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I don't know anything about anything, obviously, but here on Week 2 Day 1, I'm really struggling to figure out how this situation is going to play out. It clearly FEELS like it can't be sustainable even through a few months, but I can't even begin to see what ends up resulting.

There's obviously the outcome they want - Trump rules as a dictator, they destroy the federal government, have their dreams of Hungary/Russia West. The fall of democracy, etc, etc. That's where they've been driving so far, and haven't faced any significant obstacles thus far.

Neither the Republicans in Congress or the judicial branch have shown any sign that they're going to take action against the blatantly illegal actions so far. Not that their "we are the party of the Constitution" talk was ever sincere, but they're clearly here to enable.

Democratic leadership is still trying to pretend that we are in normal times. No united opposition, no united messaging. A few individuals (AOC, Crockett, etc) are trying to push back, but the leadership isn't on board. 3rd parties are vanity projects and in hiding.

And the media where most average Americans get their information are still pushing the framing of "Trump takes bold steps to reform government". On social media, true-believers and disinformation operations are whatabout'ing every comment section. All while the damage piles up.

But between the halting of government funding, the firings, immigration raids and threats, tariffs, military invasion threats, etc, it seems like things will quickly reach a point where people start to notice the destruction, right? But can anything be done before it gets to that point?

I really don't see a world where the American people, for lots of reasons, pull a South Korea and flood the streets or engage a general strike. If that was going to happen, I'm pretty convinced that it would have happened before now. Lawsuits will take years to work through if they are allowed.

So I'm really struggling to conceive of a way that this either gets stopped or slowed, or at which point it becomes obvious to everyone what's happening. And when/if that happens, do people blame the people making it happen, or do they turn that anger on the minorities currently being targeted?

Maybe the system is too chaotic to understand. But I think the expiration date on normality is coming very soon, and there's no guarantee that what follows it will be in any way pleasant.

The democratic response seems to be "fuck it, let the wheels fall off". After going through this shit 4 years ago and then losing an election because the average American is too dumb to understand high school level civics and economics, there is a strong undertone of resentment.

Like, I get it. The party is in full on "fuck around and find out" mode. If you keep telling someone the stove is hot, and they refuse to listen, you let them touch the stove to find out. Being the party that has to keep cleaning up messes is exhausting.

But this is why the older members of the party need to retire and let the younger generation take control. We need some adrenaline. We need members who want to fight, who want to win, who aren't afraid to hurt someone's feelings, who calls out the press for the last 10 years of bullshit coverage.

Any ONE thing from the past 8 days would be grounds for immediate impeachment and removal. But it's met with a collective shrug from the people whose job it is to do that. Conspirators or quislings, they're all failures.

I believe we are headed to a recession and fast. No guardrails and his cronies are taking over. The immigrants in CA. aren't showing up out of fear, and orange crops are rotting in the fields. Things are getting painful very quickly!

That's what the accelerationists like Bannon, Thiel, etc wanted. Society wasn't collapsing as fast as they wanted, since they want to build their utopia out of the ashes. So they got control of the federal government to push things along.