He kicks everybody out, who’s going to build the Freedom Cities?
Seriously, if we deport all undocumented and transient immigrants, who is going to be picking produce, processing meat, doing much of the basic unskilled and semi-skilled construction jobs, taking care of the elderly in care facilities, et cetera, notwithstanding the hit to economic growth and sustaining demographics because immigrants skew young and are big consumers of basic staples. This whole thing is so fucking stupid is uncountable ways.
Stranger
A couple thoughts on this. Trump has some true believers in his administration. I absolutely believe that Stephen Miller would crash the economy in exchange for ethnic cleansing the US. How much Trump lets himself be influenced means a lot here. The threat of deporting workers is a potentially huge leverage for Trump. Own a construction business? Better pay protection money. Governor getting mouthy? Send in ICE to cause chaos.
The answer, of course, is that we aren’t going to. Deportations are already as high under Biden as they’re realistically going to get unless the Republicans suddenly do a full 180 on fiscal policy and actually find a way to pay for all their unfunded mandates. What we’re going to see is some flashy-looking PR stunts that will impress the rubes but fall far far short of anything Trump has promised, just like he’s been doing his entire life.
Somehow Trump thinks that every country in the world will roll over at the threat of tariffs, and no country will retaliate. Or if the US were to try “devalue” the dollar to make imports more expensive and exports cheaper, other countries will do the same in a competitive devaluation shit show. The world is flat.
Canada has the ability to cut off power to New England, or stop shipments of petroleum and natural gas to the US. Here’s a gifted link sneak peeking Canadian plans (and every other country is the world has their own “war games” planning going.
MAGA Walmart shoppers are gonna lose their shit when that big screen TV suddenly costs 50% more.
Yes. Plenty of “brown people” voted for Trump, I’m sure they’d be willing to prove their loyalty to the new regime by killing other brown people of the “wrong sort”. Until it’s their turn, of course, but then it’s too late (purging the military of non-whites is on the agenda, I’m sure). And the military is full of right wingers who’d love to be turned loose to massacre “communists”, “homosexuals” and “illegals” by the thousands.
And even if the federal government wasn’t full of racists, they’d be in greater danger of going to prison if they refused. And it’s not like the authorities randomly killing non-white Americans is typically treated as murder, even before Trump.
I take it you’ve never met anyone who’s served.
My father did.
I put it to you that the entirety of the armed forces is not your dad.
Actually I don’t think he’d have massacred people. But that was before decades of right wing propaganda designed to turn it into an arm of the fascists, and before society in general became radicalized rightwards. And I think the military would do it because they are the ones armed and organized for the job, not because the public would fail to support them doing so.
Trump won the election, which should tell you what the character of the modern American public is like. Murderous bigots, or people too stupid to realize the consequences of supporting murderous bigots.
What I did notice in the first Trump administration was a change in attitude. I cross the border a lot, and in the Trump years the chances of encountering an asshole flexing his authority were higher.
So it’s not that policies and procedures will necessarily change, but a shift in mood can have significant effects, too.
I remain convinced that a few highly publicized deportations will effectively terrorize the targeted groups, making them easier to exploit. I think creating/ firming up the underclass is more the goal than purges or pogroms.
Just adding that I miss @Colibri and would have loved his local perspective on the sentiment in the country.
As much as, say, Afganistán?
Panama wouldn’t take any effort at all. Blockade both ends and Bob’s your uncle.
Afa Greenland and Panama go, there wouldn’t be much of a military exchange, but I’m wondering what form reprisals against randos peppering the troops guerrilla style would take. How brutal can he get away with? I like to think massacring whole villages is off the table.
I’m imaging moving the undocumented into something like concentration camps, with the motto “Work will make you free” written above them, and everyday, groups of inmates would be taken to worksites, which would be places that requested them for cheap, unskilled labor-- they would do everything from harvesting vegetables to janitorial work.
They wouldn’t be paid, but they’d be fed, and given clothes and basic medical care.
Trump would never get it. People would explain it with puppets, and he still wouldn’t get it.
Maybe not the first, but an early move, inspired by Biden’s attempt to write the Equal Rights Amendment into the Constitution, Trump would decide that the president can just make up an amendment, says he wants it written in (he probably imagines it’s a Word document), and the amendment would repeal birthright citizenship.
He’s probably also going to rewrite the national anthem. It’ll start like this:
America is our sacred state,
We will make America great.
He’ll crib a bit from “God Save the King,”
And end with
“Trump really won the 2020 election!”
I agree he is at best a child, one who needs discipline, but was he spoilt as a child? I thought his not-very-loving dad was also a raging narcissist, which would argue that daddy dear did not “spoil” little Donnie in the “lots of gifts/lots of leniacy” useage of the word, but did in the “sour milk” useage.
Anyway. I give him less than 3 minutes into his inauguration speech to finish his initial self-agrandising bullshit intro, and then start declaring some stupid international dispute, that he alone can resolve. Maybe the Greenland thing, as it is fresh in his goldfish mind.
First bad news of the Trump 2nd term: “Chiefs defeat Texans, advance to AFC title game”
In all seriousness, probably some immediate appeasement and capitulation to Russia about Ukraine.
The only bright side of all this is that when the underground economy collapses Government will have to come up with another way to get brown people back to do the work that no American is willing to do, which means a lot more work visas, whether temporary or permanent. They can then do all the background checks they want to ensure they are only allowing “good” brown people to live and work in the US. Problem solved.
With the amount of personnel available I don’t see the number of deportations available going dramatically up for quite a while. There may be some flashy demonstrations. The biggest shift by far would be implementing a policy of barring legal asylum seekers who come to points of entry. The proposal is to force them to stay in Mexico during the asylum process. I have no idea how that will work in practical terms.
You have to put it through the Trump ego filter. One of the big ego boost Trump has is that unlike all those Democrats he never got the U.S. involved in new wars. He got us out of wars. He doesn’t want to conquer Panama. He wants to bully them into doing what he wants. He’s an isolationist at heart.