"One easy decision by the US president is quietly killing so many lives"
January 31, 2025 6:44 AM Subscribe
This week, President Trump’s sweeping freeze on U.S. foreign aid has deepened humanitarian crises and cast doubt on America’s leadership on the world stage. Despite some confusion over the partial unfreezing of federal grants, the bulk of U.S. foreign aid remains frozen, upending the lives and work of federal agencies and contractors.
In addition to his Executive order Reevaluating And Realigning United States Foreign Aid, the U.S. administration made other changes broadly affecting global and US health systems, including the elimination of the National Security Council Directorate on Global Health Security and Biodefense, withdrawal of the US from the World Health Organization (WHO), redefinition of sex as an immutable binary biological classification, and rejection of international abortion rights.
Meanwhile, it looks increasingly clear that moves are being made to loot federal funds [WaPo gift link]:
... the possibility that government officials might try to use the federal payments system — which essentially functions as the nation’s “checking book” — to enact a political agenda is unprecedented, said Mark Mazur, who served in senior treasury roles during the Obama and Biden administrations.
“This is a mechanical job — they pay Social Security benefits, they pay vendors, whatever. It’s not one where there’s a role for nonmechanical things, at least from the career standpoint. Your whole job is to pay the bills as they’re due,” Mazur said. “It’s never been used in a way to execute a partisan agenda. … You have to really put bad intentions in place for that to be the case.”
posted by reedbird_hill at 6:55 AM on January 31 [26 favorites]
... the possibility that government officials might try to use the federal payments system — which essentially functions as the nation’s “checking book” — to enact a political agenda is unprecedented, said Mark Mazur, who served in senior treasury roles during the Obama and Biden administrations.
“This is a mechanical job — they pay Social Security benefits, they pay vendors, whatever. It’s not one where there’s a role for nonmechanical things, at least from the career standpoint. Your whole job is to pay the bills as they’re due,” Mazur said. “It’s never been used in a way to execute a partisan agenda. … You have to really put bad intentions in place for that to be the case.”
posted by reedbird_hill at 6:55 AM on January 31 [26 favorites]
The cruelty is the point, the medium, and the message.
The pain is what they want. They find other people's expressions of pain as intoxicating as a shot of heroin. They just want power so they can hurt people and be cruel to them, and they look for the groups who are already in trouble to draw it out of.
They're worse than evil: they're actively malicious and enjoying it.
posted by mephron at 6:57 AM on January 31 [34 favorites]
The pain is what they want. They find other people's expressions of pain as intoxicating as a shot of heroin. They just want power so they can hurt people and be cruel to them, and they look for the groups who are already in trouble to draw it out of.
They're worse than evil: they're actively malicious and enjoying it.
posted by mephron at 6:57 AM on January 31 [34 favorites]
I said it in the other thread too... When I worked in a school district that operated this way (the superintendent & business manager had to personally approve all funds, so everything took forever because there were no systems in place) it is because they were stealing money from the budget. Accounting was purposefully opaque to hide how much money there was and where it was going.
posted by subdee at 7:07 AM on January 31 [52 favorites]
posted by subdee at 7:07 AM on January 31 [52 favorites]
At least one brave civil servant tried to stand up to these blatantly illegal actions by attempting to undo USAID staff being placed on administrative leave [WaPo]. He was then placed on administrative leave himself.
In related news, "[National Science Foundation] payment system remained offline despite the lifting of Trump administration funding freeze", leaving researchers unable to pay their bills.
posted by jedicus at 7:08 AM on January 31 [15 favorites]
In related news, "[National Science Foundation] payment system remained offline despite the lifting of Trump administration funding freeze", leaving researchers unable to pay their bills.
posted by jedicus at 7:08 AM on January 31 [15 favorites]
There's also this too:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-omb-funding-freeze-courts_n_679a8d92e4b02e7053bf8d23
Tl;Dr they know the freezing of funds already appropriated by Congress is illegal, and the end goal is to provoke a legal response like the federal court's temporary ban on freezing federal grant money.
Then, as discussed in the leaked Heritage Foundation memo, they plan to appeal that court case all the way up to the Supreme Court, who will respond by revoking the Impoundment Act, giving Trump free reign to legally block any funding he sees fit.
As a reminder, Trump was impeached the first time under the Impoundment Act for blocking aid to Ukraine.
posted by subdee at 7:11 AM on January 31 [40 favorites]
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-omb-funding-freeze-courts_n_679a8d92e4b02e7053bf8d23
Tl;Dr they know the freezing of funds already appropriated by Congress is illegal, and the end goal is to provoke a legal response like the federal court's temporary ban on freezing federal grant money.
Then, as discussed in the leaked Heritage Foundation memo, they plan to appeal that court case all the way up to the Supreme Court, who will respond by revoking the Impoundment Act, giving Trump free reign to legally block any funding he sees fit.
As a reminder, Trump was impeached the first time under the Impoundment Act for blocking aid to Ukraine.
posted by subdee at 7:11 AM on January 31 [40 favorites]
My "favorite" story related to this is about sending condoms to Hamas.
posted by Slothrup at 7:11 AM on January 31 [1 favorite]
posted by Slothrup at 7:11 AM on January 31 [1 favorite]
I just don't understand any of this. Once they've looted America what then? Once the planet is uninhabitable, what then? Who cares if you have a billion US dollars if they've destroyed the economy and the money is worthless?
It feels like all the oligarchs are acting like they've got a super secret second planet to escape to but they, or their children, are still going to be here with the rest of us.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 7:13 AM on January 31 [35 favorites]
It feels like all the oligarchs are acting like they've got a super secret second planet to escape to but they, or their children, are still going to be here with the rest of us.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 7:13 AM on January 31 [35 favorites]
I've mentioned before that my mom's sole source of income in her Social Security cheque. If the government fucks with that, my Trump voting brother in law better go into hiding.
posted by Kitteh at 7:15 AM on January 31 [20 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 7:15 AM on January 31 [20 favorites]
This so obviously plays into the hands of other Great Powers -- who will immediately (and gleefully) move to fill the gap -- that it must either be done at their behest (*cough* Putin *cough*) or else by someone in the U.S. who has total control over the entire upper echelon of the G.O.P.
Either one of those beggars belief...but what else explains it?
posted by wenestvedt at 7:17 AM on January 31 [8 favorites]
Either one of those beggars belief...but what else explains it?
posted by wenestvedt at 7:17 AM on January 31 [8 favorites]
They won't fuck with social security because the people who pay no attention (their core base) will notice that.
It's why they are going after the federal workers who work remotely first - because the people who pay no attention don't interact personally with those workers and won't notice.
I think the Impoundment Act stuff needs to be shouted from the rooftops because only if there is mass public awareness that this is what's happening will the supreme Court maybe, possibly, decide they shouldn't go through with it. We obviously can't count on the Republicans in Congress to protect their own lawmaking power or the will of the people as expressed by who they vote into Congress.
posted by subdee at 7:19 AM on January 31 [7 favorites]
It's why they are going after the federal workers who work remotely first - because the people who pay no attention don't interact personally with those workers and won't notice.
I think the Impoundment Act stuff needs to be shouted from the rooftops because only if there is mass public awareness that this is what's happening will the supreme Court maybe, possibly, decide they shouldn't go through with it. We obviously can't count on the Republicans in Congress to protect their own lawmaking power or the will of the people as expressed by who they vote into Congress.
posted by subdee at 7:19 AM on January 31 [7 favorites]
I've been basically paralyzed by disgust and horror lately, but one of the few things I've been finding myself capable of doing is bugging our Minister for Immigration and Refugees, Marc Miller, and requesting that his office release official guidance for trans Americans and their families who may choose to seek asylum here in Canada.
"You may be able to ask for refugee protection if you can prove that returning to your home country will mean a danger of torture, a risk to your life, or a risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment."
That seems like it should obviously be grounds for trans folks to be granted asylum, right? But until I see some official statements to that effect, I'm gonna keep pestering.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 7:26 AM on January 31 [27 favorites]
"You may be able to ask for refugee protection if you can prove that returning to your home country will mean a danger of torture, a risk to your life, or a risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment."
That seems like it should obviously be grounds for trans folks to be granted asylum, right? But until I see some official statements to that effect, I'm gonna keep pestering.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 7:26 AM on January 31 [27 favorites]
America’s leadership on the world stage
No offense to whoever wrote this, but any hope for us as a country depends on our ceasing to write things like this.
posted by Lemkin at 7:29 AM on January 31 [20 favorites]
No offense to whoever wrote this, but any hope for us as a country depends on our ceasing to write things like this.
posted by Lemkin at 7:29 AM on January 31 [20 favorites]
I just don't understand any of this. Once they've looted America what then? Once the planet is uninhabitable, what then? Who cares if you have a billion US dollars if they've destroyed the economy and the money is worthless?
They still think their wealth will protect them, because they can't imagine - or are in profound denial about the possibility of - other orders coming into being than a monarchy in which their methods of power still work, and are amplified.
I think David Roth nailed it in his recent execution-style takedown of CES:
There is another way to read this, though, which is as a tapped-out super-class attempting to rush its preferred future into existence in the absence of any broader justification or appetite for any of it. It is rich cynics trying to make something lifeless grow in the way that living things do, and lock the dying present they rule in for the foreseeable future by effectively removing everyone from it but them. They are impatient not just because they are high-handed and avaricious, but because they know that the only future they can rule in the way they want is one that is passive, stupid, small and shrinking. There is in this morbid turning inward a latent and terribly sad admission of defeat—it is a future you'd accept only if you had given up on every other richer and more human and more generous one. The only people who've actually chosen it, so far, are the ones insisting that there's no other future to choose.
posted by reedbird_hill at 7:38 AM on January 31 [24 favorites]
They still think their wealth will protect them, because they can't imagine - or are in profound denial about the possibility of - other orders coming into being than a monarchy in which their methods of power still work, and are amplified.
I think David Roth nailed it in his recent execution-style takedown of CES:
There is another way to read this, though, which is as a tapped-out super-class attempting to rush its preferred future into existence in the absence of any broader justification or appetite for any of it. It is rich cynics trying to make something lifeless grow in the way that living things do, and lock the dying present they rule in for the foreseeable future by effectively removing everyone from it but them. They are impatient not just because they are high-handed and avaricious, but because they know that the only future they can rule in the way they want is one that is passive, stupid, small and shrinking. There is in this morbid turning inward a latent and terribly sad admission of defeat—it is a future you'd accept only if you had given up on every other richer and more human and more generous one. The only people who've actually chosen it, so far, are the ones insisting that there's no other future to choose.
posted by reedbird_hill at 7:38 AM on January 31 [24 favorites]
Although the DailyMail sucks, they claim Salome Balthus said:
'The elephant in the room is climate change. Everyone knows it can't be prevented any more,' she said, adding that the 'super rich' could generally be split into two groups on the topic.
'The one group thinks it only affects the poor, the "not-white race", while the others fear that it could get worse but there's no sense in trying to do anything about it so they just enjoy themselves,' she told MailOnline.
'The one half is in despair and the other, dumber, half is celebrating future mass deaths. It's not just like that in Davos of course, but it's concentrated there [during the WEF].'
posted by jeffburdges at 7:45 AM on January 31 [12 favorites]
'The elephant in the room is climate change. Everyone knows it can't be prevented any more,' she said, adding that the 'super rich' could generally be split into two groups on the topic.
'The one group thinks it only affects the poor, the "not-white race", while the others fear that it could get worse but there's no sense in trying to do anything about it so they just enjoy themselves,' she told MailOnline.
'The one half is in despair and the other, dumber, half is celebrating future mass deaths. It's not just like that in Davos of course, but it's concentrated there [during the WEF].'
posted by jeffburdges at 7:45 AM on January 31 [12 favorites]
I've been working on an app for a Sudan community project that is, according to Time, "the most heartening possible response" to the world's worst famine. We found out this week it is all on the verge of halting because of Trump's freezing of U.S. foreign aid. It is all chaos and nobody knows what will happen.
posted by johngoren at 7:47 AM on January 31 [25 favorites]
posted by johngoren at 7:47 AM on January 31 [25 favorites]
That seems like it should obviously be grounds for trans folks to be granted asylum, right?
Nobody is going to be able to get asylum anywhere as a US citizen. It's not going to happen. Stop hoping for that. The Safe Third Country concept guarantees you cannot get asylum as long as the USA is considered a STC. (For anyone unaware - if you are originally from or have passed through a STC on your way from where you were - the first country - to where you are now seeking asylum - the second country - you will be sent back to the Safe Third Country and told to seek asylum there instead.)
posted by ngaiotonga at 7:50 AM on January 31 [11 favorites]
Nobody is going to be able to get asylum anywhere as a US citizen. It's not going to happen. Stop hoping for that. The Safe Third Country concept guarantees you cannot get asylum as long as the USA is considered a STC. (For anyone unaware - if you are originally from or have passed through a STC on your way from where you were - the first country - to where you are now seeking asylum - the second country - you will be sent back to the Safe Third Country and told to seek asylum there instead.)
posted by ngaiotonga at 7:50 AM on January 31 [11 favorites]
Every federal employee I know, from the lowest-level contractor to the head of my program in Washington, is just shell-shocked. Trying to keep the lights on at the same time these fucking vandals are gleefully stealing the copper wire from the systems while we work on them.
If you have to deal with any feds in your life right now: please have some sympathy. Or at least patience. Knowing that our own superiors hate us, want us to quit, and wouldn't care if we died -- and that a lot of the country feels that way too -- is really fucking disheartening.
posted by suelac at 7:51 AM on January 31 [43 favorites]
If you have to deal with any feds in your life right now: please have some sympathy. Or at least patience. Knowing that our own superiors hate us, want us to quit, and wouldn't care if we died -- and that a lot of the country feels that way too -- is really fucking disheartening.
posted by suelac at 7:51 AM on January 31 [43 favorites]
Public administration inspired by Season 6 of SNL.
one of the few things I've been finding myself capable of doing is bugging our Minister for Immigration and Refugees, Marc Miller, and requesting that his office release official guidance for trans Americans and their families who may choose to seek asylum here in Canada.
This has been on my mind for about a year. I certainly hope the current regime has planned for a torrent of American refugees, but I fear they have not.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 7:52 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
one of the few things I've been finding myself capable of doing is bugging our Minister for Immigration and Refugees, Marc Miller, and requesting that his office release official guidance for trans Americans and their families who may choose to seek asylum here in Canada.
This has been on my mind for about a year. I certainly hope the current regime has planned for a torrent of American refugees, but I fear they have not.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 7:52 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
Nobody is going to be able to get asylum anywhere as a US citizen. It's not going to happen. Stop hoping for that. The Safe Third Country concept guarantees you cannot get asylum as long as the USA is considered a STC.
Hence "Refugee advocates want Canada to make exemption for U.S. transgender asylum claims". It's an uphill battle, but people are fighting it nonetheless.
posted by jedicus at 7:54 AM on January 31 [22 favorites]
Hence "Refugee advocates want Canada to make exemption for U.S. transgender asylum claims". It's an uphill battle, but people are fighting it nonetheless.
posted by jedicus at 7:54 AM on January 31 [22 favorites]
Nobody is going to be able to get asylum anywhere as a US citizen. It's not going to happen. Stop hoping for that. The Safe Third Country concept guarantees you cannot get asylum as long as the USA is considered a STC. (For anyone unaware - if you are originally from or have passed through a STC on your way from where you were - the first country - to where you are now seeking asylum - the second country - you will be sent back to the Safe Third Country and told to seek asylum there instead.)
This is what I was told too when I asked about trans folx and others coming to Canada to escape the US. Apparently doing that would clearly mark the US as hostile and while that's true, countries that border the US would not want the blowback that would entail. I mean, fuck it, I say do it anyway as it's clear the current US government is going to be aggressive no matter what, but then I am not in politics.
posted by Kitteh at 7:57 AM on January 31 [18 favorites]
This is what I was told too when I asked about trans folx and others coming to Canada to escape the US. Apparently doing that would clearly mark the US as hostile and while that's true, countries that border the US would not want the blowback that would entail. I mean, fuck it, I say do it anyway as it's clear the current US government is going to be aggressive no matter what, but then I am not in politics.
posted by Kitteh at 7:57 AM on January 31 [18 favorites]
They won't fuck with social security because the people who pay no attention (their core base) will notice that.
If things go to plan, they won’t need the core base anymore. Destruction of the federal government is the goal. The base got them to this point, but will be easily kicked to the curb once success is in sight. The future is for the wealthy, not the retirees or the ones flying Trump flags from their truck.
As far as SS is concerned, the funding for the program has been so thoroughly fucked with over the past several decades that killing it off has become a viable option for many (in lieu of, y’know, actually repairing it.)
