red states will be pressured into having elections by massive protests of people angry they can't vote anymore. Then while Trump is having a fit because there's no real way for him to stop this process, we get to learn about a fun feature of the US Congress. There is no law requiring it to meet in D.C. Trump would likely try to claim whatever is left over is the real congress, but without having been elected the Constitution is clear that those states forfeit representation until they hold an election.

So we'd be left with a House that is majority anti-Trump, after all, he tried to make them irrelevant at best. In the Senate we'd likely be looking at something of an even split in 2026. There's probably 5-7ish red states that would hold elections anyways and combined with the blue states and senate democrats leaving DC they would be able to convene elsewhere with a majority to declare rules of the Senate without Trump's interference. The new Congress would likely swiftly vote to impeach Trump. The remnants of the old one would protest this but they don't have any legal power. Only the backing of Trump and propaganda power.

This leaves Vance with a choice. This would be by design because our democratic party leaders only appear to be stupid when convenient. Vance can throw his weight behind Trump and get impeached himself or he can order Trump removed from the White House thus acknowledging the primacy of Congress. If he chooses the first option then Congress simply repeats the process and the presidency goes to the next person in line, the speaker of the house. Yes, Congress can effectively vote one of it's own members into the White House at any time. This president then declares an emergency and orders the military to secure DC. The military loves process, and loves the Constitution. It is highly likely this order would be followed.

However all would not be well, it's not a fairy tale. It would likely be the start of an American Insurgency that would take decades to root out. It would certainly be the end of the US as the hegemonic world power. Our Aircraft Carriers would rust in port and our projection of soft and hard power over the world would wither. But we would still be here, just much diminished and never the same in our lifetimes. This is certainly scary but if we all do our part this is as close as we would come to losing our democracy. Far more insidious is the threat of slowly revoking the right to vote. They'd start by raising the age, then by requiring you to not have any debt of specific kinds, then by making harsh punishments for illegally voting, and other such things until voting is effectively restricted to land owners. Certain factions would like to get it to white christian male landowners but that's probably a decade or more down that line if at all.

Notes -

Why wouldn't he just send in the military?

2028 isn't enough time to purge and train enough people to make the military loyal to him. He would be mid project on that at best and the states could effectively counter him into a stand still with their national guard. This would make many people stay home, but the determined voters are likely to be anti-trump because that's the change incentive. Loyalists will feel like the elections don't matter.

What's stopping SCOTUS from declaring the elections invalid?

The states. SCOTUS is only relevant as long as they have reputation of being an impartial arbiter of Constitutional Law. That opinion is already in the trash heap. They could not make such a decision today, or after 4 more years unless they spend the next 4 years setting themselves as at least a mild opposition in a long game. But they haven't shown that kind of patience.

What happens in Trump surrounds himself with thousands of armed loyalists in DC?

We select a new capital and wish him the best of luck dealing with DC. There is no law requiring DC be the Capital. The Constitution doesn't even require the states to give up a district, it only provides the legal possibility. There's no need to engage in that kind of a conflict. Such a group would be arrested bit by bit by Maryland, Virginia, and Federal authorities until it could be resolved swiftly.

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[–] djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Yes, and we knew this would be the outcome the second he won the election. I'm staying in the U.S. because my life is worthless anyway and I'd prefer death in glorious revolution than survival, but anyone who values their life should have started their plans to leave in August 2024 when it became obvious he was going to sieze control.

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