Well, almost half of the Americans who bothered to vote; still way too many who have had eight years to examine his character defects and affiliation with racists and Christian nationalists in plain view and decided they liked what they saw.
Trump is definitely going to gut the Department of Defense, eliminating any top brass who disagree with him in any way, and demanding loyalty pledges down through the ranks, no doubt, rewarding fealty over competency. (Trump said he wanted generals like Hitler had; you know, the ones who allowed him to open an unwinnable two front war and many of whom tried to assassinate him.) I can’t imagine that is going to be good for readiness notwithstanding the scope of effort required in invading Canada and how ill-prepared the modern US military is for that kind of operation.
Also, it is kind of missed by the general public, but the Department of Defense is one of the biggest investors into research in sustainable fuels and strategic adoption of renewable energy, and a big consumer of global climate circulation models and projections on the impact of climate change because they’ve long recognized the coming threat this poses to national security and the ability to operate around the globe. Guess where all of that foresight and preparation is going to end up?
Well, the default is that they love their bully-boy and identify with him and are thrilled with the vicious way he’s dealing with all those who fail to be straight Northern-European Christian males.
But the fact is that prices are going to skyrocket under the reign of their Beloved. And some of them are going to struggle to justify that.
This was a very depressing article from the New York Times.
Many Americans who otherwise dislike President-elect Donald J. Trump share his bleak assessment of the country’s problems and support some of his most contentious prescriptions to fix them, according to a new poll from The New York Times and Ipsos.
A little more than half of the country expresses some desire to see Mr. Trump follow through with his harshest threat to deal with illegal immigration: deporting everyone living in the United States without authorization.
And the other thing that I cannot stress enough - I hear over and over that it’s ‘just Trump’. No, it bloody well isn’t! If it were ‘just Trump’, you’d still have some checks and balances in the form of more Democrats in congress and in state governments. There are no ‘checks and balances’ in the current US government. The Republican party is based on loyalty to Trump. The executive is Trumpist, as is his cabinet which was chosen based on loyalty to him (and not based on any kind of qualifications!), both halves of the legislative branch are Trumpist Republican, and the judicial branch is a 6 - 3 Trumpist Republican majority.
Add to that the fact that of the 50 state legislatures, 28 are Trumpist Republican, 20 are Democrat, and 2 are split. There are 23 states with a Trumpist Republican trifecta, eg. governor, state senate and state house of representatives all have Trumpist Republican majorities. 34 states is the magic number to call a constitutional convention…
So while I blame the assholes that voted Republican for making this happen, I also blame the assholes that didn’t vote for letting this happen. Also, the people who voted against it didn’t try hard enough. The only ones I have any sympathy for are the ones whose votes were taken away from them through the many disenfranchisement schemes that are a hallmark of the US electoral system.
Perhaps Ozzy Osbourne said it best - “We’re going off the rails on a crazy train.”.
We get statements from Chuck Schumer et al of “outrage” but no action or even suggestions for action. It seems abundantly clear that Congressional Democrats are just going to keep their heads down and hope for personal survival—screw the country.
Today’s Trumpian shit-storm—freezing all US government spending basically—seems likely to screw over enough Americans so as to fail to be passively accepted.
We shall see. But even if Americans take to the streets, we know that Pete Hegseth’s military will gleefully shoot them dead. So we’ll see about that, too.
Exactly what is it I was supposed to have done that I failed to do? I haven’t missed voting in an election in 20 years, I had 7 yard signs supporting Democratic candidates and progressive referendums supporting public schools and legalizing medical marijuana and supporting women’s bodily autonomy.
The saddest and scariest part is that we are actually having to seriously ask that question, and that a whole lot of us have little confidence that the answer would truly be “no.”
With great enthusiasm, probably. The US military is known to be heavily right wing and for years its members have been regularly exposed to right wing propaganda like FOX and so on. I think they’d happily machine gun a crowd of “Satanists, liberal traitors, gay pedophiles, babykilling feminists and race traitors”. They wouldn’t think of at killing American citizens, but as killing monsters; literally demon worshiping enemies of humanity.
They’d probably cluster bomb whole neighborhoods without feeling guilty about it; just burning out the filth, you know.
But somehow, I think that if push came to shove, that such legalities like the PAL would be tossed aside. Not by the government, of course, but by Canadians. Everybody would end up knowing a guy who knows a guy, if you know what I mean; and I’d suggest that few would care about the legalities in a worst-case scenario.
Guns aren’t all that useful for modern guerilla fighting, in any case. You want explosives, IEDs. A direct shootout with a modern military force will just get you killed.
Yes, agree. After all, if Timothy McVeigh could destroy an entire building with easily-available anfo fertilizer in a rented truck, then there’s no reason Canadians cannot do the same.
The idea “oh, the soldiers won’t go through with it!” as a defense against tyranny is absurd nonsense. They will follow orders. History shows the army follows orders. It’s relatively easy to convince them someone is the enemy.
Guns are a FANTASTIC tool for guerrilla warfare. They’re cheap, easy to use, and don’t blow you up trying to set them up. You wouldn’t want to engage in a pitched standing battle with an army but for hit and run and assassination techniques they’re great.
You’re thinking in terms of the insurgency in Iraq, which showed the value of explosives to be sure, but remember that a Canadian resistance would be taking place, to a large extent, not in a militarized occupied zone.
Good for you - your participation medal is in the mail.
However hard you and other Democrats tried, you failed. You failed against a presidential candidate who was a convicted rapist and felon. You failed against a party with a fascist agenda that was published and promoted. Not just the presidency, but both halves of congress, and the judiciary. Add to that the fact that of the 50 state legislatures, 28 are Trumpist Republican, 20 are Democrat, and 2 are split. There are 23 states with a Trumpist Republican trifecta, eg. governor, state senate and state house of representatives all have Trumpist Republican majorities. 34 states is the magic number to call a constitutional convention…
And meanwhile, your government is starting an economic war in 3 days in order to annex an ally.
Tell me how easy it is after y’all vote someone other than Pierre Poilievre to be your next PM.
Speaking of hard things - has anyone else noticed the track record for invading countries with severe winters is not good for the invaders? Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin are collectively 0 for 3. And the USSR knew a thing or two about winter before attacking Finland. Should the US be so idiotic as to attack Canada either through trade or diplomacy, or through military force, it won’t end well for the US.
That such things are even within the universe of discourse of bad for the US, and horrible for Canada.