Rumblings among those of us of SS age point to beliefs that, if you don’t sign-up for it now (as in, the next couple of months) you aren’t going to be able to later. The belief is that the plan is to simply kill the program off (or, totally defund it) to anyone not already receiving benefits, no matter their age.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:05 AM on January 31 [11 favorites]
If things go to plan, they won’t need the core base anymore. Destruction of the federal government is the goal. The base got them to this point, but will be easily kicked to the curb once success is in sight. The future is for the wealthy, not the retirees or the ones flying Trump flags from their truck.
As far as SS is concerned, the funding for the program has been so thoroughly fucked with over the past several decades that killing it off has become a viable option for many (in lieu of, y’know, actually repairing it.)
Rumblings among those of us of SS age point to beliefs that, if you don’t sign-up for it now (as in, the next couple of months) you aren’t going to be able to later. The belief is that the plan is to simply kill the program off (or, totally defund it) to anyone not already receiving benefits, no matter their age.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:05 AM on January 31 [11 favorites]
The pain is what they want. They find other people's expressions of pain as intoxicating as a shot of heroin. They just want power so they can hurt people and be cruel to them, and they look for the groups who are already in trouble to draw it out of.
You know, I've seen the "the cruelty is the intent" argument before, but it's never sat right with me. Because I think there's something different going on.
It's not that they're cruel - it's that they're indifferent. It's not that they specifically intend to be cruel - they aren't sitting around in dark rooms cackling and rubbing their hands thinking up ways to torture people. It's that they literally do not care how their actions impact others.
That's why I think accusing them of cruelty backfires - because they get defensive because there are people they are nice to, so that means they're not cruel. The people they're nice to is a very, very small subset of people, but they're still nice, so that means they're not cruel, and YOU'RE nasty for suggesting they are!
But indifference? That's different - and worse. It's not that they get off on seeing the rest of us suffer - it's that they literally don't care whether or not we suffer. The people who want to see us suffer at least understand we are people - the indifferent do not.
I've experienced ill treatment from both the cruel and the indifferent. The cruel went out of their way to play pranks on me - but the indifferent could have driven me into medical bankruptcy (if the actors union hadn't stepped in to help). Between the two, the indifferent are worse.
Trump and his cronies aren't cruel - they're indifferent.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:05 AM on January 31 [30 favorites]
You know, I've seen the "the cruelty is the intent" argument before, but it's never sat right with me. Because I think there's something different going on.
It's not that they're cruel - it's that they're indifferent. It's not that they specifically intend to be cruel - they aren't sitting around in dark rooms cackling and rubbing their hands thinking up ways to torture people. It's that they literally do not care how their actions impact others.
That's why I think accusing them of cruelty backfires - because they get defensive because there are people they are nice to, so that means they're not cruel. The people they're nice to is a very, very small subset of people, but they're still nice, so that means they're not cruel, and YOU'RE nasty for suggesting they are!
But indifference? That's different - and worse. It's not that they get off on seeing the rest of us suffer - it's that they literally don't care whether or not we suffer. The people who want to see us suffer at least understand we are people - the indifferent do not.
I've experienced ill treatment from both the cruel and the indifferent. The cruel went out of their way to play pranks on me - but the indifferent could have driven me into medical bankruptcy (if the actors union hadn't stepped in to help). Between the two, the indifferent are worse.
Trump and his cronies aren't cruel - they're indifferent.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:05 AM on January 31 [30 favorites]
The loathing I have for these people - who cut off aid from a rich country to the worlds poor and suffering, while simultaneously preparing to grease the wheels for billionaires and corporations to steal even more tax, loot the treasury even more and destroy the biosphere even more - has no bounds.
posted by lalochezia at 8:05 AM on January 31 [16 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 8:05 AM on January 31 [16 favorites]
I've experienced ill treatment from both the cruel and the indifferent. The cruel went out of their way to play pranks on me - but the indifferent could have driven me into medical bankruptcy (if the actors union hadn't stepped in to help). Between the two, the indifferent are worse.
porque no los dos? no matter the ratio of: a few genuinely cruel, a few performatively cruel for some of their constituency, and swathes of indifferent jackals - all has the same result.
posted by lalochezia at 8:07 AM on January 31 [8 favorites]
The pain is what they want. They find other people's expressions of pain as intoxicating as a shot of heroin. They just want power so they can hurt people and be cruel to them, and they look for the groups who are already in trouble to draw it out of.
They're worse than evil: they're actively malicious and enjoying it.
This type of thinking is cartoonish. Everyone does what they do because they think it's the right thing to do, regardless of how cruel it may be to everyone else. Obviously I'm not defending this behavior but if you have to attempt to at least understand the way another person thinks, however twisted it is, and not just say they "love being evil".
posted by Liquidwolf at 8:13 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
They're worse than evil: they're actively malicious and enjoying it.
This type of thinking is cartoonish. Everyone does what they do because they think it's the right thing to do, regardless of how cruel it may be to everyone else. Obviously I'm not defending this behavior but if you have to attempt to at least understand the way another person thinks, however twisted it is, and not just say they "love being evil".
posted by Liquidwolf at 8:13 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
If things go to plan, they won’t need the core base anymore.
Agreed - a Night of the Long Knives by neglect is coming for the MAGA base, whether they understand it yet or not.
posted by reedbird_hill at 8:15 AM on January 31 [6 favorites]
Agreed - a Night of the Long Knives by neglect is coming for the MAGA base, whether they understand it yet or not.
posted by reedbird_hill at 8:15 AM on January 31 [6 favorites]
Trump administration suspension of global HIV treatment program sparks chaos and fear of lost lives. "Pause on PEPFAR funding creates immediate and far-reaching health risks, experts say"
More than 200,000 people are estimated to pick up supplies of antiretroviral therapy — which they typically receive in courses of 30 days, 3 months, or 6 months — every day. PEPFAR also supports HIV research, education, and testing. Another concern is that funded organizations may start cutting back on staff and initiatives if they can’t operate for the time being or count on funding coming through.posted by BungaDunga at 8:17 AM on January 31 [5 favorites]
On Monday, the government also pulled down PEPFAR’s data website. Jen Kates, the director of global health & HIV policy at KFF, said the page offered a near-real time tracking of PEPFAR disbursements and was used by countries, researchers, and lawmakers to understand the impact of the program.
> They won't fuck with social security because the people who pay no attention (their core base) will notice that.
The public will notice sudden changes. The public will also abide the slow erosion of services, just like they have for education, mail delivery, public works like roads and bridges, social services and pretty much everything else. As long as things gradually rather than suddenly get worse it's within the cynical expectations set in the minds of a population who learned everything they know about government policy from Fox News and social media.
The wolves have been salivating over the privatization of Social Security since at least the Reagan administration. This is the administration that could most plausibly actually do it. They only care about the money they can make off the sale.
posted by at by at 8:18 AM on January 31 [8 favorites]
The public will notice sudden changes. The public will also abide the slow erosion of services, just like they have for education, mail delivery, public works like roads and bridges, social services and pretty much everything else. As long as things gradually rather than suddenly get worse it's within the cynical expectations set in the minds of a population who learned everything they know about government policy from Fox News and social media.
The wolves have been salivating over the privatization of Social Security since at least the Reagan administration. This is the administration that could most plausibly actually do it. They only care about the money they can make off the sale.
posted by at by at 8:18 AM on January 31 [8 favorites]
not just say they "love being evil".
Some of these people genuinely believe that they have been denied their birthright as boy-kings by the woke DEI mafia, sure. That doesn't mean they don't enjoy seeing their supposed tormentors thrown down and defeated.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:20 AM on January 31 [6 favorites]
Some of these people genuinely believe that they have been denied their birthright as boy-kings by the woke DEI mafia, sure. That doesn't mean they don't enjoy seeing their supposed tormentors thrown down and defeated.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:20 AM on January 31 [6 favorites]
Trump and his cronies aren't cruel - they're indifferent.
Oh please.
Trump isn't some obscure CEO at a private health insurance company overseeing a faceless machine designed to maximize profits by quietly deny authorization for treatments, he's the president of the United States. His entire campaign to become president was built on the promise of othering and making people suffer. His whole deal is using the threat of pain to extract concessions.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:26 AM on January 31 [57 favorites]
Oh please.
Trump isn't some obscure CEO at a private health insurance company overseeing a faceless machine designed to maximize profits by quietly deny authorization for treatments, he's the president of the United States. His entire campaign to become president was built on the promise of othering and making people suffer. His whole deal is using the threat of pain to extract concessions.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:26 AM on January 31 [57 favorites]
National Science Foundation suspends salary payments, leaving researchers unable to pay their bills: "NSF payment system remained offline despite the lifting of Trump administration funding freeze"
“If the freeze is not stopped, I might lose my house,” said one biologist doing a postdoctoral fellowship in the southeast... He said he had enough in his bank account to last until March, but had no idea how long the pay stoppage might last.posted by BungaDunga at 8:27 AM on January 31 [13 favorites]
Bolton Howes, a geologist who studies how climatic changes some 56 million years ago shifted the course of rivers, has a similarly thin financial cushion. When he woke up on Thursday to find that his pay was still frozen, he reached out to his landlord to say that his February rent would be coming late... “I’m going to eat food this month, but that’s because I have a credit card,” he went on. “Like, I’m not worried about going hungry.” But he was worried that if it didn’t get sorted out, he’d be dealing with debt...
many figured they might be able to give themselves some financial stability through the confusion by logging onto the payment portal and requesting a payment before the freeze went into effect as planned at the end of the business day on Tuesday... minutes before 5, when the freeze would’ve gone into effect had a judge not intervened, an NSF official emailed grant recipients, saying that the system through which their payments were processed would be put on pause... How exactly one office can continue enacting a funding freeze that was blocked in court remains unclear
The Safe Third Country concept guarantees you cannot get asylum as long as the USA is considered a STC.
Yes indeed, which is why I think one of the first orders of business for Canada needs to be suspending the STC agreement, because how can a fascist-occupied nation like the US *possibly* be considered safe? It's ridiculous.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 8:29 AM on January 31 [10 favorites]
Yes indeed, which is why I think one of the first orders of business for Canada needs to be suspending the STC agreement, because how can a fascist-occupied nation like the US *possibly* be considered safe? It's ridiculous.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 8:29 AM on January 31 [10 favorites]
Tbh, because if the federal government changes for us from Liberal to PC, they will not do that. And the current Liberal government aren't even going to try because they're too busy trying to save their own hides.
posted by Kitteh at 8:32 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 8:32 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
Lemkin:
I am not aware of any other country who spends as much on foreign aid as the U.S. does. Like PEPFAR's payments for AIDS medicine, or USAID, or the various nutritional aid (i.e., "feed the hungry") programs, etc., etc. -- it's just a TON of money, and I don't know what will fill the gaps. I mean, Michael Bloomberg can't pay for everything.
Even if another country does step up, will they replace every dollar/yuan/euro the America used to spend? And if they can, why aren't they doing it now?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:35 AM on January 31 [6 favorites]
America’s leadership on the world stageOK, inform me better if I am wrong, since it was implicit in my comment, above.
No offense to whoever wrote this, but any hope for us as a country depends on our ceasing to write things like this.
I am not aware of any other country who spends as much on foreign aid as the U.S. does. Like PEPFAR's payments for AIDS medicine, or USAID, or the various nutritional aid (i.e., "feed the hungry") programs, etc., etc. -- it's just a TON of money, and I don't know what will fill the gaps. I mean, Michael Bloomberg can't pay for everything.
Even if another country does step up, will they replace every dollar/yuan/euro the America used to spend? And if they can, why aren't they doing it now?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:35 AM on January 31 [6 favorites]
That seems to equate “leadership” with “cut a check with money borrowed from the Chinese” - which to my mind is not the same thing.
posted by Lemkin at 8:42 AM on January 31 [5 favorites]
posted by Lemkin at 8:42 AM on January 31 [5 favorites]
"But both candidates are equally immoral, neither of them has earned my vote, my conscience is telling me I have to sit out this election."
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:43 AM on January 31 [7 favorites]
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:43 AM on January 31 [7 favorites]
You realize Canada removed post-graduation work permits for students in 2024, right? Almost inconceivable that Canada weakens the STC agreement, while kicking out people they just trained.
If anything, it's surprising that North America does not have the stronger & broader STC notions used in Europe. A priori, I'd expect the "risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment" defintiions get tightenned in Canada, so that Americans never qualify.
As a positive note, Trump pissing everyone off internationally means minimal chances for new treaty negotiation, so afaik the STC agreements cannot be expanded while Trump remains in office. Yet, if a Democrat takes office in 4 years, then it's entirely possible Democrats take the "moderate anti-immigration" stance of expanding STC treaties.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:44 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
If anything, it's surprising that North America does not have the stronger & broader STC notions used in Europe. A priori, I'd expect the "risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment" defintiions get tightenned in Canada, so that Americans never qualify.
As a positive note, Trump pissing everyone off internationally means minimal chances for new treaty negotiation, so afaik the STC agreements cannot be expanded while Trump remains in office. Yet, if a Democrat takes office in 4 years, then it's entirely possible Democrats take the "moderate anti-immigration" stance of expanding STC treaties.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:44 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
"But both candidates are equally immoral, neither of them has earned my vote, my conscience is telling me I have to sit out this election."
"But if my preferred candidate doesn't show unwavering support for genocide, I'm going to vote for the other guy"
Two can play this petty blame game.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:47 AM on January 31 [11 favorites]
"But if my preferred candidate doesn't show unwavering support for genocide, I'm going to vote for the other guy"
Two can play this petty blame game.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:47 AM on January 31 [11 favorites]
Around climate, I'd enjoy the schadenfreude of a hurricane destroying Mar-a-Lago, with the damage being worsened due to inadequate information from federal agencies. :)
posted by jeffburdges at 8:51 AM on January 31 [5 favorites]
posted by jeffburdges at 8:51 AM on January 31 [5 favorites]
You realize Canada removed post-graduation work permits for students in 2024, right? Almost inconceivable that Canada weakens the STC agreement, while kicking out people they just trained.
Yup, the Liberal government has capitulated to our homegrown racist base by reducing immigration levels across the board, but particularly for students. Again, I know people want to think of Canada as a safe option and I wish it were true, but it really isn't.
posted by Kitteh at 8:52 AM on January 31 [9 favorites]
Yup, the Liberal government has capitulated to our homegrown racist base by reducing immigration levels across the board, but particularly for students. Again, I know people want to think of Canada as a safe option and I wish it were true, but it really isn't.
posted by Kitteh at 8:52 AM on January 31 [9 favorites]
Trump isn't some obscure CEO at a private health insurance company overseeing a faceless machine designed to maximize profits by quietly deny authorization for treatments, he's the president of the United States. His entire campaign to become president was built on the promise of othering and making people suffer. His whole deal is using the threat of pain to extract concessions.
His campaign was built on "the promise of othering" because he is appealing to the people who think they are themselves being othered because they aren't getting everything they want, not because he gets off on "and I get off on watching you cower and shiver, hahahahaha".
His M.O. isn't "I love watching people suffer". His M.O. is "I'm going to put straight white guys back in positions of power the way it SHOULD BE, and I'll do whatever it takes to make that happen - and if some non-white non-straight non-guys get hurt in the process, big deal."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:00 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
His campaign was built on "the promise of othering" because he is appealing to the people who think they are themselves being othered because they aren't getting everything they want, not because he gets off on "and I get off on watching you cower and shiver, hahahahaha".
His M.O. isn't "I love watching people suffer". His M.O. is "I'm going to put straight white guys back in positions of power the way it SHOULD BE, and I'll do whatever it takes to make that happen - and if some non-white non-straight non-guys get hurt in the process, big deal."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:00 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
Everyone does what they do because they think it's the right thing to do, regardless of how cruel it may be to everyone else
Have you seen the online right talking about any of this stuff? The kind of guys Vance follows on Twitter? They explicitly view it as a campaign of revenge. So sure, they may on some level think they have a moral right to pursue it, they may think federal employees are the bad guys, but it’s absolutely about making their enemies suffer.
posted by atoxyl at 9:04 AM on January 31 [28 favorites]
Have you seen the online right talking about any of this stuff? The kind of guys Vance follows on Twitter? They explicitly view it as a campaign of revenge. So sure, they may on some level think they have a moral right to pursue it, they may think federal employees are the bad guys, but it’s absolutely about making their enemies suffer.
posted by atoxyl at 9:04 AM on January 31 [28 favorites]
1 percent of the US budget.
https://www.state.gov/resources-and-reports-office-of-foreign-assistance/
posted by pthomas745 at 9:10 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
https://www.state.gov/resources-and-reports-office-of-foreign-assistance/
posted by pthomas745 at 9:10 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
a lot of these guys absolutely get off on domination, and not the fun kind
posted by BungaDunga at 9:13 AM on January 31 [8 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 9:13 AM on January 31 [8 favorites]
/Have you seen the online right talking about any of this stuff? The kind of guys Vance follows on Twitter? They explicitly view it as a campaign of revenge. So sure, they may on some level think they have a moral right to pursue it, they may think federal employees are the bad guys, but it’s absolutely about making their enemies suffer.
