In the US, is this actually the moment past the point of no return?

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• Modva@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  That’s up to Trump, because your vaunted checks and balances are gone.

  Think he’s going to show restraint? Insight? Empathy?

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• RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I think the real answer is that we end up kind of like the UK – going from the worlds ultra-dominant superpower to a sort of slow regression to the mean, as China, India and others take the spotlight.

  When you look at what China is doing with their Belt and Road Initiative, and their move to dominate the transportation infrastructure of developing nations – the US isn’t anywhere near equipped to counter that. We’re still in a cold war mentality thinking that we will dominate as the world’s police force.

  Meanwhile, all the actual economies will be run by Chinese companies operating with state support.

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• starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Remember that time we as a country condoned owning people as property? No matter how bad shit gets in the next four years, there’s no point of no return

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  • stringere@sh.itjust.works ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Mass deportations sweeping up agricultural workers will need to be replaced when a national emergency is declared because crops can’t be harvested. President declares the crops can be harvested by prison populations…what’s the word for captives forced to labor for no pay indefinitely?

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    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Slavery. Notably not the same thing as chattel slavery. I’m not saying we can’t get worse than we are right now, what I am saying is that no matter how bad things get, we can come back from it. Hell, Germany came back from being controlled by the actual Nazi party.

      I know someone is gonna reply saying how awful life was in Germany for several decades between Nazi rule and modern Germany, and I’ll note again that I never said life can’t get worse, I only said there’s no point of no return for a country.

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• TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Yeah pretty much. We’re 2-3 generations deep into a cultural expectation that “some one else” will deal with all these problems.

  The constant threat of this being “the most important election of our lives”, when the party making that argument campaigned as if the outcomes were irrelevant (because from their privileged perspective, the outcomes are irrelevant).

  Back during covid a boat got turned a bit sideways in a canal and it seemed like the whole world economy was going to collapse. The system we have is actually incredibly fragile and built largely on trust, both in one another but also in institutions and systems. Not only the US, but western Europe is about to get smacked up-side the head by the 2x4 of failing to maintain a civil society (US at fault within its borders, EU at fault beyond its borders).

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• SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Sure the US may be past it’s glory days. Hell even the Rand Corporation (who write a bunch of stuff for govt leaders and other high ups) says it’s been trending downhill since some point in the early 2000s.

  Essentially the paper says the last 200 years have been an anomaly and we’re slowly sliding back to historical norms. They call it the neomedieval era and it’s not just the US.

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• yessikg@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  According to history? Yes, but I guess there’s a chance that the USA will beat the odds

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• Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Earth will not care. Life on earth may suffer, but Earth will not care.

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  • ivanafterall@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Then I guess we shouldn’t worry about Earth, because it’ll be fine.

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    • Raab@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      The save the earth movement isn’t about earth, it’s about humanity.

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• Wilzax@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Unless there’s nuclear war, there’s no such thing as the point of no return. Just a further slide into more egregious civil rights violations. Eventually it will get better, hopefully through democratic means and not violent ones.

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  • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    You don’t vote out a dictator. The only way out is through violent revolution.

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    • Jackthelad@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Trump is the worst dictator ever, seeing as he literally got voted out last time and could do nothing about it.

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• mvirts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Every moment is a point of no return, unfortunately.

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  • Snapz@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’m 14 and this is deep?

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    • mvirts@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      🤣 yes

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• jaxxed@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  May I suggest that you give Vlad Vexler’s youtube a listen? He describes this as a period of dlweaking democracy, but explains why all is not lost.

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  • 0x0@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Democracy dlweaks in darkness

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• WhyFlip@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  You don’t understand Americans at all.

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  • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    We’re here in “no stupid questions”. The OP asked a question. So if you want to offer some of your knowledge and insight - go for it. But simply telling OP “you don’t understand” isn’t really adding anything of value.

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  • jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    It’s like not commenting, but with more effort.

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• Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Doubt it.

