Pretty down after yesterday’s debate and the recent spate of Supreme decisions. Sitting here in my blue state just keeping my fingers crossed, and not seeing a realistic option for myself other than intentionally becoming increasingly disengaged.
I think the current Supremes and a potential Trump administration will have long-term effects in lowering what I consider to be desirable national standards, and will make things worse for the less fortunate and better for the most fortunate. For example, I’m sure glad I’m not a poor young woman or non-cis person of color in a red state.
But I’m not sure what specific material disadvantages I would experience if we go further down the course we seem to be pursuing. Instead, my disadvantages will be more emotional, that I will not be proud of my country, its leadership, and its demonstrated values. I am not proud of the future we are creating for my children and grandchildren. And I regret the squandering of missed opportunties. But, closing in on retirement with more resources than I will ever expect to spend in my lifetime, I’m not sure of any concrete way in which I will be personally affected.
Personally, I am not likely to experience negative consequences. The first term of Trump’s presidency had almost no effect on me. I’d still be mightily pissed about Trump’s stance on taxes, corruption, telling lies, Ukraine, Russia, and a hundred other things, but none of those affect me directly.
Depends mostly on how hard the new and not-so-secret secret police come after anyone who ever said anything bad about the trumpenfuhrer on the internet.
These idiots could cause a Depression, a stock market crash, or the turnover of the Mideast to Russian control. Or start a war with China. Chaos is like that; wacky shit just happens, and usually while whoever is supposed to be driving is instead busy stealing or partying.
A summary termination of Medicare, Social Security, or all federal pensions not earned in the military are also possible outcomes.
Those things would be bad even for those of us who are relatively insulated from the harder edges of current US life.
Here in California, a Trump election would not have much direct, immediate impact on me.
In the longer term, Trump being elected would lead to three big problems that would effect everyone across the country:
If he does as he has said and drops support of Ukraine unless they negotiate with Russia, this would be disastrous. Russia would be able to conquer Ukraine, alliances would fall apart, Europe would scramble to build up militaries or align with the Russians.
The United States is very likely to lose its status as the dominant world power and leader of the so called “free world”. Some may view this as a good thing (those who derisively refer to the US as “World Police”), but our status as global hegemon and protectors of free trade results in immense material benefits to Americans. We will see material harm to American living conditions if we stop acting this way.
A loss by Biden could deliver a blow to his party’s brand of Center Left-Left politics, and lead to the proliferation of more extremist ideologies.
Yeah, the first group are possible. But the crazy thing is how well the well-off are insulated from even such things. Sure, the 08 crash was stressful - especially since I had 3 kids in college at the time and too much of my $ in stocks. But now 15 years later…
And a war would have to be pretty significant before a regular citizen above draft age would be seriously affected.
The second group - I’m not sure how readily those could be “summarily” accomplished, let alone whether the Repubs would go along with them. But, yeah, those would sting.
Those fit pretty solidly in the category of things I might disfavor, but which would not significantly affect my daily life for the 2-3 decades I have left on this planet.
I don’t think Trump will crash the economy. The president simply doesn’t have that much control over the economy, and the House and Senate are much more likely to get gridlocked than to pass any truly catastrophic legislation.
Part of my issue with Trump’s foreign policy is its isolationism. I highly doubt he will get us into a war, either.
Oh, and one more serious long term issue: further delegitimization of our institutions and norms, inching us closer to the fall of our Republic.
I don’t; Trump tried pretty hard to get us into a war with Iran during his term. Former members of his administration said that he openly floated the idea of bombing Mexico. If he ever gets back into office, I doubt he is going to be as isolationist as some people would like to think. The only thing that will differ is where Trump is itching to start a fight.
I would be particularly concerned if there was a significant economic downturn during a second Trump term. The thing about dictators or wannabe dictators is that all news must be good news. If there’s bad news, there’s the worry that the people in the country will start wondering things like “why is this guy still in charge?” Trump in a crisis is going to look for some sort of distraction; we already saw this with Covid-19. Don’t begin to think he won’t start a war if he feels he needs to.
My worry is that Trump 2.0 will actually affect me, whereas Trump 1.0 was largely a sad comedy show, but his stupidity was only matched by his ineffectiveness. Next time around, he and his henchmen have learned a lot of lessons which they will apply, with force, if necessary. Trump himself is bad enough, but with that whole Project 2025 structuring the government to have fealty to Him and not necessarily to laws, protocols, and traditions of government worker neutrality - that is the concerning part. Last time too many patriotic government workers stymied his plans - next time they will be shoved out of the way.