Yeah. Because they think that’s the right thing to do. They weren’t raised well.
posted by Liquidwolf at 9:15 AM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Yeah. Because they think that’s the right thing to do. They weren’t raised well.
posted by Liquidwolf at 9:15 AM on January 31 [3 favorites]
I don't know, it's hard to see Trump's baseless blaming of the recent air crash on amputees and people with dwarfism as anything but some guy getting joy from being malicious. Schoolyard bully stuff.
posted by LindsayIrene at 9:16 AM on January 31 [20 favorites]
posted by LindsayIrene at 9:16 AM on January 31 [20 favorites]
1 percent of the US budget.
And people think it's various large percentages.
Groypers and so on absolutely enjoy hurting others. Remember Charlottesville? These are, sometimes literally, the people in the White House now. They're stupid and empty people or they'd have something else to do, but they do have tenacity if it's about making others suffer.
That's one reason we've got to go down fighting - give them one in the eye even if we can't win, stab at them from hell's heart, etc. We can at the very least deprive them of the pleasure of seeing us cower.
posted by Frowner at 9:16 AM on January 31 [12 favorites]
they aren't sitting around in dark rooms cackling and rubbing their hands thinking up ways to torture people
Stephen Miller literally does this.
do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life
posted by flabdablet at 9:21 AM on January 31 [21 favorites]
Stephen Miller literally does this.
do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life
posted by flabdablet at 9:21 AM on January 31 [21 favorites]
Is this the playbook from Project 25? All the decisions can’t come from trump’s evil mind. His sig is on the Exec Order, but he doesn’t write them. I want to know names of those developing these actions. Miller? Musk?
posted by TDIpod at 9:22 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
posted by TDIpod at 9:22 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
wenestvedt:
Adjusted for size (whether population or income), Norway, Sweden, Germany, UK, France have historically all given more: https://ourworldindata.org/foreign-aid
posted by ciaojames at 9:24 AM on January 31 [15 favorites]
I am not aware of any other country who spends as much on foreign aid as the U.S. does. Like PEPFAR's payments for AIDS medicine, or USAID, or the various nutritional aid (i.e., "feed the hungry") programs, etc., etc.By pure dollar amount, yes, the USA has long given more ODA than any other country.
Adjusted for size (whether population or income), Norway, Sweden, Germany, UK, France have historically all given more: https://ourworldindata.org/foreign-aid
posted by ciaojames at 9:24 AM on January 31 [15 favorites]
As far as "where will they go after they destroy the planet?": first, Trump is dumb. I don't think he understands long term thinking.
His followers literally believe in the promise of eternal life. Some of them think Jesus Christ will return with a blazing sword. Elon Musk is apparently trying to become a Cylon. Crazy, dumb, or high, it all amounts to the same thing.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:32 AM on January 31 [17 favorites]
His followers literally believe in the promise of eternal life. Some of them think Jesus Christ will return with a blazing sword. Elon Musk is apparently trying to become a Cylon. Crazy, dumb, or high, it all amounts to the same thing.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:32 AM on January 31 [17 favorites]
Have you seen the online right talking about any of this stuff? The kind of guys Vance follows on Twitter? They explicitly view it as a campaign of revenge.
Are you talking about people with actual power, or are you talking about their fan base?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:33 AM on January 31
Are you talking about people with actual power, or are you talking about their fan base?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:33 AM on January 31
Reporting in from a global public health professor at a major university- absolutely dire feeling here. Although I don't work directly in HIV, many of my international partners do (did?) and are shuttered as of yesterday- forget the exclusion for life saving drugs, they can't pay their staff, rent, utilities, even their websites are down. I know 2 career consultants in global vaccines at USAID who are furloughed (ie laid off). NIH grant review and grant decision making on hold (though I have a grant up for review in March and am supposed to be on a review panel end of Feb and those have proceeded seemingly as normal).
The crux of the matter comes down to this: are we (the US Gov't) going to massively redefine what government is like and what it does, such that we no longer fund public health research set outside of the US, or give governmental aid to projects outside the US or which have to do with public health? If the answer there is yes, I'm out of a job, something I've spent 20 years of my life working and training for, which I viewed as my vocation, my life's work, by which I define myself (I know, problematic)- oh and so are most people I know.
posted by rene_billingsworth at 9:38 AM on January 31 [32 favorites]
The crux of the matter comes down to this: are we (the US Gov't) going to massively redefine what government is like and what it does, such that we no longer fund public health research set outside of the US, or give governmental aid to projects outside the US or which have to do with public health? If the answer there is yes, I'm out of a job, something I've spent 20 years of my life working and training for, which I viewed as my vocation, my life's work, by which I define myself (I know, problematic)- oh and so are most people I know.
posted by rene_billingsworth at 9:38 AM on January 31 [32 favorites]
NASA people must be shitting bricks with Elon Musk down the hall from the Emperor.
posted by Lemkin at 9:44 AM on January 31
posted by Lemkin at 9:44 AM on January 31
It is astounding that a president has the power to unilaterally gut the federal government, and an astonishing betrayal of the country that the Republican majorities in the house and senate stand silently and watch him do it. At this rate, it's not going to be long before the MAGA base feels the impact of this chaos along with everyone else.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 9:57 AM on January 31 [13 favorites]
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 9:57 AM on January 31 [13 favorites]
It is astounding that a president has the power to unilaterally gut the federal government
So much of the US government is based on expecting actors to behave on good faith; The Legislative Branch would desire cooperation to reach goals, the Executive Branch would be happy to enforce the rules set by the Legislative Branch within its abilities, and the Judicial Branch would desire to ensure legal boundaries are kept.
None of these are happening. The Legislative Branch has enough bad actors to stop the process, the Executive Branch says "make me", the Judicial Branch says rules don't matter.
Checks and balances mean that either the Legislative or Judicial branch can step in and stop the Executive Branch, but neither of those are interested in this. The majority in the Legislative branch literally wants the Executive Branch to make all the decisions so there's no argument.
posted by AzraelBrown at 10:05 AM on January 31 [13 favorites]
So much of the US government is based on expecting actors to behave on good faith; The Legislative Branch would desire cooperation to reach goals, the Executive Branch would be happy to enforce the rules set by the Legislative Branch within its abilities, and the Judicial Branch would desire to ensure legal boundaries are kept.
None of these are happening. The Legislative Branch has enough bad actors to stop the process, the Executive Branch says "make me", the Judicial Branch says rules don't matter.
Checks and balances mean that either the Legislative or Judicial branch can step in and stop the Executive Branch, but neither of those are interested in this. The majority in the Legislative branch literally wants the Executive Branch to make all the decisions so there's no argument.
posted by AzraelBrown at 10:05 AM on January 31 [13 favorites]
Are you talking about people with actual power, or are you talking about their fan base?
Which category do you think the 20-year-old Musk/Thiel guys running the OMB fall into? Which category do you think Elon Musk falls into, for that matter? It’s both, I mean the answer to your question is that this is what happens when you put people from the fan base in positions of power.
posted by atoxyl at 10:12 AM on January 31 [11 favorites]
Which category do you think the 20-year-old Musk/Thiel guys running the OMB fall into? Which category do you think Elon Musk falls into, for that matter? It’s both, I mean the answer to your question is that this is what happens when you put people from the fan base in positions of power.
posted by atoxyl at 10:12 AM on January 31 [11 favorites]
Adjusted for size (whether population or income)
US international development aid given as a percentage of gross national income is positively miserly at 0.16% when Norway and Sweden are around 1%, the UK at 0.50%, Canada at 0.27%, etc. The US is near the bottom of the list here.
posted by ssg at 10:14 AM on January 31 [9 favorites]
US international development aid given as a percentage of gross national income is positively miserly at 0.16% when Norway and Sweden are around 1%, the UK at 0.50%, Canada at 0.27%, etc. The US is near the bottom of the list here.
posted by ssg at 10:14 AM on January 31 [9 favorites]
Yes, the desire for blood and revenge comes straight from the administration itself, I'm pretty sure Trump has some political power these days. These new policies and laws are not indifferent, but clearly engineered to hurt as many people as possible.
Trump promised to get revenge. Here are his targets.
From Liz Cheney to Jack Smith to Mark Milley, Trump has a lengthy inventory of people he’s pledged to punish.
Trump Is Trying to Make It Illegal to Help a Trans Child
Two executive orders add up to one brutal situation.
Tennessee House passes immigration enforcement bill; ACLU plans legal challenge
The bill’s passage came despite concerns over the constitutionality of a provision creating a Class E felony, punishable by up to 6 years in prison and a $3,000 fine, for any public official who votes in favor of so-called sanctuary policies.
From the first administration that was being much nicer all around:
Ex-Hostage Suggests Trump Treatment of Migrants Worse Than His Captors: 'Somali Pirates Gave Me Toothpaste and Soap'
Trump promised to get revenge. Here are his targets.
From Liz Cheney to Jack Smith to Mark Milley, Trump has a lengthy inventory of people he’s pledged to punish.
For years, Trump has peppered his speeches and social media posts with vengeful calls for his political opponents, his critics and members of the media to be prosecuted, locked up, deported and even executed. In the waning weeks of the 2024 campaign, he escalated those promises of retaliation to a fever pitch.My Uncle Donald Trump Told Me Disabled Americans Like My Son ‘Should Just Die’
Trump Is Trying to Make It Illegal to Help a Trans Child
Two executive orders add up to one brutal situation.
Tennessee House passes immigration enforcement bill; ACLU plans legal challenge
The bill’s passage came despite concerns over the constitutionality of a provision creating a Class E felony, punishable by up to 6 years in prison and a $3,000 fine, for any public official who votes in favor of so-called sanctuary policies.
From the first administration that was being much nicer all around:
Ex-Hostage Suggests Trump Treatment of Migrants Worse Than His Captors: 'Somali Pirates Gave Me Toothpaste and Soap'
A Trump official tried to argue that detained children don’t need soap, toothbrushes, or beds to be ‘safe and sanitary’ while in Border Patrol custodyposted by rambling wanderlust at 10:18 AM on January 31 [16 favorites]
His sig is on the Exec Order, but he doesn’t write them. I want to know names of those developing these actions. Miller? Musk?
HEDLEY!
posted by flabdablet at 10:19 AM on January 31
HEDLEY!
posted by flabdablet at 10:19 AM on January 31
According to professional leak-publisher Ken Klippenstein, thousands of federal workers received an email yesterday purportedly answering frequent questions about the resignation/“buyout” offer which contained the following sentences:
We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so. The way to greater American prosperity is
encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.
Which seems more likely - that this was soberly, strategically considered? Or that it’s a possibly-literally-teenaged member of the “fan club” elevated to an official role fucking with people?
posted by atoxyl at 10:27 AM on January 31 [8 favorites]
We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so. The way to greater American prosperity is
encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.
Which seems more likely - that this was soberly, strategically considered? Or that it’s a possibly-literally-teenaged member of the “fan club” elevated to an official role fucking with people?
posted by atoxyl at 10:27 AM on January 31 [8 favorites]
Although I don't work directly in HIV, many of my international partners do (did?) and are shuttered as of yesterday- forget the exclusion for life saving drugs, they can't pay their staff, rent, utilities, even their websites are down.
my PI over in sex differences research announced the other day that we need to start treating lab supplies like we personally pay for them out of pocket, because that might be the situation we're faced with, and I'm like... yep, possibly!
very hard to work right now as a scientist on just about anything, which is of course the point
posted by sciatrix at 10:33 AM on January 31 [6 favorites]
my PI over in sex differences research announced the other day that we need to start treating lab supplies like we personally pay for them out of pocket, because that might be the situation we're faced with, and I'm like... yep, possibly!
very hard to work right now as a scientist on just about anything, which is of course the point
posted by sciatrix at 10:33 AM on January 31 [6 favorites]
Yup, the Liberal government has capitulated to our homegrown racist base by reducing immigration levels across the board, but particularly for students. Again, I know people want to think of Canada as a safe option and I wish it were true, but it really isn't.
It's very hard to deny the student program wasn't being abused and that some of the students in program weren't also victims of this abuse. Not all of course, and this penalizes institutions & international students who were using the program as intended, so it's unfair to them.
It's your prerogative to be of the opinion that the program was fine, but I don't think it helps to declare everybody racist because they thought it was out of control and needed to be looked at.
Ideally the ministry would have been on top of this, and would course corrected before it became an issue and everybody would in a better spot.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:36 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
It's very hard to deny the student program wasn't being abused and that some of the students in program weren't also victims of this abuse. Not all of course, and this penalizes institutions & international students who were using the program as intended, so it's unfair to them.
It's your prerogative to be of the opinion that the program was fine, but I don't think it helps to declare everybody racist because they thought it was out of control and needed to be looked at.
Ideally the ministry would have been on top of this, and would course corrected before it became an issue and everybody would in a better spot.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:36 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
The short-term impact is a messy disaster but the long-term impact is that the US just lost the Rest of the World.
I'm in the Rest of the World. Round these parts, most nations benefit from US aid. When that goes, who do those nations turn to for consistent, dependable, long-term support?
China.
If you're in a nation with a problem, there's support right there from China. And support turns to trade, trade turns to relationships, relationships turn to partnerships.
And then when America asks one of those nations to do something that is in America's interest, those nations will reply "sorry, we're already doing something that is in China's interest".
And then they'll say the polite and diplomatic equivalent of "go fuck yourself".
posted by happyinmotion at 10:44 AM on January 31 [29 favorites]
I'm in the Rest of the World. Round these parts, most nations benefit from US aid. When that goes, who do those nations turn to for consistent, dependable, long-term support?
China.
If you're in a nation with a problem, there's support right there from China. And support turns to trade, trade turns to relationships, relationships turn to partnerships.
And then when America asks one of those nations to do something that is in America's interest, those nations will reply "sorry, we're already doing something that is in China's interest".
And then they'll say the polite and diplomatic equivalent of "go fuck yourself".
posted by happyinmotion at 10:44 AM on January 31 [29 favorites]
It's very hard to deny the student program wasn't being abused and that some of the students in program weren't also victims of this abuse.
absolutely. we've seen abuse happening since at least the 1990s, I'm guessing earlier, and this tracks with reduction of public funding in post secondary over time
student fees go up, and international students become a revenue stream, and this has created problems. quite aside from the fact the Liberals were clearly pivoting to appear "less lefty" for at least the past couple of years, on any number of issues
posted by ginger.beef at 10:47 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
absolutely. we've seen abuse happening since at least the 1990s, I'm guessing earlier, and this tracks with reduction of public funding in post secondary over time
student fees go up, and international students become a revenue stream, and this has created problems. quite aside from the fact the Liberals were clearly pivoting to appear "less lefty" for at least the past couple of years, on any number of issues
posted by ginger.beef at 10:47 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
It is astounding that a president has the power to unilaterally gut the federal government
He isn't doing any of this unilaterally, he's doing it with the full and knowing support of the supreme court, republicans in Congress, billionaire donors, and some heads of big tech and media firms.
None of this would be possible without that support.
posted by subdee at 10:59 AM on January 31 [28 favorites]
He isn't doing any of this unilaterally, he's doing it with the full and knowing support of the supreme court, republicans in Congress, billionaire donors, and some heads of big tech and media firms.
None of this would be possible without that support.
posted by subdee at 10:59 AM on January 31 [28 favorites]
So much of the US government is based on expecting actors to behave on good faith
It's often less "good faith" than the other branches being willing to ruthlessly defend their own interests as institutions. Congress doesn't have to act in good faith to freak out when the President starts amassing dictatorial power, they just have to worry about the threat to their own power. Ditto the courts. But when there are countervailing incentives this breaks down.
In smaller ways this has been happening for years. The President doesn't go to Congress to authorize military action because 1) he might lose but also 2) Congress wants him to do it but doesn't want to take the blame, so passively allows it to happen.
Congress going along with impoundment though is, uh, very bad.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:01 AM on January 31 [12 favorites]
It's often less "good faith" than the other branches being willing to ruthlessly defend their own interests as institutions. Congress doesn't have to act in good faith to freak out when the President starts amassing dictatorial power, they just have to worry about the threat to their own power. Ditto the courts. But when there are countervailing incentives this breaks down.
In smaller ways this has been happening for years. The President doesn't go to Congress to authorize military action because 1) he might lose but also 2) Congress wants him to do it but doesn't want to take the blame, so passively allows it to happen.
Congress going along with impoundment though is, uh, very bad.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:01 AM on January 31 [12 favorites]
Still people broadly don’t give a flying shit what is going on. Too busy with their daily lives that are about to be rudely disrupted later this year or next year.
All of this will not be fine. The system is crashing right now. I am horrified at the actions being taken and in complete despair at the number of people who do not care or cannot be bothered to even try and understand the implications.
Grateful for Metafilter.
posted by glaucon at 11:17 AM on January 31 [22 favorites]
All of this will not be fine. The system is crashing right now. I am horrified at the actions being taken and in complete despair at the number of people who do not care or cannot be bothered to even try and understand the implications.
