Longer than that, I'd say. The rich have been screwing with the lower classes since the country was founded.

There is a movie with Jeremy Irons and I can't recall which one. But he discussed how the rich are always the same for a milenia and we are just observing their control change forms over and over and over again.

And what has buffet done to address the issue?

The business plot never died it just mutated

Unless you rewrite the constitution this will keep happening

There must be a separation of corporate influence from government, billionaires should not be allowed to involve themselves with politics in any way, no funding, no support, you choose to become a billionaire you lose your vote, same for religions

Of course citizens united turned political corruption into a big business and opened a gaping national security hole

It's all fucked and a new constitution is needed

The military becomes the last line of defence, gun rights have to go

I think there are a lot of people and individual communities who are resisting Trump and deserve incredible credit, but it's accurate to say that this has shown the weakness in American society.

Right now, our social fabric as a country is really frayed. We have terrible safety nets. Our ability to get healthcare is tied to our jobs (some states now are trying to implement or have implemented work requirements for Medicaid, making even that now depend on employment). Many Americans are a missed paycheck away from losing housing. Our stagnating minimum wages are making it hard for a lot of people in fields with a lower barrier to entry to build up savings, and people in traditionally high paying tech fields are seeing the encroaching threat of AI. It's incredibly easy for employers to fire people in most places, with only a few protected categories that you can't be fired for, and those you'd have to prove in court against an employer in a lawsuit, needing either to find a lawyer who'll work on commission or pay up front in hopes of winning the wrongful dismissal suit, assuming you have the money for it in the first place.

Our housing supply has been badly outpaced by the demand for housing, and also large corporations are buying up swathes of housing to rent out to people at the highest rates they can get away with, while building new housing is expensive, often tied up in red tape, and rarely accessible to the average person as a result. Zoning in many places also locks people into specifically low density single-family homes, which are one of the most expensive and inefficient ways of building housing, making it harder for people to find starter homes and also making people dependent on cars, another expense that tends to put people in debt, worsen dependency on oil due to cars mostly being internal combustion and electric cars being more expensive, worsen public health for similar reasons (making healthcare access even more important, making people even more dependent on their jobs) and something which makes life even harder for folks who have a disability which makes driving impossible or requires expensive vehicle modifications.

Our food system is a mess. Many people live in food deserts where reliable access to fresh produce requires transportation long distances, and local options are mostly shelf-stable ultra-processed foods which do not fill most people's nutritional needs on their own. These foods are profitable for large corporations which use their influence to affect public health policy to keep people dependent on these foods, prevent regulation of potentially harmful ingredients, and bury studies that show the harms of these foods. Cooking at home takes time, energy, and access to affordable ingredients that people in food deserts working three jobs to keep the lights on often just do not have.

Public schools have often experienced funding cuts leading to staffing cuts leading to school lunch being prepared using limited fresh ingredients (particularly fruits and non-starchy vegetables), ultra-processed foods and minimum labor, often by third parties due to the lack of on-site kitchens, making it hard for schools to afford to change this if they want to. This may be the only meal a day kids from impoverished families get. If their parents have any problems with the paperwork for free school lunch and fall into lunch debt, these meals may be taken away from their child and replaced with a sunflower seed butter sandwich. The federal school lunch program heavily pushes dairy as well, so good luck to lactose intolerant kids, who might get a carton of soy milk instead but probably not. (Lactose intolerance rates are higher in African-American, Native American and Latine populations, of course.)

Public schools are frequently under-funded, and are funded primarily by property taxes for the school district, meaning that public schools in areas where people are already disproportionately impacted by poverty are going to have lower funds, contributing to lower quality school meals, fewer resources, fewer teachers with larger classes, and generally as a result less effective education. Private and charter schools may come in, but of course may charge for the education of their students (making it inaccessible to many), and often have substantially fewer regulations and anti-discrimination rules, allowing them to wield their power to effect desired agendas. Many are specifically religious and will teach their students according to the specific religious interpretation of those running it. Do they choose to interpret the Bible as forbidding same-sex relationships and identifying as anything but the gender you were assigned at birth? Fucking sucks for you, queer students!