  The rest of the world isn’t lucky enough to never have to hear about the perpetual US election cycle again, and frankly there’s just too much money in it for them to give it up.

  It’ll be a fucking clown show for the next four years though.

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• aesthelete@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  One definition of a collapse is a sudden drastic reduction in the complexity of a thing.

  I’m not sure whether we’re going to have a societal collapse or a slow decline, but either way the US is in a downward spiral. I think Trump increases the likelihood of us going into the collapse trajectory.

  All that said, on the other side of a collapse, there is some room for hope. The incendiary portion of the collapse will definitely suck to live through (if you’re lucky enough to do so), but our country could probably use some simplification long-term because the people within it largely cannot navigate a country this Byzantine. A lot of this country’s systems are too complex for an average person to understand let alone administer.

  Most of these complexities were probably birthed via intentional decisions by the system creators, and others were a product of unintended consequences. I think the gap in education between our commoners and “the elite” – to borrow an awful trope – also played a part here.

  No matter how we arrived, I don’t think the current population can actually operate these systems anymore and long-term one way or another our people require a drastic reduction in the complexity of our society.

  There is another path in which the United States invests more in education and scales up the average intelligence of its citizens so that they can handle the complexity of modern life, nuance, do research, and create better policy…but at this point I think we’re frankly too far fucked to ever go down that path.

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• partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Did Britain or Rome know the moments when Pax Britannia or Pax Romana had hit their tipping point to decline? I doubt it.

  I think the tipping point will only be observable through the lens of history many years from now with a subject heading of: This event was the beginning of the end of Pax Americana.

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  • Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    The exact point will be the advent of the internet.

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    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      USA was still very much on the rise at the advent of the internet. If you define the advent of the internet to be Arpanet, then that was 1969, the same year the USA landed on the moon. If you define the advent of the internet to be the first use of the World Wide Web that would be 1989 the same year the Berlin wall came down and 3 years before the Soviet Union collapsed, which was arguably the most powerful the USA has ever been as it was before China’s rise.

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• Snapz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Would you ever allow yourself to accept that truth if so, or will you need to see actual bodies in the streets before you believe it’s over?

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  • ShepherdPie@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    This isn’t something you’ll be able to determine in the moment. It will only be clear in hindsight.

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    • Snapz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      People do see it, it’s not easy to see it and act, but they did. I know directly of people that gave up ownership of multiple factories and a very comfortable life in Germany in about this phase of the fascist uprising there. They left to America and Australia, split family, with what they could carry, and started back over from a very modest place. Not too long after, the worst gained momentum in Germany, nazis took over the factories and a horrible fate befell many in their community who didn’t acct when they could have.

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• theywilleatthestars@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Don’t believe there really is an absolute point of no return without the plot of Genesis of the Daleks happening. The future is long, and we don’t know how the next four to eight years will play out, but dictatorships have risen and fallen before. Spain was a fascist dictatorship for decades, now it isn’t. Also, lots of people died in the meantime and not all vestiges of the dictatorship are gone.

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• superkret@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  The US has had presidents who were literally more evil than Mr. Burns.
  They haven’t been a real democracy (where the will of the majority influences policy) in decades, if ever.

  Climate change is still the thing that’s most likely to fuck us all, and it’s not like the US were actually helpful in that regard under Democratic leadership.

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• Kaboom@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  No. Just the next chapter in the story.

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  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Rome had a final chapter.

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    • adespoton@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      The Germans are good at ending things, aren’t they?

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• NineMileTower@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I choose to believe that we are not. The true fight for our democracy by the working/middle class hasn’t even started yet. Some think it won’t. I choose to believe that good will again triumph and life is roller coaster of good and bad.

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  • Xeroxchasechase@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Will it start any time soon? It’s only going to get harder and harder to resist, from now on.

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    • Curiousfur@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Yeah, people really don’t understand how powerful a surveillance state can be when it focuses it’s eye on you. It’s not safe to talk about resistance around basically anything internet connected with a microphone.