Grateful for Metafilter.
posted by glaucon at 11:17 AM on January 31 [22 favorites]
Ever since Covid, I've been operating under the assessment that American elites support the mass killing of American lives due to some neo-Malthusian notion of overpopulation. I have not seen a single thing to dissuade me of that assessment.
And to be clear, this is coming via Trump and The Heritage Foundation and The Federalist Society, etc, but it is clearly a broader viewpoint within the American elite. This is why the New York Times, The Atlantic and etc are all so sanguine about these things. Executive editors at those publications know that their most important readers - the ones they know personally from the country club - are entirely on board. They view us as insects at best, and are happy to see us die.
It is, as jeffburdges notes, a situation brought into significantly sharper focus when seen in terms of awareness and response to climate change.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 11:20 AM on January 31 [11 favorites]
And to be clear, this is coming via Trump and The Heritage Foundation and The Federalist Society, etc, but it is clearly a broader viewpoint within the American elite. This is why the New York Times, The Atlantic and etc are all so sanguine about these things. Executive editors at those publications know that their most important readers - the ones they know personally from the country club - are entirely on board. They view us as insects at best, and are happy to see us die.
It is, as jeffburdges notes, a situation brought into significantly sharper focus when seen in terms of awareness and response to climate change.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 11:20 AM on January 31 [11 favorites]
This is a graphic demonstration that local (for any definition of local) decisions can have widespread ramifications well beyond the intended scope. The world isn't a bunch of unconnected entities, it's a network.
posted by tommasz at 11:27 AM on January 31 [1 favorite]
posted by tommasz at 11:27 AM on January 31 [1 favorite]
Ever since Covid, I've been operating under the assessment that American elites support the mass killing of American lives due to some neo-Malthusian notion of overpopulation.
The right, especially the Musk types, are actually constantly wringing their hands about falling birth rates. They're desperate for more babies and speak with disdain about countries like South Korea or Japan that have birth rates well below replacement. They're definitely not neo-Malthusians.
In terms of keeping existing people from dying, they do seem to be less concerned, but that's clearly not because of worries about over-population.
posted by ssg at 11:35 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
The right, especially the Musk types, are actually constantly wringing their hands about falling birth rates. They're desperate for more babies and speak with disdain about countries like South Korea or Japan that have birth rates well below replacement. They're definitely not neo-Malthusians.
In terms of keeping existing people from dying, they do seem to be less concerned, but that's clearly not because of worries about over-population.
posted by ssg at 11:35 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]
Afaik, powerful elites almost all want overpopulation, Smedly, including the suffering it brings, because ultimately this makes them more powerful.
The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century by Walter Scheidel
"The “Four Horsemen” of leveling—mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues—have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich" and brought greater equality. According to Scheidel, nothing else really brings greater equality. A priori, transformative revolutions need not necessarily cause a population collapse, but the larger ones did so.
I do think the CCP correctly identified that overpopulation would prevent the development of China, so their one-child policy would be one remarkably successful exception. At the same time, CCP maintains power somewhat differently from capitalist elites.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:38 AM on January 31 [1 favorite]
The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century by Walter Scheidel
"The “Four Horsemen” of leveling—mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues—have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich" and brought greater equality. According to Scheidel, nothing else really brings greater equality. A priori, transformative revolutions need not necessarily cause a population collapse, but the larger ones did so.
I do think the CCP correctly identified that overpopulation would prevent the development of China, so their one-child policy would be one remarkably successful exception. At the same time, CCP maintains power somewhat differently from capitalist elites.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:38 AM on January 31 [1 favorite]
Racism and eugenics would both explain how they could be simultaneously concerned about falling birth rates while still being worried about over-population.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:38 AM on January 31 [15 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:38 AM on January 31 [15 favorites]
Racism and eugenics would both explain how they could be simultaneously concerned about falling birth rates while still being worried about over-population.
More of us, less of THEM. Preferably zero.
posted by tommasz at 11:46 AM on January 31 [8 favorites]
More of us, less of THEM. Preferably zero.
posted by tommasz at 11:46 AM on January 31 [8 favorites]
“The Great Replacement” is all about their worry of the decline of the white race, and Musk in particular spreading his seed far and wide with the women unfortunately in his orbit.
I think it was Vance yesterday saying something along the lines that the white crews of the helicopter and plane were too stressed out by non white males being present to do their jobs. The clear undertone being that non white males should be removed from view, as well as forbidden to do any well paying or meaningful jobs.
It doesn’t take long to see why they are so adamant about the implementation of the concentration camps, and their stated desires to incarcerate 20 million or more. Useful minorities will find work out of sight, and the rest can go the way Trump has stated he wants disabled people to go…
posted by rambling wanderlust at 11:50 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
I think it was Vance yesterday saying something along the lines that the white crews of the helicopter and plane were too stressed out by non white males being present to do their jobs. The clear undertone being that non white males should be removed from view, as well as forbidden to do any well paying or meaningful jobs.
It doesn’t take long to see why they are so adamant about the implementation of the concentration camps, and their stated desires to incarcerate 20 million or more. Useful minorities will find work out of sight, and the rest can go the way Trump has stated he wants disabled people to go…
posted by rambling wanderlust at 11:50 AM on January 31 [4 favorites]
Always possible for individuals, especially when the middle class worry, RonButNotStupid, but..
Across the political spectrum the ultra-rich worry about falling birth rates, including a future immigrant shortage. Imho it's mostly their desire for pseudo-slaves, even the ones who give millions or billions for good lefty causes.
At least in my lifetime, America has typically increased immigration rates to satisfy business, while being nastier to immigrants to placate racists. I'd expect this continues under Trump, maybe more exaggerated, or maybe Trump awards his oligarchs with cheaper immigrant labor, while destorying agriculture or whatever.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:52 AM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Across the political spectrum the ultra-rich worry about falling birth rates, including a future immigrant shortage. Imho it's mostly their desire for pseudo-slaves, even the ones who give millions or billions for good lefty causes.
At least in my lifetime, America has typically increased immigration rates to satisfy business, while being nastier to immigrants to placate racists. I'd expect this continues under Trump, maybe more exaggerated, or maybe Trump awards his oligarchs with cheaper immigrant labor, while destorying agriculture or whatever.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:52 AM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I was just going to say what RonButNotStupid said.I mean, The right, especially the Musk types, are actually constantly wringing their hands about falling birth rates. They're desperate for more babies is not quite the argument that you think it is. The reason why is exactly 14 words long.
jeffburdges, as someone with a hobbyist-level interest in history, of course I agree with you. However, I do not think this is a rational thing on the part of the elite. I think it's just that they know climate change is coming, and are metaphorically closing the doors of the Arc and shoving as many people off as possible.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 11:55 AM on January 31 [6 favorites]
jeffburdges, as someone with a hobbyist-level interest in history, of course I agree with you. However, I do not think this is a rational thing on the part of the elite. I think it's just that they know climate change is coming, and are metaphorically closing the doors of the Arc and shoving as many people off as possible.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 11:55 AM on January 31 [6 favorites]
It's your prerogative to be of the opinion that the program was fine, but I don't think it helps to declare everybody racist because they thought it was out of control and needed to be looked at.
Well, the loudest voices tended to say very nasty things about students from India so it wasn't hard to make the racist leap. I work with higher ed folks who don't make the top admin salaries and their voiced concerns about relying too much on international student tuition fell on deaf ears because you gotta keep the lights on somehow.
The voices of the folks decrying the student program as well as the TWP were not measured voices. They were "go back to your own country" or "no white people work at Tim's anymore; is this what our country has come to."
posted by Kitteh at 11:56 AM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Well, the loudest voices tended to say very nasty things about students from India so it wasn't hard to make the racist leap. I work with higher ed folks who don't make the top admin salaries and their voiced concerns about relying too much on international student tuition fell on deaf ears because you gotta keep the lights on somehow.
The voices of the folks decrying the student program as well as the TWP were not measured voices. They were "go back to your own country" or "no white people work at Tim's anymore; is this what our country has come to."
posted by Kitteh at 11:56 AM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Everyone needs to understand how this all reads to normies. For the past 4 years, the Democratic leadership has said “we want to make things better but we just can’t”. Then Trump gets in and in a couple weeks does all sorts of shit. Yes the dem policies are good and republican ones are bad, but Trumps actions really demolish dem’s excuses, esp if you’re not a super keen observer of us politics.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:00 PM on January 31 [27 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:00 PM on January 31 [27 favorites]
Breaking things is WAY EASIER than setting them up and if the "normies" don't get that, well, it wouldn't be the first thing they aren't willing to think hard about.
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:08 PM on January 31 [18 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:08 PM on January 31 [18 favorites]
Yeah came here to say it’s hard to reach the two-digit crowd
posted by torokunai2 at 12:08 PM on January 31
posted by torokunai2 at 12:08 PM on January 31
In the face of climate change, there are those who say "here's a way forward" and others who say "here's our chance!".
posted by mazola at 12:09 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
posted by mazola at 12:09 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
I think it was Vance yesterday saying something along the lines that the white crews of the helicopter and plane were too stressed out by non white males being present to do their jobs.
God I hate AI. I went to look up the demographics of the US military because I'm pretty sure it's less white than the civilian workforce - and it is - and there is an AI summary at the top of the results telling me (wrongly) that the military is 2/3 white in case I don't know how to read the table of actual data from 2022 two results down.
GTFO with that.
posted by subdee at 12:12 PM on January 31 [14 favorites]
God I hate AI. I went to look up the demographics of the US military because I'm pretty sure it's less white than the civilian workforce - and it is - and there is an AI summary at the top of the results telling me (wrongly) that the military is 2/3 white in case I don't know how to read the table of actual data from 2022 two results down.
GTFO with that.
posted by subdee at 12:12 PM on January 31 [14 favorites]
Nobody is going to be able to get asylum anywhere as a US citizen. It's not going to happen. Stop hoping for that.
There's value in arguing for these things anyway. If Marc Miller hears from a whole bunch of people about this topic, even if he can't implement our preferred solution, he's going to act differently than if he heard from nobody, or only heard from anti-trans people.
Getting into the weeds about exactly which policy will be best is helpful if you are a decision-maker, of course, and it's interesting, and we nerds enjoy those kinds of discussions here on Metafilter, but when you're writing to politicians, it basically doesn't matter. Their staff will record your letter as a +1 in a column of "pro" whatever or "con" whatever, and probably they'll record that it was a personal email (not a copypaste duplicate of something they've received a bunch already) and that's it—nobody will ever read it again. But it makes their record of the number of pro-trans-friendly-policy voters go up a little, and that can help.
posted by joannemerriam at 12:14 PM on January 31 [7 favorites]
There's value in arguing for these things anyway. If Marc Miller hears from a whole bunch of people about this topic, even if he can't implement our preferred solution, he's going to act differently than if he heard from nobody, or only heard from anti-trans people.
Getting into the weeds about exactly which policy will be best is helpful if you are a decision-maker, of course, and it's interesting, and we nerds enjoy those kinds of discussions here on Metafilter, but when you're writing to politicians, it basically doesn't matter. Their staff will record your letter as a +1 in a column of "pro" whatever or "con" whatever, and probably they'll record that it was a personal email (not a copypaste duplicate of something they've received a bunch already) and that's it—nobody will ever read it again. But it makes their record of the number of pro-trans-friendly-policy voters go up a little, and that can help.
posted by joannemerriam at 12:14 PM on January 31 [7 favorites]
rene_billingsworth: The crux of the matter comes down to this: are we (the US Gov't) going to massively redefine what government is like and what it does...?
Good point! I don't believe that was on the ballot last November, only some specific positions. That's probably why I am extra-spicy angry that this pack of Visigoths has arrogated a total overhaul of the entire country when they barely squeaked into some temporary gigs.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:21 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Good point! I don't believe that was on the ballot last November, only some specific positions. That's probably why I am extra-spicy angry that this pack of Visigoths has arrogated a total overhaul of the entire country when they barely squeaked into some temporary gigs.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:21 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Remember when Trump claimed he had "fixed the water problems" in southern California, and nobody knew what he was talking about?
Apparently someone tried to force the US Army Corps of Engineers to send a highly unsafe amount of water into the Central Valley project without coordinating with the local communities. People might have drowned.
I can guarantee you there are a bunch of angry & humiliated people in the Corps offices in Sacramento right now...
posted by suelac at 12:30 PM on January 31 [12 favorites]
Apparently someone tried to force the US Army Corps of Engineers to send a highly unsafe amount of water into the Central Valley project without coordinating with the local communities. People might have drowned.
I can guarantee you there are a bunch of angry & humiliated people in the Corps offices in Sacramento right now...
posted by suelac at 12:30 PM on January 31 [12 favorites]
a lot of these guys absolutely get off on domination, and not the fun kind
posted by BungaDunga
This is correct. They fucking love it.
The crux of the matter comes down to this: are we (the US Gov't) going to massively redefine what government is like and what it does, such that we no longer fund public health research set outside of the US,...
posted by rene_billingsworth
Nor, I am willing to bet, within it for much longer.
posted by Pouteria at 12:41 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
posted by BungaDunga
This is correct. They fucking love it.
The crux of the matter comes down to this: are we (the US Gov't) going to massively redefine what government is like and what it does, such that we no longer fund public health research set outside of the US,...
posted by rene_billingsworth
Nor, I am willing to bet, within it for much longer.
posted by Pouteria at 12:41 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
“People Will Die”: The Trump Administration Said It Lifted Its Ban on Lifesaving Humanitarian Aid. That’s Not True. (ProPublica)
On Friday morning, the staffers at a half dozen U.S.-funded medical facilities in Sudan who care for severely malnourished children had a choice to make: Defy President Donald Trump’s order to immediately stop their operations or let up to 100 babies and toddlers die.posted by BungaDunga at 12:44 PM on January 31 [10 favorites]
They chose the children.
In spite of the order, they will keep their facilities open for as long as they can, according to three people with direct knowledge of the situation.
GarbageDay briefly reports today that they got a tip that TargetHIV.org, run by the Health Resources and Services Administration, has been taken down, and that sections of the CDC website are down and cdc.gov may be entirely shut down if "all references to gender ideology" aren't taken down by 5pm today. There's a googleform for health professionals and journalists circulating to coordinate the archiving of CDC data.
posted by msbrauer at 12:46 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
posted by msbrauer at 12:46 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
> As far as "where will they go after they destroy the planet?": first, Trump is dumb. I don't think he understands long term thinking.
Trump lacks the minimum empathy required to be aware of anybody's concerns other than his own, and that includes those of his own family and children. He has lived his life to date without once having to face the consequences of his actions, and now that he is 78 years old he will be dead of old age before any of the greater existential threats he's enabled have a chance of affecting him.
Whether that is being dumb or some kind of sociopathy doesn't seem to matter, but the world has strangely revolved around him from a young age and this is how he has turned out.
posted by at by at 12:52 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
Trump lacks the minimum empathy required to be aware of anybody's concerns other than his own, and that includes those of his own family and children. He has lived his life to date without once having to face the consequences of his actions, and now that he is 78 years old he will be dead of old age before any of the greater existential threats he's enabled have a chance of affecting him.
Whether that is being dumb or some kind of sociopathy doesn't seem to matter, but the world has strangely revolved around him from a young age and this is how he has turned out.
posted by at by at 12:52 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
The last time Trump tried to starve a government he didn't understand, Michael Lewis wrote a love letter to the federal government in The Fifth Risk. Maybe it's time for a reread?
posted by Violet Blue at 1:07 PM on January 31
posted by Violet Blue at 1:07 PM on January 31
The last time Trump tried to starve a government he didn't understand, Michael Lewis wrote a love letter to the federal government in The Fifth Risk. Maybe it's time for a reread?
Or read the latest installment
[So good it got the rare double FPP treatment!]
posted by chavenet at 1:29 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Or read the latest installment
[So good it got the rare double FPP treatment!]
posted by chavenet at 1:29 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Breaking things is WAY EASIER than setting them up and if the "normies" don't get that, well, it wouldn't be the first thing they aren't willing to think hard about.
Care to elaborate on how well that utterly condescending message has worked over the past four years?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:32 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Care to elaborate on how well that utterly condescending message has worked over the past four years?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:32 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Brandolinis Law applies to governance too
posted by torokunai2 at 1:37 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
posted by torokunai2 at 1:37 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
The India Pakistan partition was a world horrid catastrophe of staggering proportions. Its inconceivable
it will happen here, but Trumpist are NOT going to let up, bad people dont get less bad cause you bow down to them, they get worse and worse. Im actually fantasying about Cali going it alone. WTF.
The leadership on the left side of the spectrum (national leadership, minus a few AOCs) have given up, the sycophantic octogenarian 'leaders' will NOT give up either power or their lifelong commitment to the Garland Doctrine (arrogant cowardice). They save all their very limited energy for punching left.
I'm angry that the bad guys won (and yes to those of you who think they're just silly, or uniformed, or morons, they ARE evil. They want others to suffer. If you cannot see that youre blinded by your optimism).