Personally, I am approaching retirement so I don’t want to see huge waves rocking the stock market. Trump has a history of punishing blue states, like mine and that of the OP, with draconian tax schemes, so who knows what they’ll conjure up next time. The permissive nature of a Trump administration toward the evangelicals and their push to remake our education system, de-secularize local governments, and punish gay people who are my neighbors will be a daily downer for me.
Yeah - that pretty much describes my expectation. But I’ll likely be able to continue to enjoy my upper middle-class/whit/male/cis privilege, and continue to live my day to day life pretty much the same as I would under a second Biden term.
On the plus side, I doubt my American flag will suffer excess wear from being proudly displayed too often! Well, maybe upside down…
I’m a middle aged white guy with no children, no debt other than a mortgage, and a fairly stable job. Unless Trump does something to completely mess up the economy, I’ll probably be fine. My opposition to Trump isn’t based on what might happen to me it’s because I care about the United States as a whole. Other than mental anguish, I’ll be fine.
Other than my mental health probably not much. What he does with Russia and NATO will be a disaster but it probably won’t affect me directly. The economy will go up and down as usual.
This is me (well, I’m married with one adult son, but pretty financially set). I don’t rule out the possibility of a Trumpian destruction of our economy so complete that it takes decades to recover, but I don’t think so. My family is very blessed and our lives, within our bubble, probably won’t change much. But I will live in anguish over those who are destroyed by this maniac and do what I can to help.
Depending on how effective he, and his allies, would be on retribution against liberals, and blue states, he certainly could make my life difficult.
For me, right now, my biggest concern would be health insurance. It’s looking likely, at this point, that I’ll be an independent consultant / freelancer for the rest of my working career, and thus, I will have to buy my own health insurance for the next six years, until I can go on Medicare. I have two significant pre-existing conditions, and prior to the Affordable Care Act, I would not have been able to buy individual health insurance at any cost – insurers would have been able to simply refuse to cover me. If he were able to dismantle or gut the ACA, and once again allow insurers to refuse coverage, it’d make it extremely expensive for me to continue to receive healthcare.
One or more of my kids might decide to move here, since they are all dual citizens and so are their children (there are the spouses, though). A large tariff is likely to lead to a major depression (remember Smoot-Hawley) which would eventually come to Canada. I am retired on a fixed income so, in a sense, a depression might benefit me, but I would not welcome it.
I’m relatively privileged. I don’t have all the reasons in the world to worry about myself, but I am a woman who is deeply reliant on birth control to control a severe reproductive health condition, one that affects my entire personality. If the federal government comes after birth control, I will be functionally disabled and probably a completely different, worse person. So let’s hope they don’t!
I’m still of childbearing age, but I don’t plan to have any more kids. Still there’s always the possibility of being raped and impregnated, so I’m not 100% safe. But I don’t tend to worry about things with a low probability of happening. What I’m most worried about is the inevitable degeneration of reproductive health care in general, as it’s clear women’s health care needs are irrelevant to Republicans. It’s already pretty damned hard to find good OBGYNs who take your needs seriously. I imagine it will get worse as protections are rolled back.
If Trump fucks with my student loans, that’s going to be a problem. Maybe not an insurmountable one, but I’ve been quietly paying off the bare minimum while my debt goes into negative amortization. Biden put a stop to negative amortization of federal loans, so for once my balance is getting smaller. If Trump rolled back the Obama-era repayment options, like REPAYE, I’d have to come up with a lot of money fast. Likely would have to stop saving for retirement.
At this point though, I feel like it’s a lot of what-ifs. I can’t live my life that way. The only thing I can control is my vote.
I’d been considering making a thread asking what the most extreme life change you envisioned making if Trump won (I’ve wondered similar in past threads like this one), but it seems that this thread naturally kind of asks this question.
But does anyone envision making life changing decisions in the event of a Trump win, no matter how you define it?
I’m in Canada but still very fearful of the effects it would have on our closest friends and neighbours, and on world affairs such as the war in Ukraine, Putin’s expansionism, the status of NATO, and the impact of tariffs on trade. These people are insane. Steve Bannon was asked about his threats against those who prosecuted him, and his response was to double down, saying “we’re coming after you” and to remind everyone that the US has extradition treaties with most countries if the prosecutors and judges that he’s “coming after” try to escape by leaving the country. Trump is, if anything, even worse. It’s truly frightening.
I’m a middle-class cishet middle-aged nominally Christian white guy so the social implications on me are minimal. I live in a blue state with a Democratic supermajority in the state legislature so there’s some shielding there as well. So, on a personal level, I’d probably be “fine” in that I’m unlikely to find myself stripped of my civil rights or anything. Trump could start some major tariff war and crash the economy but that’s an everyone-problem.
My concerns about a Trump presidency are more macro level, about the nation and social groups who aren’t me.