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    • NineMileTower@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Let’s try this: magic-8ball.com

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  • ShepherdPie@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    The true fight for our democracy by the working/middle class hasn’t even started yet.

    Seems like we’ll need to form our own political party if we want any representation because we’re certainly not getting it from either one of these two dominate parties.

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    • NineMileTower@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Count me the fuck in. I’ll grab my pitchfork.

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• steel_nomad@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Of what?

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  • Snapz@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    What color paint? And did it have a distinct flavor?

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    • steel_nomad@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      You tell me? I don’t understand all this “end of the world” nonsense. Not saying everything is fine, but holy crap y’all are going way over the edge.

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• schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Someone who has been president before, for four years, was elected president again.

  I cannot think of anything less similar to a “point of no return”.

  You may think of him or his policies what you want (I personally have a mostly negative opinion of him too!), but we have all had four years of opportunity to observe what he does when he is president.

  If you are thinking that Trump is like Hitler, then please point me to anything similar to:

  • a Capitol Fire Decree of 2017 that says several parts of the Bill of Rights are suspended until further notice
  • an Enabling Act of 2017 that gives the president full power to make law including law that violates the constitution
  • laws on the Coordination of the States with the Federation of 2017 or a Law on the Reconstruction of the Federation of 2018 giving the federal government full legislative and executive power over the states
  • a Law Against the Formation of Parties of 2017 declaring that the Republican Party was the only political party in the US and anyone attempting to form another party would be imprisoned
  • a Law on the Abolition of the Senate of 2018 doing exactly what the title implies
  • a Law on Measures of State Self-Defense of 2018 retroactively legalizing dozens of extrajudicial killings of Trump’s political rivals

  Oh, none of those things happened in the late 2010s? Then why exactly are you expecting them to happen in 2025 or 2026? What is different now?

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  • BombOmOm@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Thank you for the solid points. People are dooming way too hard, simply because their preferred candidate lost this round.

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• TheRealCharlesEames@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Nobody can predict the future. I am no longer optimistic.

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• over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Why do we call it united?

  Last I checked the math books, 50 is Divided.

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  • TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I always did find it amusing that they are called the United States when it seems like it’s constantly teetering on brink of another civil war.

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    • BombOmOm@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      teetering on brink of another civil war

      Shit has to get much, much, much worse before people are willing to take up arms against their own family member 'en mass. A civil war isn’t one in which you fight a far away enemy, a civil war is one in which many of your family members and friends are on the opposite side. We are nowhere near a civil war, not even close.

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    • over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Heard that!

      I’m a united individual of one, can’t help where I was born…

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• Lightsong@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  It might be for some stuff. I’m worried that it’ll have a lasting impact on women inside the USA as well as outside. Inside, they’ll have their rights taken away over time. Outside, morale will be impacted. But I’m hoping it’ll cause an uprising rather than the other way around.

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  • Snapz@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    👊

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• ultranaut@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Maybe. US history is full of crazy fucked up shit that the nation has made its way through thus far. This kind of situation hasn’t really happened in the US before though, and historically these kinds of situations do not work out well. We are past the point of no return in that the status quo Washington Consensus or whatever you want to call the previous era is gone now, whatever is coming is something new and different and the US role and position in the world are never going back to what they were before. Really I would say this process started with Bush II but there is no reversing it now that Trump has won a convincing electoral victory. Whether we’re past the point of no return for the US constitutional order isn’t really clear yet but it’s not looking good.

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  • Snapz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Appreciate your measured response. I’m wondering how long it will take folks to stop coping out of self preservation and say out loud that this isn’t anything we’ve seen before - it’s brand new and can go as far as has been threatened.

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• johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I guess we’ll see.

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• dan1101@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Could be, but we have thought that before.

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  • Snapz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    As others have stated, this is an entirely new depth to that thought.

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