Bu the complete capitulation by the national dem leadership is just sucking the life out of me....
posted by WatTylerJr at 1:40 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
it will happen here, but Trumpist are NOT going to let up, bad people dont get less bad cause you bow down to them, they get worse and worse. Im actually fantasying about Cali going it alone. WTF.
The leadership on the left side of the spectrum (national leadership, minus a few AOCs) have given up, the sycophantic octogenarian 'leaders' will NOT give up either power or their lifelong commitment to the Garland Doctrine (arrogant cowardice). They save all their very limited energy for punching left.
I'm angry that the bad guys won (and yes to those of you who think they're just silly, or uniformed, or morons, they ARE evil. They want others to suffer. If you cannot see that youre blinded by your optimism).
Bu the complete capitulation by the national dem leadership is just sucking the life out of me....
posted by WatTylerJr at 1:40 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
Well, the loudest voices tended to say very nasty things about students from India
This is true but you said it's homegrown and I'm not so sure about that. I think it's a side effect of Indian-sponsored efforts to vilify the Khalistan independence movement in Canadian media (check out Rebel News headlines if you're brave). It may even be fully intentional attempts to spark racism, coming not just from India.
posted by kitcat at 1:43 PM on January 31
This is true but you said it's homegrown and I'm not so sure about that. I think it's a side effect of Indian-sponsored efforts to vilify the Khalistan independence movement in Canadian media (check out Rebel News headlines if you're brave). It may even be fully intentional attempts to spark racism, coming not just from India.
posted by kitcat at 1:43 PM on January 31
Oh, I am not touching Rebel News with a ten foot pole. Ezra fucking Levant? Please. It is not a real news source and I will not treat it like one.
posted by Kitteh at 1:46 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 1:46 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
Yes I realize that. A conspiracy theory about Edmonton's mayor lead me to trace the theory from that and similar sources. What I'm trying to say is - you can nakedly see the kinds of ideas that are being planted in susceptible brains there.
posted by kitcat at 1:48 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
posted by kitcat at 1:48 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
(Sorry, don't want to take up so much space - the conspiracy was repeated to me by neighbours who know I voted for him, so I looked it. I don't go looking for these things)
posted by kitcat at 1:50 PM on January 31
posted by kitcat at 1:50 PM on January 31
That's fair but I don't think a certain set of white Canadians need non-US bad actors to implant thoughts; I think they are mostly emboldened by what's happening in our neighbour to the South. When you see a country like the US getting to be nakedly craven and racist by voting in the same rapist twice? Oh mama, you want some of that stuff back home. It doesn't need a conspiracy. It just needs a spotlight. Saying, "Oh Canadians are being influenced by a conspiracy hatched by so-and-so " is absolving them of their racism. Canada is racist too (see: how First Nations folks are still treated and are spoken of) but for years, it's been pretty polite racism. Stuff one would only say amongst like-minded family and friends. Now all bets are off and if anything is making Canada more susceptible, it ain't India.
posted by Kitteh at 1:55 PM on January 31 [4 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 1:55 PM on January 31 [4 favorites]
Well, the loudest voices tended to say very nasty things about students from India so it wasn't hard to make the racist leap. I work with higher ed folks who don't make the top admin salaries and their voiced concerns about relying too much on international student tuition fell on deaf ears because you gotta keep the lights on somehow.
The voices of the folks decrying the student program as well as the TWP were not measured voices. They were "go back to your own country" or "no white people work at Tim's anymore; is this what our country has come to."
Oh I agree that a lot of the critics were of "right for the wrong reasons" / "broken clock right twice a day" type. And they found the one issue they could hammer on without looking too bad and kept going.
In the end, the whole country is under stress everywhere, people are pissed and right or wrong the equation of "more people == less housing" solves to true in most people's head. We're a democracy, so people will choose, and they might choose the wrong/dumb thing. So IMHO, it's the wrong hill to die on, we won't be helping anybody if we put the right in power because we wanted to be virtuous. We have to sell the policies we want.
So my take away (and I might be wrong) is that true racists are racists and it's a such a long term project to try to bring them back it may not even be possible in this lifetime. But lots of people are worried/afraid/misinformed, and calling them racists just means they stop listening to you and go with the other side.
It's fucking annoying because it's 10x the effort to do the right thing.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 2:04 PM on January 31 [4 favorites]
The voices of the folks decrying the student program as well as the TWP were not measured voices. They were "go back to your own country" or "no white people work at Tim's anymore; is this what our country has come to."
Oh I agree that a lot of the critics were of "right for the wrong reasons" / "broken clock right twice a day" type. And they found the one issue they could hammer on without looking too bad and kept going.
In the end, the whole country is under stress everywhere, people are pissed and right or wrong the equation of "more people == less housing" solves to true in most people's head. We're a democracy, so people will choose, and they might choose the wrong/dumb thing. So IMHO, it's the wrong hill to die on, we won't be helping anybody if we put the right in power because we wanted to be virtuous. We have to sell the policies we want.
So my take away (and I might be wrong) is that true racists are racists and it's a such a long term project to try to bring them back it may not even be possible in this lifetime. But lots of people are worried/afraid/misinformed, and calling them racists just means they stop listening to you and go with the other side.
It's fucking annoying because it's 10x the effort to do the right thing.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 2:04 PM on January 31 [4 favorites]
I do realize your comment is meant for this audience, which not necessarily representative of the whole Canadian electorate.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 2:06 PM on January 31
posted by WaterAndPixels at 2:06 PM on January 31
why I think one of the first orders of business for Canada needs to be suspending the STC agreement, because how can a fascist-occupied nation like the US *possibly* be considered safe? It's ridiculous.
The Safe Third Country agreement has been awful for a long time because the US simply has different criteria to accept refugees. There are cases, particularly for LGBT people, where a specific person was denied status in the US only to be granted it in Canada -- but they had to cross the border irregularly (and dangerously) to be able to apply. They should have been allowed to apply at a regular border crossing.
The US is not a safe third country if their criteria for accepting refugees is so different.
One question though: I'm not sure if the Safe Third Country agreement would apply to an American seeking asylum, because then the US would not a "third" country.
posted by jb at 2:12 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
The Safe Third Country agreement has been awful for a long time because the US simply has different criteria to accept refugees. There are cases, particularly for LGBT people, where a specific person was denied status in the US only to be granted it in Canada -- but they had to cross the border irregularly (and dangerously) to be able to apply. They should have been allowed to apply at a regular border crossing.
The US is not a safe third country if their criteria for accepting refugees is so different.
One question though: I'm not sure if the Safe Third Country agreement would apply to an American seeking asylum, because then the US would not a "third" country.
posted by jb at 2:12 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
I absolve no one for their racism. But the recent, sharp rise of loud anti-Indian sentiment is really something. I just really think it's unwise to gloss over the role of propaganda and disinformation in paving the way for the fascists.
posted by kitcat at 2:15 PM on January 31 [5 favorites]
posted by kitcat at 2:15 PM on January 31 [5 favorites]
Care to elaborate on how well that utterly condescending message has worked over the past four years?
There’s no justification for anyone here to blame anything on others metafilter comments. It’s self-important bullshit. Are we to understand that the way YOU post here has in some way improved the path of America?
posted by Wood at 2:16 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
There’s no justification for anyone here to blame anything on others metafilter comments. It’s self-important bullshit. Are we to understand that the way YOU post here has in some way improved the path of America?
posted by Wood at 2:16 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so
Without going into details (I’m too paranoid and too depressed), work alerted us a few hours ago of another Trump initiative (not in the news yet, AFAICT), ostensibly intended to insure good service, but under the circumstances clearly designed to deepen our sense of hostility from the administration.
I despise them too, so I guess we’re even.
posted by Lemkin at 2:23 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Without going into details (I’m too paranoid and too depressed), work alerted us a few hours ago of another Trump initiative (not in the news yet, AFAICT), ostensibly intended to insure good service, but under the circumstances clearly designed to deepen our sense of hostility from the administration.
I despise them too, so I guess we’re even.
posted by Lemkin at 2:23 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Ever since Covid, I've been operating under the assessment that American elites support the mass killing of American lives due to some neo-Malthusian notion of overpopulation.
Not just American. It would not surprise me in the slightest were our new overlords planning on 1) defunding science; 2) forcing desperate scientists to do work they'd rather not do; 3) something that will be entirely hidden from history; 4) the release of a genetically tailored plague that targets people of African descent in and out of America and kills a couple hundred million of them. I know that sounds like a fantasy novel, but that's exactly what these people are like: it's a win-win for them!
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 2:26 PM on January 31 [4 favorites]
Not just American. It would not surprise me in the slightest were our new overlords planning on 1) defunding science; 2) forcing desperate scientists to do work they'd rather not do; 3) something that will be entirely hidden from history; 4) the release of a genetically tailored plague that targets people of African descent in and out of America and kills a couple hundred million of them. I know that sounds like a fantasy novel, but that's exactly what these people are like: it's a win-win for them!
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 2:26 PM on January 31 [4 favorites]
One question though: I'm not sure if the Safe Third Country agreement would apply to an American seeking asylum, because then the US would not a "third" country.
Exactly, the agreement explicitly does not apply to US citizens. There are lots of other reasons that attempting to seek asylum in Canada as an American isn't likely to work though (and the stats on them being accepted are pretty low, for example just 2 were accepted in 2018).
posted by ssg at 2:27 PM on January 31 [5 favorites]
Exactly, the agreement explicitly does not apply to US citizens. There are lots of other reasons that attempting to seek asylum in Canada as an American isn't likely to work though (and the stats on them being accepted are pretty low, for example just 2 were accepted in 2018).
posted by ssg at 2:27 PM on January 31 [5 favorites]
The leadership on the left side of the spectrum (national leadership, minus a few AOCs) have given up, the sycophantic octogenarian 'leaders' will NOT give up either power or their lifelong commitment to the Garland Doctrine (arrogant cowardice). They save all their very limited energy for punching left.
Not so fast.
The governors of Illinois and Colorado on Wednesday said they will co-chair a coalition of mostly Democratic-led states to fight back against policies incoming Republican President Donald Trump has vowed to push through.
With their Governors Safeguarding Democracy group, Democrats J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Jared Polis of Colorado join attorneys general and other Democratic governors who have pledged to resist conservative Trump policies on everything from immigration to rollbacks on environmental protections.
As noted in this article when things go wrong governors tend to hear about it first. Several got on the horn the day of the defunding to push Schumer to push for more pushback.
posted by Violet Blue at 2:31 PM on January 31 [13 favorites]
Not so fast.
The governors of Illinois and Colorado on Wednesday said they will co-chair a coalition of mostly Democratic-led states to fight back against policies incoming Republican President Donald Trump has vowed to push through.
With their Governors Safeguarding Democracy group, Democrats J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Jared Polis of Colorado join attorneys general and other Democratic governors who have pledged to resist conservative Trump policies on everything from immigration to rollbacks on environmental protections.
As noted in this article when things go wrong governors tend to hear about it first. Several got on the horn the day of the defunding to push Schumer to push for more pushback.
posted by Violet Blue at 2:31 PM on January 31 [13 favorites]
Could the anti-Indian sentiments rising in Canada be due to the kerfuffle around India allegedly sending assassins into Canada?
posted by infini at 2:38 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
posted by infini at 2:38 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Can we just fast-forward to the part of this story where his big ugly statues are toppled, his collaborators are in jail and people are dancing in the streets?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:42 PM on January 31 [26 favorites]
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:42 PM on January 31 [26 favorites]
There are lots of other reasons that attempting to seek asylum in Canada as an American isn't likely to work
I've long understood that "asylum in Canada" is nearly as unworkable as actually emigrating somewhere in terms of an emergency plan. However, we have been thinking maybe it's time to find a modest place in the Thunder Bay area that we can afford, with the idea that if it comes time to leave, we're likely to need a specific destination in a limited amount of time, and if it never comes to that then hey, family vacation spot! We go up north past Grand Marais most summers anyway, so why not?
The cancellation of passport applicactions with an X marker was the thing that really put us on edge. There's someone in the family with such a passport now, and while the changes that have been announced don't invalidate existing passports, that can change quickly. And history tells us that when the bad guys are getting ready to do bad things to a specific population, they often try to prevent members of that population from leaving.
So I know emigration isn't really going to happen, and asylum looks awful unlikely unless and until things change - but Canada's role in our (possible) plan is less about emigration or asylum, and more about just having somewhere in case we need to get out in a hurry. And we'll go from there.
posted by nickmark at 2:52 PM on January 31 [5 favorites]
I've long understood that "asylum in Canada" is nearly as unworkable as actually emigrating somewhere in terms of an emergency plan. However, we have been thinking maybe it's time to find a modest place in the Thunder Bay area that we can afford, with the idea that if it comes time to leave, we're likely to need a specific destination in a limited amount of time, and if it never comes to that then hey, family vacation spot! We go up north past Grand Marais most summers anyway, so why not?
The cancellation of passport applicactions with an X marker was the thing that really put us on edge. There's someone in the family with such a passport now, and while the changes that have been announced don't invalidate existing passports, that can change quickly. And history tells us that when the bad guys are getting ready to do bad things to a specific population, they often try to prevent members of that population from leaving.
So I know emigration isn't really going to happen, and asylum looks awful unlikely unless and until things change - but Canada's role in our (possible) plan is less about emigration or asylum, and more about just having somewhere in case we need to get out in a hurry. And we'll go from there.
posted by nickmark at 2:52 PM on January 31 [5 favorites]
Can we just fast-forward to the part of this story where his big ugly statues are toppled, his collaborators are in jail and people are dancing in the streets?
This will happen, though it will happen in a place that is no longer the United States of America. Many will have trouble comprehending this.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:54 PM on January 31 [12 favorites]
This will happen, though it will happen in a place that is no longer the United States of America. Many will have trouble comprehending this.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:54 PM on January 31 [12 favorites]
though it will happen in a place that is no longer the United States of America.
Hey, you all, gentle with the dooming.
posted by Violet Blue at 3:33 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
Hey, you all, gentle with the dooming.
posted by Violet Blue at 3:33 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
There are lots of other reasons that attempting to seek asylum in Canada as an American isn't likely to work though (and the stats on them being accepted are pretty low, for example just 2 were accepted in 2018).
Actually, even saying 2 asylum claims were accepted from US citizens in 2018 is kind of misleading, because there have not been any asylum seekers approved in Canada in the last eleven years of data who allege persecution within the US. So all those approved were because of persecution in other countries (I believe almost all of those approved are children who are US citizens whose parents are not US citizens).
posted by ssg at 3:42 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Actually, even saying 2 asylum claims were accepted from US citizens in 2018 is kind of misleading, because there have not been any asylum seekers approved in Canada in the last eleven years of data who allege persecution within the US. So all those approved were because of persecution in other countries (I believe almost all of those approved are children who are US citizens whose parents are not US citizens).
posted by ssg at 3:42 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Ok, so maybe the asylum path is an uphill battle.
I'm also thinking about opening up a new business here in Nova Scotia that exclusively hires trans US temporary-foreign workers. We're gonna build a giant stone medieval monastery from scratch with hand tools. Might take a while. 4 years, at least.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 3:59 PM on January 31 [7 favorites]
I'm also thinking about opening up a new business here in Nova Scotia that exclusively hires trans US temporary-foreign workers. We're gonna build a giant stone medieval monastery from scratch with hand tools. Might take a while. 4 years, at least.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 3:59 PM on January 31 [7 favorites]
As someone's who's been there (three years as a refugee), I just want to suggest to any US citizen considering it.... Keep in mind Americans have far better options than that. Being a refugee kind of, well, it sucks. It's really not hard for Americans to get regular visas in many countries, versus all the pain and wasted time (possibly years!) acquiring, living with, and getting out of refugee status.
posted by UN at 3:59 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
posted by UN at 3:59 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
It's interesting that any Americans recieved asylum in Canada, ssg, but maybe they were death penalty cases where the US state never provided assurances against imposing the death penalty?
posted by jeffburdges at 4:02 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
posted by jeffburdges at 4:02 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
It’s probably a more realistic plan to move to a state with better protections for transgenders than to try to seek asylum in Canada. Not implying it’s easy, you have to leave behind a lot of things/relationships/networks but you’re a lot less dependant on the whim of a foreign bureaucracy.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 4:08 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
posted by WaterAndPixels at 4:08 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
jeffburdges: There are no cases of US citizens being granted asylum in Canada because of persecution in the US in the data that is available online (the last 11 years). So we can only assume that for the few US citizens who were granted asylum, it was because of persecution in another country (or most likely as I mentioned, it was kids coming with their parents).
Has the US ever refused to give assurances they wouldn't seek the death penalty when trying to extradite from Canada post-2001 Supreme Court decision?
posted by ssg at 4:35 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Has the US ever refused to give assurances they wouldn't seek the death penalty when trying to extradite from Canada post-2001 Supreme Court decision?
posted by ssg at 4:35 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
I'm also thinking about opening up a new business here in Nova Scotia
Blue Nose!
posted by ginger.beef at 4:47 PM on January 31
Blue Nose!
posted by ginger.beef at 4:47 PM on January 31
Apparently Vietnam era draft dodgers were not officially granted asylum.
That would really have pissed off the USA
Apparently a nudge, nudge wink, wink policy was adopted.
They were accepted as immigrants not refugees.
posted by yyz at 4:48 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
That would really have pissed off the USA
Apparently a nudge, nudge wink, wink policy was adopted.
They were accepted as immigrants not refugees.
posted by yyz at 4:48 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
Could the anti-Indian sentiments rising in Canada be due to the kerfuffle around India allegedly sending assassins into Canada?
I try to maintain a sense of what everyday people are thinking, not news junkies. This is just not a thing your average Canadian (unless they or their family is from India) is concerned about, if they even know about it, because the targets (Sikhs) are Indian in origin. They don't know who was assassinated or why (a Sikh pro-separatist activist; to squash the Khalistani movement). This whole conflict has been playing out on our soil since the '80s but people are largely uninformed. There's a lot of stuff online decrying 'Khalistani extremists' (this is the Indian government's narrative), but that goes over the heads of racists who only take from it "Indians bad". There's no general anti-India sentiment even though you'd think there would be. It's just gross, racist anti-Indian-immigrant sentiment.
posted by kitcat at 4:57 PM on January 31 [5 favorites]
I try to maintain a sense of what everyday people are thinking, not news junkies. This is just not a thing your average Canadian (unless they or their family is from India) is concerned about, if they even know about it, because the targets (Sikhs) are Indian in origin. They don't know who was assassinated or why (a Sikh pro-separatist activist; to squash the Khalistani movement). This whole conflict has been playing out on our soil since the '80s but people are largely uninformed. There's a lot of stuff online decrying 'Khalistani extremists' (this is the Indian government's narrative), but that goes over the heads of racists who only take from it "Indians bad". There's no general anti-India sentiment even though you'd think there would be. It's just gross, racist anti-Indian-immigrant sentiment.
posted by kitcat at 4:57 PM on January 31 [5 favorites]
With the second major air collision in two days, some of the people Trump is killing aren't dying quietly they're dying in big explosions. Trump gutted the FAA and airplanes are falling out of the sky.
Ever since Covid, I've been operating under the assessment that American elites support the mass killing of American lives due to some neo-Malthusian notion of overpopulation.
That was the premise of the book Heavy Weather, by Bruce Stirling. In addition to maliciously subverting all anti-climate change action, billionaires had also been working for decades to divert research and intellect into long term pie in the sky type goals that wouldn't be able to actually stop the disaster because they wanted a major shrinkage in the peon population.
rambling wanderlust It is LONG past time that the decent places in America cut off the Trumper states and stop funding them. Next time North Carolina or Tennessee gets a flood, California et al should block all Federal aid and let 'em drown. It's not like Tennessee Senators are going to let California get "aid" [1], and it's time the Democrats hit back.
The MAGA scum voted to drown and freeze in the dark, so let them.
[1] That is, permission to keep some few millions of the hundreds of billions they send to DC to be distributed to shithole Republican welfare states. Because it damn sure isn't aid in the sense of shithole Trumper states like Tennessee (hi Mitch) or Louisiana (hi Speaker Johnson) sending their money to California to help out.
posted by sotonohito at 5:40 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
Ever since Covid, I've been operating under the assessment that American elites support the mass killing of American lives due to some neo-Malthusian notion of overpopulation.
That was the premise of the book Heavy Weather, by Bruce Stirling. In addition to maliciously subverting all anti-climate change action, billionaires had also been working for decades to divert research and intellect into long term pie in the sky type goals that wouldn't be able to actually stop the disaster because they wanted a major shrinkage in the peon population.
rambling wanderlust It is LONG past time that the decent places in America cut off the Trumper states and stop funding them. Next time North Carolina or Tennessee gets a flood, California et al should block all Federal aid and let 'em drown. It's not like Tennessee Senators are going to let California get "aid" [1], and it's time the Democrats hit back.
The MAGA scum voted to drown and freeze in the dark, so let them.
[1] That is, permission to keep some few millions of the hundreds of billions they send to DC to be distributed to shithole Republican welfare states. Because it damn sure isn't aid in the sense of shithole Trumper states like Tennessee (hi Mitch) or Louisiana (hi Speaker Johnson) sending their money to California to help out.
posted by sotonohito at 5:40 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
It's crazy to me that all these conservative "small government" ideologues actively want to create a failed kleptocratic state with a totalitarian dictator like the ones the US has propped up all over the world.
They (Heritage Foundation etc.) seem intent on installing a Pinochet, Somoza, Suharto, Marcos, Videla, Mobutu, Stroessner, Duvalier, et. al.-like regime here, lol. Are they fucking insane? Do they understand how shitty everything will become for everyone, including themselves?
I guess it makes sense that the imperialist settler colonialist chickens come home to roost, not that they ever went far away to begin with, but still...ugh.
posted by nikoniko at 5:59 PM on January 31 [8 favorites]
They (Heritage Foundation etc.) seem intent on installing a Pinochet, Somoza, Suharto, Marcos, Videla, Mobutu, Stroessner, Duvalier, et. al.-like regime here, lol. Are they fucking insane? Do they understand how shitty everything will become for everyone, including themselves?
I guess it makes sense that the imperialist settler colonialist chickens come home to roost, not that they ever went far away to begin with, but still...ugh.
posted by nikoniko at 5:59 PM on January 31 [8 favorites]
Next time North Carolina or Tennessee gets a flood, California et al should block all Federal aid and let 'em drown.
Sotonohito, I'm a fan of so many of your comments, but could we please not do this particular line of argument? North Carolina already did drown, and it was horrible. The people shouldn't be punished, just because our broken democracy allows so few to determine the fate of so many.
posted by mittens at 6:25 PM on January 31 [26 favorites]
Sotonohito, I'm a fan of so many of your comments, but could we please not do this particular line of argument? North Carolina already did drown, and it was horrible. The people shouldn't be punished, just because our broken democracy allows so few to determine the fate of so many.
posted by mittens at 6:25 PM on January 31 [26 favorites]
What mittens said. I left North Carolina for Oregon in 2018 because I saw something like this shitshow coming but the level of privilege it took for me to be able to do that was wild. Most people don’t have anything like it nor the advantage / disadvantage of growing up in a peripatetic family so moving seems normal and doable and a thing people do. Most people can’t actually move 3000 miles across the country. It’s expensive and hard and scary. And if everybody did where would they go?
I am still heartbroken over the wnc floods AND the LA fires. It’s not a contest, just a long sad endless fugue of broken lives. Nobody chooses where they are born or mostly where they root.
posted by mygothlaundry at 7:38 PM on January 31 [7 favorites]
I am still heartbroken over the wnc floods AND the LA fires. It’s not a contest, just a long sad endless fugue of broken lives. Nobody chooses where they are born or mostly where they root.
posted by mygothlaundry at 7:38 PM on January 31 [7 favorites]
Are they fucking insane?
If insanity means having become detached from reality to the point of behaving as if one's own view of it defines rather than describes how it works: yes, completely.
Do they understand how shitty everything will become for everyone, including themselves?
No. They're in full-on Heaven's Gate mode at this point.
To every complex question there's a simple answer that's wrong, and The Heritage Foundation and its fellow travellers are all about the simple answers. What they've essentially done is taken Reagan's dictum that Government Is The Problem, stripped it of all nuance, and committed themselves to acting on it.
posted by flabdablet at 8:27 PM on January 31 [8 favorites]
If insanity means having become detached from reality to the point of behaving as if one's own view of it defines rather than describes how it works: yes, completely.
Do they understand how shitty everything will become for everyone, including themselves?
No. They're in full-on Heaven's Gate mode at this point.
To every complex question there's a simple answer that's wrong, and The Heritage Foundation and its fellow travellers are all about the simple answers. What they've essentially done is taken Reagan's dictum that Government Is The Problem, stripped it of all nuance, and committed themselves to acting on it.
posted by flabdablet at 8:27 PM on January 31 [8 favorites]
>Breaking things is WAY EASIER than setting them up and if the "normies" don't get that, well, it wouldn't be the first thing they aren't willing to think hard about.
Care to elaborate on how well that utterly condescending message has worked over the past four years?
posted by RonButNotStupid
Care to elaborate on how well the reality-denying stance among [checks notes] waaaaay too many individuals and groups has worked for better outcomes?
The world can burn, but as long as we are polite about it, and don't point the finger at any of those responsible for doing it, or who stood by and let it happen?
Let me crystal clear: I hold those who failed to even try to stop this only slightly less responsible than those who actively worked for it.
––––––
Trumpist are NOT going to let up, bad people dont get less bad cause you bow down to them, they get worse and worse. Im actually fantasying about Cali going it alone. WTF....
I'm angry that the bad guys won (and yes to those of you who think they're just silly, or uniformed, or morons, they ARE evil. They want others to suffer. If you cannot see that youre blinded by your optimism).
posted by WatTylerJr
This. There is no there there. That is their nature. They will never stop getting worse and worse, until they are forcefully stopped by external forces, or the world is literal ashes and there is nobody left to suppress.
See a previous comment of mine on this matter.
––––––
That's fair but I don't think a certain set of white Canadians need non-US bad actors to implant thoughts; I think they are mostly emboldened by what's happening in our neighbour to the South.
posted by Kitteh
We have plenty of our own homegrown pieces of shit here in Australia too, also being emboldened by currently unfolding event in the USA. Including the leader of the opposition, Peter 'Spud' Dutton, who is every bit as bad as his counterparts in the USA, and so of course is currently favourite to win our upcoming federal election in a few months.
This is a world wide problem. Sanity and decency are losing, big time.
––––––
Trump is the perfect storm of shitty parenting, extreme wealth as a birthright, a society that lavishly rewards predatory business behaviour and celebrity status, a broken political system, and his own version of profound malignant narcissism.
And he is now in charge of the world's fate.
posted by Pouteria at 8:30 PM on January 31 [9 favorites]
Care to elaborate on how well that utterly condescending message has worked over the past four years?
posted by RonButNotStupid
Care to elaborate on how well the reality-denying stance among [checks notes] waaaaay too many individuals and groups has worked for better outcomes?
The world can burn, but as long as we are polite about it, and don't point the finger at any of those responsible for doing it, or who stood by and let it happen?
Let me crystal clear: I hold those who failed to even try to stop this only slightly less responsible than those who actively worked for it.
––––––
Trumpist are NOT going to let up, bad people dont get less bad cause you bow down to them, they get worse and worse. Im actually fantasying about Cali going it alone. WTF....
I'm angry that the bad guys won (and yes to those of you who think they're just silly, or uniformed, or morons, they ARE evil. They want others to suffer. If you cannot see that youre blinded by your optimism).
posted by WatTylerJr
This. There is no there there. That is their nature. They will never stop getting worse and worse, until they are forcefully stopped by external forces, or the world is literal ashes and there is nobody left to suppress.
See a previous comment of mine on this matter.
––––––
That's fair but I don't think a certain set of white Canadians need non-US bad actors to implant thoughts; I think they are mostly emboldened by what's happening in our neighbour to the South.
posted by Kitteh
We have plenty of our own homegrown pieces of shit here in Australia too, also being emboldened by currently unfolding event in the USA. Including the leader of the opposition, Peter 'Spud' Dutton, who is every bit as bad as his counterparts in the USA, and so of course is currently favourite to win our upcoming federal election in a few months.
This is a world wide problem. Sanity and decency are losing, big time.
––––––
Trump is the perfect storm of shitty parenting, extreme wealth as a birthright, a society that lavishly rewards predatory business behaviour and celebrity status, a broken political system, and his own version of profound malignant narcissism.
And he is now in charge of the world's fate.
posted by Pouteria at 8:30 PM on January 31 [9 favorites]
Peter 'Spud' Dutton
I think you'll find that's Peter "ambulatory potato" Dutton. "Spud" sounds altogether too friendly.
Dutton is currently undergoing the same soft-and-cuddly public image makeover that the Murdoch Death Star plastered onto ScoMo to achieve his own transition from hard-man refugee head-kicker and backroom political knife wielder to electably daggy suburban dad, but that's no reason to soften our language about the prick.
Jordan Shanks has him pegged:
The Greatest Threat to Australia's Freedoms
The Baddest MP: Dutton
The Peter Files
Political Genius
Hypocrite
Australia's Nuclear Situation is Crazy
And just today I read that our Labor Government is to conduct a national review of puberty blockers and trans treatments, a move that I can only interpret as Labor trying to get out ahead of a Dutton wedge.
Not satisfied with merely flooding the zone with shit, The Heritage Foundation is now firehosing the whole world with it.
posted by flabdablet at 9:12 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
I think you'll find that's Peter "ambulatory potato" Dutton. "Spud" sounds altogether too friendly.
Dutton is currently undergoing the same soft-and-cuddly public image makeover that the Murdoch Death Star plastered onto ScoMo to achieve his own transition from hard-man refugee head-kicker and backroom political knife wielder to electably daggy suburban dad, but that's no reason to soften our language about the prick.
Jordan Shanks has him pegged:
The Greatest Threat to Australia's Freedoms
The Baddest MP: Dutton
The Peter Files
Political Genius
Hypocrite
Australia's Nuclear Situation is Crazy
And just today I read that our Labor Government is to conduct a national review of puberty blockers and trans treatments, a move that I can only interpret as Labor trying to get out ahead of a Dutton wedge.
Not satisfied with merely flooding the zone with shit, The Heritage Foundation is now firehosing the whole world with it.
posted by flabdablet at 9:12 PM on January 31 [6 favorites]
Things are very bad, and they’re happening very fast, and bureaucrats and journalists and law enforcement are just going along with it
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:53 PM on January 31 [8 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:53 PM on January 31 [8 favorites]
Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And absurd combover, and pout of petty resentment,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
We're an empire now, and when we act
We create our own reality.
And while you're studying that reality—
Judiciously, as you will—
We'll act again, creating other new realities,
Which you can study too,
And that's how things will sort out.
We're history's actors... and you, all of you,
Will be left to just study what we do.
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
posted by flabdablet at 10:09 PM on January 31 [11 favorites]
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And absurd combover, and pout of petty resentment,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
We're an empire now, and when we act
We create our own reality.
And while you're studying that reality—
Judiciously, as you will—
We'll act again, creating other new realities,
Which you can study too,
And that's how things will sort out.
We're history's actors... and you, all of you,
Will be left to just study what we do.
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
posted by flabdablet at 10:09 PM on January 31 [11 favorites]
Dutton is currently undergoing the same soft-and-cuddly public image makeover that the Murdoch Death Star plastered onto ScoMo to achieve his own transition from hard-man refugee head-kicker and backroom political knife wielder to electably daggy suburban dad, but that's no reason to soften our language about the prick.
Fair point taken.
posted by Pouteria at 11:36 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
Fair point taken.
posted by Pouteria at 11:36 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
They (Heritage Foundation etc.) seem intent on installing a Pinochet, Somoza, Suharto, Marcos, Videla, Mobutu, Stroessner, Duvalier, et. al.-like regime here, lol. Are they fucking insane? Do they understand how shitty everything will become for everyone, including themselves?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog is the glib answer but incomplete if not inaccurate.
When you're a billionaire, the "final boss", quite literally in this case, is just government. Only government, for example, has/had the power to reach the perpetrators and sick people involved in the Epstein operation.
So many millionaires also buy into the small-government thing, mainly because to become a millionaire you must enjoy a big fat surplus, and only government (even more than a bigger business in most cases) has the power to come in and step on your golden goose.
As we saw in the 19th century, only government acquired the power to begin to fight the power of the nation's burgeoning plutocracy.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1Dkm2 is a graph I posted this past week showing corporate profits (blue), corporate tax paid (red), and the calculated corporate tax rate from that.
Truman and the Democrats pushed the corporate tax rate to 48% to pay for the Korean intervention, they went up to 34% as part of the Vietnam tax rises I guess. They were at 25% in the 80s and 90s, and are sitting at 12% now.
We're in a fiscal crisis now and clearly the trillions that the Federal government is borrowing at a 5% interest cost should be taxed at -100%.
Elon and his ilk have never liked the look of that prospect and have been working for this day since the Powell Memo 50 years ago.
The world should be a top-down corporatocracy, not a bottom-up democracy. Authoritarian our-way-or-the-highway / what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it vs. squishy communitarian decisions about what works best for all.
They'd rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.
posted by torokunai2 at 2:15 AM on February 1 [10 favorites]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog is the glib answer but incomplete if not inaccurate.
When you're a billionaire, the "final boss", quite literally in this case, is just government. Only government, for example, has/had the power to reach the perpetrators and sick people involved in the Epstein operation.
So many millionaires also buy into the small-government thing, mainly because to become a millionaire you must enjoy a big fat surplus, and only government (even more than a bigger business in most cases) has the power to come in and step on your golden goose.
As we saw in the 19th century, only government acquired the power to begin to fight the power of the nation's burgeoning plutocracy.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1Dkm2 is a graph I posted this past week showing corporate profits (blue), corporate tax paid (red), and the calculated corporate tax rate from that.
Truman and the Democrats pushed the corporate tax rate to 48% to pay for the Korean intervention, they went up to 34% as part of the Vietnam tax rises I guess. They were at 25% in the 80s and 90s, and are sitting at 12% now.
We're in a fiscal crisis now and clearly the trillions that the Federal government is borrowing at a 5% interest cost should be taxed at -100%.
Elon and his ilk have never liked the look of that prospect and have been working for this day since the Powell Memo 50 years ago.
The world should be a top-down corporatocracy, not a bottom-up democracy. Authoritarian our-way-or-the-highway / what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it vs. squishy communitarian decisions about what works best for all.
They'd rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.
posted by torokunai2 at 2:15 AM on February 1 [10 favorites]
> Hey, you all, gentle with the dooming.
@drvolts: "Now, I'd like you to think about what will happen if Trump takes over, Project 2025 is implemented, & the entire federal bureaucracy (including law enforcement branches) is staffed with ideological MAGA cronies."[1]
maybe an intermediate step would be to imagine musk/zuck feeding social media profiles en masse to the doge for 'classification' or like palantir[2] mining LexID database files on everyone formarketingenemy-of-the-state purposes...
where is hugh howey?[3]
posted by kliuless at 3:26 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
@drvolts: "Now, I'd like you to think about what will happen if Trump takes over, Project 2025 is implemented, & the entire federal bureaucracy (including law enforcement branches) is staffed with ideological MAGA cronies."[1]
maybe an intermediate step would be to imagine musk/zuck feeding social media profiles en masse to the doge for 'classification' or like palantir[2] mining LexID database files on everyone for
where is hugh howey?[3]
posted by kliuless at 3:26 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand......
....posted by flabdablet at 1:09 on February 1
dozymandias? ozymanbabydias?
posted by lalochezia at 3:35 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
Targetting NC in your attacks is particularly clueless because North Carolina just elected another Democratic governor, after 8 years of a previous Democratic governor, and the recently elected governor served as state attorney general before that.
And NC's most recently elected Democratic attorney general has joined with many other state Democratic attorneys general to fight the Trump administration's unconstitutional impoundment of federal funds.
If you didn't know any of that, maybe you should lay off criticizing random states you know nothing about. They are fighting like hell for all of us, including people who live in other states and assume all North Carolinians are backwards hillbillies who love Trump instead of it being a huge, diverse state full of all kinds of people with all kinds of political beliefs just like California is.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:30 AM on February 1 [18 favorites]
And NC's most recently elected Democratic attorney general has joined with many other state Democratic attorneys general to fight the Trump administration's unconstitutional impoundment of federal funds.
If you didn't know any of that, maybe you should lay off criticizing random states you know nothing about. They are fighting like hell for all of us, including people who live in other states and assume all North Carolinians are backwards hillbillies who love Trump instead of it being a huge, diverse state full of all kinds of people with all kinds of political beliefs just like California is.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:30 AM on February 1 [18 favorites]
mittens The people shouldn't be punished, just because our broken democracy allows so few to determine the fate of so many.
The PEOPLE are the scumfuckers who did this. And it wasn't our broken democracy allowing a minority to abuse the majority, that was 2016. In 2024 a plurality of Americans decided to embrace evil and vote for Trump. He won fair and square by getting more votes than any other candidate.
So fuck the people who did that to us.
posted by sotonohito at 6:22 AM on February 1
The PEOPLE are the scumfuckers who did this. And it wasn't our broken democracy allowing a minority to abuse the majority, that was 2016. In 2024 a plurality of Americans decided to embrace evil and vote for Trump. He won fair and square by getting more votes than any other candidate.
So fuck the people who did that to us.
“We got to get a pound of flesh for any dollar that’s spent on California, in my opinion,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.)Yay, they're so nice and will TOTALLY help us!
posted by sotonohito at 6:22 AM on February 1
I am horrified at the actions being taken and in complete despair at the number of people who do not care or cannot be bothered to even try and understand the implications.
Things are happening too fast for most people to even know they’re actually happening. Their lives are too hectic to sit down and research the bajillion EOs Trump has signed and their first, second, and third-order effects. I suspect most people aren’t even aware he issued EOs at all, let alone what their effects are.
It’s not that they don’t care. It’s simply that they don’t know what’s happening. And they won’t know until it’s too late. And that’s by design. It’s “move fast and break things” on a governmental scale.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:30 AM on February 1 [7 favorites]
Things are happening too fast for most people to even know they’re actually happening. Their lives are too hectic to sit down and research the bajillion EOs Trump has signed and their first, second, and third-order effects. I suspect most people aren’t even aware he issued EOs at all, let alone what their effects are.
It’s not that they don’t care. It’s simply that they don’t know what’s happening. And they won’t know until it’s too late. And that’s by design. It’s “move fast and break things” on a governmental scale.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:30 AM on February 1 [7 favorites]
dozymandias? ozymanbabydias?
orangemandibles
posted by flabdablet at 6:31 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
orangemandibles
posted by flabdablet at 6:31 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
Sotonohito, I have lived in Florida most of my life.
When you make comments about letting red states drown, you are talking exactly about me. I'm poor. I'm disabled. I'm trans. There's is no money for evacuation when a hurricane is coming. But, no it's okay that you are fine with me dying so you can get back at some maga assholes.
No?
Did the satisfaction of typing out that comment and hitting send feel extra good? Does it feel powerful to fantasize publicly about the immiseration of other people? Especially people who might agree with you but have the poor taste to live in places of which you do not approve?
Or are you unbeknownst to me the head of a relocation fund for progressives in red states? That also makes it possible to survive in the new place on the same budget I have now?
If not, then stop publicly WISHING FOR MY FURTHER MISFORTUNE.
posted by Vigilant at 6:50 AM on February 1 [17 favorites]
When you make comments about letting red states drown, you are talking exactly about me. I'm poor. I'm disabled. I'm trans. There's is no money for evacuation when a hurricane is coming. But, no it's okay that you are fine with me dying so you can get back at some maga assholes.
No?
Did the satisfaction of typing out that comment and hitting send feel extra good? Does it feel powerful to fantasize publicly about the immiseration of other people? Especially people who might agree with you but have the poor taste to live in places of which you do not approve?
Or are you unbeknownst to me the head of a relocation fund for progressives in red states? That also makes it possible to survive in the new place on the same budget I have now?
If not, then stop publicly WISHING FOR MY FURTHER MISFORTUNE.
posted by Vigilant at 6:50 AM on February 1 [17 favorites]
I mean, clearly it's not enough that I have the stress of living in maga country. It's not enough that what little we live on is in real danger. No, we also have to live with the contempt of people who SAY they are on our side.
Why do I bother.
posted by Vigilant at 6:55 AM on February 1 [5 favorites]
Why do I bother.
posted by Vigilant at 6:55 AM on February 1 [5 favorites]
A quick primer on System 1 vs 2 thinking:
System 1: fast, automatic. For example, I completely agree with sotonohito’s views on letting red states burn because we’re here because of them.
System 2: reflective, more deliberate. For example, I have friends in NC and appreciate that there are people in red states who 100% didn’t sign up for this who I will support in whatever ways we can. Like Vigilant can live with me if things go really sideways (I’m in MA, memail me). We are all in this together.
I am old enough to remember when the messaging was “Look, the GOP is old white men and in 20 years they’ll all have died off! So we can sit back and watch our liberal policies take off!” We thought this 25 years ago and here we are so I’m G-D frustrated and I don’t know what to do. I’m frustrated because I forecasted the level of chaos we’re going thru and I know it’s going to be worse - when the economy tanks it’ll take down everyone. Note we know how to deal with inflation - raise rates - there’s no clear solution to a depression and this crew will only accelerate the problems. Trump is getting his mass murder via the repeal of PEPFAR and all the other funding he’s shutting down. Trump will dismantle the government - and the GOP and the Supreme Court will let him do it - hell, some Dems will help by sitting on their hands. He doesn’t care about polls and I cannot figure out how low the GOP will go before they think about actually representing their constituents. This group will rob the government blind and then I’m going to be asked to repay it along with everyone else. They’re going to get away with it with no repercussions whatsoever - remember the financial crisis?
I believe all of these folks realize there is no afterlife, there is no punishment, so why not go crazy when you’re in charge? Burn the place down around you as long as you don’t get singed. Back to my pet theory - functionally no one is alive from WWII or the Great Depression so we don’t think it can happen. We stopped listening to experts, we stopped listening to historians.
And I’m not marching in the streets today because A) I’m not sure where any are happening and B) I’m spending lots of time at the range.
posted by Farce_First at 8:03 AM on February 1 [6 favorites]
System 1: fast, automatic. For example, I completely agree with sotonohito’s views on letting red states burn because we’re here because of them.
System 2: reflective, more deliberate. For example, I have friends in NC and appreciate that there are people in red states who 100% didn’t sign up for this who I will support in whatever ways we can. Like Vigilant can live with me if things go really sideways (I’m in MA, memail me). We are all in this together.
I am old enough to remember when the messaging was “Look, the GOP is old white men and in 20 years they’ll all have died off! So we can sit back and watch our liberal policies take off!” We thought this 25 years ago and here we are so I’m G-D frustrated and I don’t know what to do. I’m frustrated because I forecasted the level of chaos we’re going thru and I know it’s going to be worse - when the economy tanks it’ll take down everyone. Note we know how to deal with inflation - raise rates - there’s no clear solution to a depression and this crew will only accelerate the problems. Trump is getting his mass murder via the repeal of PEPFAR and all the other funding he’s shutting down. Trump will dismantle the government - and the GOP and the Supreme Court will let him do it - hell, some Dems will help by sitting on their hands. He doesn’t care about polls and I cannot figure out how low the GOP will go before they think about actually representing their constituents. This group will rob the government blind and then I’m going to be asked to repay it along with everyone else. They’re going to get away with it with no repercussions whatsoever - remember the financial crisis?
I believe all of these folks realize there is no afterlife, there is no punishment, so why not go crazy when you’re in charge? Burn the place down around you as long as you don’t get singed. Back to my pet theory - functionally no one is alive from WWII or the Great Depression so we don’t think it can happen. We stopped listening to experts, we stopped listening to historians.
And I’m not marching in the streets today because A) I’m not sure where any are happening and B) I’m spending lots of time at the range.
posted by Farce_First at 8:03 AM on February 1 [6 favorites]
The MAGA scum voted to drown and freeze in the dark, so let them.
Sotonohito - recently you thanked me for encouraging you to examine your thinking about something and change your mind. I'm going to urge you to do the same thing again, only this time, take Vigiant's comment above into account.
Yes, even the bit where they ask whether typing that out "felt good". I agree that it's something you really should think about - there is indeed a smugness of tone to what you said, and you may want to examine whether it's just your frustration talking - which is understandable - or whether it's what you really feel.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:05 AM on February 1 [5 favorites]
Sotonohito - recently you thanked me for encouraging you to examine your thinking about something and change your mind. I'm going to urge you to do the same thing again, only this time, take Vigiant's comment above into account.
Yes, even the bit where they ask whether typing that out "felt good". I agree that it's something you really should think about - there is indeed a smugness of tone to what you said, and you may want to examine whether it's just your frustration talking - which is understandable - or whether it's what you really feel.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:05 AM on February 1 [5 favorites]
>spending lots of time at the range
unless you're talking about meal prep, you're just playing their game
posted by torokunai2 at 8:28 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
unless you're talking about meal prep, you're just playing their game
posted by torokunai2 at 8:28 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
unless you're talking about meal prep, you're just playing their game
I have a sense of where we differ: my guess is that you feel we’re in America in the early 1920s before the Great Depression. I think we’re in Rwanda in 1993.
posted by Farce_First at 10:07 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
I have a sense of where we differ: my guess is that you feel we’re in America in the early 1920s before the Great Depression. I think we’re in Rwanda in 1993.
posted by Farce_First at 10:07 AM on February 1 [4 favorites]
In fairness, it could be Germany circa 1933 too.
posted by Justinian at 1:06 PM on February 1 [6 favorites]
posted by Justinian at 1:06 PM on February 1 [6 favorites]
unless you're talking about meal prep, you're just playing their game
wake up - we are playing their game whether we want to or not
posted by pyramid termite at 2:02 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]
wake up - we are playing their game whether we want to or not
posted by pyramid termite at 2:02 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]
I live in Teaxas, shittiest of the shithole Trumphumper states. I live and work on a daily basis with the evil scum who vote in Trump and his ilk. Any "fuck 'em" attitude I have is one that's going to hurt me too.
And yes, I'm upset, scared, and angry.
But no, I don't think that's all there is to it.
This isn't working.
We've been trying to do mutual aid in the USA more or less since forever and for my entire life the result has been the shithole worthless states taking and taking and taking while maintaining an elaborate lie claiming that against all evidence THEY are the only productive places in the country and it's really the liberal places, like California and NY, that are economically failing and need propping up.
And they believe that mythology wholeheartedly. The people in Louisiana who voted for Mike Pence don't just think that they are an economic powerhouse and California is a moocher, they take it as an unquestioned article of faith. They're "real America" and by definition the only ones doing work while the rest of the country taxes them to death and gets fat off their labor.
So it's natural, in a sense, for them to resent and hate "aid" to California even though IRL that "aid" is just California keeping a bit of the money they normally export to shithole places like Louisiana.
I have no desire to hurt anyone really, least of all the people who aren't trumphumpers who, like me, have the misfortune to be stuck in a place filled with them.
But I can't support just giving them endless rivers of cash either because what they do with it is hurt us.
Maybe if we forced the Senators, House delegation, and Governor of those states to admit the truth and cut ads acknowledging that their states are total economic failures that can only keep the roads paved thanks to help from their betters in California? I don't know.
But this isn't working and when the chuds in North Carolina started fucking shooting at FEMA workers then yammering about "cutting off" California, as if CA was taking their money, I lost my ability to give a shit about those states, including my own. I hate Texas more than I hate North Carolina or Louisiana if for no other reason than I live in Texas and have a more immediate reason to hate it.
Letting the shithole places use hostages to keep extorting money to keep them from suffering the consequences of their own evil agenda has to end sometime because unless it does they'll keep on inflicting Trumps on us and hurting everyone.
posted by sotonohito at 2:50 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]
And yes, I'm upset, scared, and angry.
But no, I don't think that's all there is to it.
This isn't working.
We've been trying to do mutual aid in the USA more or less since forever and for my entire life the result has been the shithole worthless states taking and taking and taking while maintaining an elaborate lie claiming that against all evidence THEY are the only productive places in the country and it's really the liberal places, like California and NY, that are economically failing and need propping up.
And they believe that mythology wholeheartedly. The people in Louisiana who voted for Mike Pence don't just think that they are an economic powerhouse and California is a moocher, they take it as an unquestioned article of faith. They're "real America" and by definition the only ones doing work while the rest of the country taxes them to death and gets fat off their labor.
So it's natural, in a sense, for them to resent and hate "aid" to California even though IRL that "aid" is just California keeping a bit of the money they normally export to shithole places like Louisiana.
I have no desire to hurt anyone really, least of all the people who aren't trumphumpers who, like me, have the misfortune to be stuck in a place filled with them.
But I can't support just giving them endless rivers of cash either because what they do with it is hurt us.
Maybe if we forced the Senators, House delegation, and Governor of those states to admit the truth and cut ads acknowledging that their states are total economic failures that can only keep the roads paved thanks to help from their betters in California? I don't know.
But this isn't working and when the chuds in North Carolina started fucking shooting at FEMA workers then yammering about "cutting off" California, as if CA was taking their money, I lost my ability to give a shit about those states, including my own. I hate Texas more than I hate North Carolina or Louisiana if for no other reason than I live in Texas and have a more immediate reason to hate it.
Letting the shithole places use hostages to keep extorting money to keep them from suffering the consequences of their own evil agenda has to end sometime because unless it does they'll keep on inflicting Trumps on us and hurting everyone.
posted by sotonohito at 2:50 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]
Fortunately the Democrats have responded by choosing a new leader, a sentient bowl of pablum
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:39 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:39 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]
The PEOPLE are the scumfuckers who did this.
Well yeah and no. Like, take Tennessee, since you specifically called them out. I lived there for 14 years, up until last May, and you would think based on looking at an electoral map that the place is bright, bright red. But I lived in an electoral district that always had a Dem House rep (Jim Cooper) and that electoral district is GONE. They cut Nashville into three pie slices and attached each to a conservative town nearby so that our votes would be watered down. So my electoral district was really Clarksville with a bunch of north Nashville attached to it.
They've been doing this for decades and the place is gerrymandered all to hell. Republicans have a statewide electoral advantage, but it's not anywhere close to as overwhelming an advantage as the maps would lead you to believe.
Then on top of that, the supermajority red state government aggressively purges voter rolls and makes sure that we don't have enough polls in majority-black areas. And everybody knows we're gerrymandered all to hell so voter turnout is suppressed.
If the US had a nonpartisan elections commission like a functional democracy, to prevent these kinds of shenanigans, Tennessee would be understood to be a purple state.
posted by joannemerriam at 6:12 PM on February 1 [7 favorites]
Well yeah and no. Like, take Tennessee, since you specifically called them out. I lived there for 14 years, up until last May, and you would think based on looking at an electoral map that the place is bright, bright red. But I lived in an electoral district that always had a Dem House rep (Jim Cooper) and that electoral district is GONE. They cut Nashville into three pie slices and attached each to a conservative town nearby so that our votes would be watered down. So my electoral district was really Clarksville with a bunch of north Nashville attached to it.
They've been doing this for decades and the place is gerrymandered all to hell. Republicans have a statewide electoral advantage, but it's not anywhere close to as overwhelming an advantage as the maps would lead you to believe.
Then on top of that, the supermajority red state government aggressively purges voter rolls and makes sure that we don't have enough polls in majority-black areas. And everybody knows we're gerrymandered all to hell so voter turnout is suppressed.
If the US had a nonpartisan elections commission like a functional democracy, to prevent these kinds of shenanigans, Tennessee would be understood to be a purple state.
posted by joannemerriam at 6:12 PM on February 1 [7 favorites]
The PEOPLE are the scumfuckers who did this.
So since you live in Texas, as you've just said, we can blame you too, I guess, right?
I have no desire to hurt anyone really, least of all the people who aren't trumphumpers who, like me, have the misfortune to be stuck in a place filled with them.
But I can't support just giving them endless rivers of cash either because what they do with it is hurt us.
And that makes it okay to call everyone in the state, even people like you, "scumfuckers"?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:37 PM on February 1
So since you live in Texas, as you've just said, we can blame you too, I guess, right?
I have no desire to hurt anyone really, least of all the people who aren't trumphumpers who, like me, have the misfortune to be stuck in a place filled with them.
But I can't support just giving them endless rivers of cash either because what they do with it is hurt us.
And that makes it okay to call everyone in the state, even people like you, "scumfuckers"?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:37 PM on February 1
I'd assume sotonohito means the states themselves should be sanctioned, which obviously impacts the individuals living in those states, much like ordianry Russians feel effects from sanctions over the Ukraine war.
I'd expect red state individuals like hurricane Helene's victims would not recieve FEMA money either, sotonohito. See the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.
Around this, Canada has devised a detailed retaliation plan for the U.S. tariffs that seeks to hurt republican states the most. As one example, British Columbia shall prohibit the purchase of liquor made in red states.
Anyways starting next week, Imports from Mexico and Canada will be taxed at 25%, 10% on energy, and China at 10%. Al Jazeera, Yeutter, and Brookings have analysis of the tariffs legality
Also, Trump applied tariffs to China last time using the same legal mechanism, which Biden reversed, so everybody knew he'd pull the same trick this time. Yet, Democrats never revoked those presidential powers. As always, they'd never reduce a sitting Democratic president's power, never reign in surveillance powers, etc. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 7:28 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]
I'd expect red state individuals like hurricane Helene's victims would not recieve FEMA money either, sotonohito. See the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.
Around this, Canada has devised a detailed retaliation plan for the U.S. tariffs that seeks to hurt republican states the most. As one example, British Columbia shall prohibit the purchase of liquor made in red states.
Anyways starting next week, Imports from Mexico and Canada will be taxed at 25%, 10% on energy, and China at 10%. Al Jazeera, Yeutter, and Brookings have analysis of the tariffs legality
Also, Trump applied tariffs to China last time using the same legal mechanism, which Biden reversed, so everybody knew he'd pull the same trick this time. Yet, Democrats never revoked those presidential powers. As always, they'd never reduce a sitting Democratic president's power, never reign in surveillance powers, etc. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 7:28 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]
EmpressCallipygos You can call me whatever you like. I thought I'd made it clear I was referring to the Trump voters in specific by that term, but if you feel it's appropriate then by all means feel free.
I don't blame the people who voted against Trump in any state nor do I believe I've actually leveled any insult against them.
I don't know the answers.
I do know that doing the usual Democratic surrender first take the high road give in and never fight approach of lavishing money on the most awful parts of the country that are most actively trying to hurt everyone is a failed policy that has never and will never work. The fact that those places have what amounts to hostages (technically including assholes like me) complicates matters.
We have only to look at what's happening right now to see that the standard approach of smiling and handing over aid to the evil governments has failed. Far from California getting help in return, or even being permitted to keep some of the money it normally lavishes on the failed and evil states, California is already suffering from Trump creating problems by opening dams [1], they're going to impose demands on letting California keep some of its own money to fight wildfires, and I don't know.
The only thing I can see that's even possible would be cutting off the money for the Republican states. Which isn't great and will cause harm to people. Maybe I'm too ignorant or unintelligent or thoughtless to see better options. But no one seems to be proposing anything better so maybe I'm not alone in being unable to find a better approach.
I don't know. I don't even want to hurt the Trump voters, I just want them to stop hurting us and taking away the money liberal America dumps onto conservative America seems like the only lever available.
[1] And, again, who the fuck thought it was a good idea to invest a single individual with all that power and just sort of hope that said individual wouldn't be utterly evil and insane at the same time? WHy the hell does the US President have hte power to order dams opened on a whim?
posted by sotonohito at 7:37 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]
I don't blame the people who voted against Trump in any state nor do I believe I've actually leveled any insult against them.
I don't know the answers.
I do know that doing the usual Democratic surrender first take the high road give in and never fight approach of lavishing money on the most awful parts of the country that are most actively trying to hurt everyone is a failed policy that has never and will never work. The fact that those places have what amounts to hostages (technically including assholes like me) complicates matters.
We have only to look at what's happening right now to see that the standard approach of smiling and handing over aid to the evil governments has failed. Far from California getting help in return, or even being permitted to keep some of the money it normally lavishes on the failed and evil states, California is already suffering from Trump creating problems by opening dams [1], they're going to impose demands on letting California keep some of its own money to fight wildfires, and I don't know.
The only thing I can see that's even possible would be cutting off the money for the Republican states. Which isn't great and will cause harm to people. Maybe I'm too ignorant or unintelligent or thoughtless to see better options. But no one seems to be proposing anything better so maybe I'm not alone in being unable to find a better approach.
I don't know. I don't even want to hurt the Trump voters, I just want them to stop hurting us and taking away the money liberal America dumps onto conservative America seems like the only lever available.
[1] And, again, who the fuck thought it was a good idea to invest a single individual with all that power and just sort of hope that said individual wouldn't be utterly evil and insane at the same time? WHy the hell does the US President have hte power to order dams opened on a whim?
posted by sotonohito at 7:37 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]
Because Presidential power, much like money, is a self-actualizing consensual fiction. We believe that Camacho controls the hands that open the floodgates, so therefore he does.
General strikes can shake that consensus a little.
posted by flabdablet at 8:16 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
General strikes can shake that consensus a little.
posted by flabdablet at 8:16 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
Acting on Trump’s order, federal officials opened up two California dams “to ensure California has water available to respond to the wildfires.” It was not immediately clear how or where the federal government intends to transport the water [since afaik no aquivers go from Tulare county to LA.]
“This is going to hurt farmers,” Vink said. “This takes water out of their summer irrigation portfolio.”
posted by jeffburdges at 1:46 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
“This is going to hurt farmers,” Vink said. “This takes water out of their summer irrigation portfolio.”
posted by jeffburdges at 1:46 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
It was not immediately clear how or where the federal government intends to transport the water
They're not going to transport it because it's not for firefighting, it's for flooding the zone. The cult will be yapping about this for months, and anybody who has paid enough attention to understand that it's nothing more than political theatre is going to get dismissed as a butthurt liberal.
posted by flabdablet at 2:03 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]
They're not going to transport it because it's not for firefighting, it's for flooding the zone. The cult will be yapping about this for months, and anybody who has paid enough attention to understand that it's nothing more than political theatre is going to get dismissed as a butthurt liberal.
posted by flabdablet at 2:03 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]
Just you watch. About a month from now, TFG having single-handedly rescued California from the radical left who were trying to burn it all down is going to be Fox canon.
posted by flabdablet at 2:11 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 2:11 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
Turns out i got that wrong. It's Fox canon already.
Delta smelt is the new red herring.
posted by flabdablet at 5:35 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]
Delta smelt is the new red herring.
posted by flabdablet at 5:35 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]
The PEOPLE are the scumfuckers who did this.
More Californians voted for Trump, than North Carolinians.
We should not use voter numbers as a framework for our anger.
posted by mittens at 6:11 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
More Californians voted for Trump, than North Carolinians.
We should not use voter numbers as a framework for our anger.
posted by mittens at 6:11 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
mittens As I'm told so often in other contexts, those people matter more. Half a million white supremacists in Wyoming matter more than ten million regular people in California do.
Those North Carolina voters have put in place two Republican Senators. One of whom is actually not as completely awful as they possibly could be and is actually saying it's wrong to put conditions on "aid to California" (note that he's still misstating it to pretend other states would be taking their money and sending it to CA rather than CA being permitted to keep a fraction of the money it exports to failed Republican states). The other of whom is one of the louder voices arguing for California to be forced to give in to Republican demands in exchange for "aid".
If it helps any I hate the Trump voters in California as much as I do the Trump voters in Alabama or North Carolina or any other Republican state. But it's the Trump voters in places outside California, New York, and the other liberal places that are able to do harm.
If you've got a solution, I'd like to hear it. But I don't care about pleas that I be nice to the Trumpers, me calling them names is the absolute least of what they deserve.
posted by sotonohito at 10:44 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]
Those North Carolina voters have put in place two Republican Senators. One of whom is actually not as completely awful as they possibly could be and is actually saying it's wrong to put conditions on "aid to California" (note that he's still misstating it to pretend other states would be taking their money and sending it to CA rather than CA being permitted to keep a fraction of the money it exports to failed Republican states). The other of whom is one of the louder voices arguing for California to be forced to give in to Republican demands in exchange for "aid".
If it helps any I hate the Trump voters in California as much as I do the Trump voters in Alabama or North Carolina or any other Republican state. But it's the Trump voters in places outside California, New York, and the other liberal places that are able to do harm.
If you've got a solution, I'd like to hear it. But I don't care about pleas that I be nice to the Trumpers, me calling them names is the absolute least of what they deserve.
posted by sotonohito at 10:44 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]
On topic:
The MAGA voters are not only getting to destroy this year's citrus crop in California, they get Trump personally telling them that his trade war with Canada and Mexico will cause them pain.
So he's moved from telling people that he can lower prices. To admitting that he can't lower prices. To saying that he's going to RAISE prices and fuck you. His voters will, of course, say this is great.
Meanwhile Canada and Mexico will be imposing retaliatory tariffs on American goods, I guess that "renegotiated" NAFTA Trump did is worthless, so in addition to being responsible for us getting higher prices Trump will also be responsible for Americans losing jobs as the export market shrinks.
We're not even into week three yet.
posted by sotonohito at 11:06 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]
The MAGA voters are not only getting to destroy this year's citrus crop in California, they get Trump personally telling them that his trade war with Canada and Mexico will cause them pain.
So he's moved from telling people that he can lower prices. To admitting that he can't lower prices. To saying that he's going to RAISE prices and fuck you. His voters will, of course, say this is great.
Meanwhile Canada and Mexico will be imposing retaliatory tariffs on American goods, I guess that "renegotiated" NAFTA Trump did is worthless, so in addition to being responsible for us getting higher prices Trump will also be responsible for Americans losing jobs as the export market shrinks.
We're not even into week three yet.
posted by sotonohito at 11:06 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]
But I don't care about pleas that I be nice to the Trumpers, me calling them names is the absolute least of what they deserve.
Literally no one was asking you to do that, they were only asking that you not assume the entire population of a red state WERE Trumpers. But since you aren't bothered to do so -
So he's moved from telling people that he can lower prices. To admitting that he can't lower prices. To saying that he's going to RAISE prices and fuck you. His voters will, of course, say this is great.
You live in Texas, ergo, by your logic you are a Trump voter. Why do you say this is great?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:15 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]
Literally no one was asking you to do that, they were only asking that you not assume the entire population of a red state WERE Trumpers. But since you aren't bothered to do so -
So he's moved from telling people that he can lower prices. To admitting that he can't lower prices. To saying that he's going to RAISE prices and fuck you. His voters will, of course, say this is great.
You live in Texas, ergo, by your logic you are a Trump voter. Why do you say this is great?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:15 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]
If we could avoid getting into a game of Gotcha ping-pong over a carelessly worded comment with an objectionable though reasonable interpretation that the commenter has explicitly said is not what they meant, that would be great. Only the death cult benefits when we do that. We're all in grieving and shock so we're all a bit susceptible to posting ill-considered shit right now, and cutting each other some slack when we do would be a kindness.
posted by flabdablet at 8:07 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 8:07 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]
USAid staff locked out of Washington HQ on Monday morning
USAid staffers said they tracked 600 employees who reported being locked out of the agency’s computer systems overnight. Those still in the system received emails in the agency system saying that “at the direction of agency leadership” the headquarters building “will be closed to agency personnel on Monday, 3 February.”posted by BungaDunga at 6:36 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]
EmpressCallipygos I already said I did not mean to imply that all people in those places are Trump voters.
I did start writing something about how JFC now we can't even be angry anymore but realized that sounded like a standard right wing whine about things being woke/PC/canceled/whatever and therefore my feelings of being dogpiled here are probably invalid and I doubtless used poor phrasing in my initial comment(s).
To make it very clear: I do not, and never have, thought that every single person living in horrible places like Texas and North Carolina is a Trump voter.
I do, however, stand by the argument that as long as the majority in those places keeps voting for horrible people who seek to deny "aid" to California there must be some sort of change in how/if aid is delivered to those places.
As long as any state in trouble gets help, then yay. That's fine.
But if "aid" to California comes with Repulican imposed conditions then a) I think California needs to stop handing over Federal taxes to Washington, and b) aid to Republican states should be cut off completely.
Obviously that's only my completley powerless and utterly non-influential opinion. I feel certain that the Democrats will never be so mean as to actually fight back against Republican evil and will of course use the presence of hostages in Republican states as an exceuse to capitulate and debase themselves before the Republicans.
On topic, I don't think my opinions here matter in the slightest because it's manifestly evident that with only a tiny handful of exceptions the Elected Democrats are not interested in working to oppose Trump. They confirmed Marco fucking Rubio 99/0. Not one single nay, including Sanders, Warren, Baldwin, and all the other theoretically decent Democrats.
Obviously my position, whether the version I think I believe or the one you think I believe, is so far removed from American politics that I might as well be advocating for us to replace the government with rule by cats or something.
posted by sotonohito at 7:48 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]
I did start writing something about how JFC now we can't even be angry anymore but realized that sounded like a standard right wing whine about things being woke/PC/canceled/whatever and therefore my feelings of being dogpiled here are probably invalid and I doubtless used poor phrasing in my initial comment(s).
To make it very clear: I do not, and never have, thought that every single person living in horrible places like Texas and North Carolina is a Trump voter.
I do, however, stand by the argument that as long as the majority in those places keeps voting for horrible people who seek to deny "aid" to California there must be some sort of change in how/if aid is delivered to those places.
As long as any state in trouble gets help, then yay. That's fine.
But if "aid" to California comes with Repulican imposed conditions then a) I think California needs to stop handing over Federal taxes to Washington, and b) aid to Republican states should be cut off completely.
Obviously that's only my completley powerless and utterly non-influential opinion. I feel certain that the Democrats will never be so mean as to actually fight back against Republican evil and will of course use the presence of hostages in Republican states as an exceuse to capitulate and debase themselves before the Republicans.
On topic, I don't think my opinions here matter in the slightest because it's manifestly evident that with only a tiny handful of exceptions the Elected Democrats are not interested in working to oppose Trump. They confirmed Marco fucking Rubio 99/0. Not one single nay, including Sanders, Warren, Baldwin, and all the other theoretically decent Democrats.
Obviously my position, whether the version I think I believe or the one you think I believe, is so far removed from American politics that I might as well be advocating for us to replace the government with rule by cats or something.
posted by sotonohito at 7:48 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]
California needs to stop handing over Federal taxes to Washington
One big problem here is that states don't hand taxes to Washington. Income tax withholding goes straight from employers.
The other problem is that even if it did, I don't know how a state holds on to a significant amount of cash anywhere that isn't functionally an account at the US Treasury. Musk's lackeys could literally debank a state government if they wanted.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:38 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]
One big problem here is that states don't hand taxes to Washington. Income tax withholding goes straight from employers.
The other problem is that even if it did, I don't know how a state holds on to a significant amount of cash anywhere that isn't functionally an account at the US Treasury. Musk's lackeys could literally debank a state government if they wanted.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:38 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]
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posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 6:55 AM on January 31 [6 favorites]