And speaking of people pushing their preferred reading of their preferred religion from a position of power, we have lost huge amounts of third places, such that for many people, their only real available third place for in-person socialization is their local church. Don't share a religion with most of your neighbors? Sucks to be you. Differ in interpretation of a shared religious text from your local church? Sucks to be you. These churches have an outsized influence on local communities, and in many rural and predominantly white places in the US, they are pushing a specific version of white Christian Nationalism passed down from the top by influential rich folks who subscribe to those beliefs. And because of the gutting of social safety nets, a lot of local churches or religious organizations are the main option for seeking assistance with things. Trans? Muslim? Good luck with your local Salvation Army and their discriminatory policies.

I could go on long enough to write a damn book. Social media created by billionaires, optimized to be addictive and lock people in to their services even as they enshittify, have become one of the few other options for socializing, and are constantly pushing misinformation that serves a fascist Christian white nationalist agenda. Journalistic sources both local and national are being bought up by billionaires turning the reported news to their own agenda. Public funding for scientific research is being cut, leading to scientists relying on private grants to continue their research, allowing -- surprise surprise -- billionaires to exert outsized influence on who gets to practice science and what they research. Municipalities are collapsing under the financial weight of inordinately expensive car-centric infrastructure that they cannot afford, leading to them cutting more services and municipalities with predominantly impoverished residents especially struggling.

I barely even touched on the ways that sexism, racism, ableism, anti-queer discrimination, xenophobia and our broken migration system (broken in the sense that under-resourcing of immigration courts and absurd laws make it a long and difficult process for migrants to obtain legal residency and citizenship, leading to many migrants being left without documents and thus vulnerable to exploitation and further targeting by ICE) amplify these things and make them worse, nor how they divide people and make working class solidarity more difficult, nor how Imperialism and the Imperial boomerang affect things, nor our police system that actively incentives officers to act in harmful ways and prevents accountability, nor a million other things because everything is just too damn much. I literally forgot to even mention the US making war on Iran! Oh, the Epstein files! Voter suppression and gerrymandering!! Gun violence!!!

So frankly, it is a Goddamn miracle that despite all of this, people are organizing. It is a testament to the resiliency and endurance of humanity that Minnesota is organizing against ICE. It is beautiful that people are organizing national strikes, and that the numbers are slowly growing. It is heroic that people are forming mutual aid groups and building local power and building food and housing security.

I won't say there aren't a lot of American people who suck. People voted Trump in, twice, and many of his voters are actively celebrating his cruelty, while the remainder are like "oh, I didn't like the cruelty, but I thought he would be good for the economy," which, okay, "I'm only overlooking The Horrors because money!" isn't much of an excuse. A lot of working class Trump voters have been shaped by webs of disinformation and targeted manipulation that make them vote against their own interests, and I have a sliver of sympathy for that, but actively choosing to support or ignore the horrors being inflicted upon the vulnerable by this government is simply bad. They are choosing to do bad things.

So yeah, some of the American people do suck. But it's not most of us. Our society is broken, and it's going to take incredible work to fix it. So I don't see "the weakness of the American society has led to this" as a damnation of our people nor a downplaying of what so many are doing to fix it; I see it as a descriptor of the problem, in hopes of helping realize the solution.

Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk. Support your local mutual aid network. Start a garden. Advocate for housing reform in your community. Do something so that you know you are a part of the solution, and do not try to do everything, because you will burn out and this can only be fixed by rebuilding our society as a group, not a single individual fixing everything.

Also, if anyone knows how to do a "read more" block, please tell me? I'm using Voyager and don't see it built in, and the Markdown implementation for collapsed text blocks varies across every implementation I've seen.

The warehouse fire thing is just a case of Apophenia. The one toilet paper warehouse arson caused people to go looking for local news reports of warehouse fires and - because they happen all the time - they found them. That doesn't mean they're connected or that there's a wave of arsons vis à vis resistance against corporations. There has been no actual uptick in warehouse fires.

Definitely. In fact I believe many of them in high positions are secretly alright with much of what Trump and the Republicans have been up to. This resistance from our supposed representation is a joke. They've been out of touch with the working class and in the pockets of the elites for way too long, completely compromised.

Hey, we’re not solely to blame. He cut his teeth in the UK media market - they deserve some of the blame too.

A cause, not creation. Trump is our collective shadow, as it were. That thought where you want to say "Fuck the Rules" and do whatever you think is best, damn the consequences, is where Trump comes from.

• The war with Iran? Iran has been pestering the US for some time. So why not just kill those guys and be done with it?
• Europe keeps talking back and disrespecting your authority. So why not teach them a lesson by increasing prices on their stuff?
• Maduro thinks he can fuck with the US as much as he wants. Let's see if he still feels that way in an American prison!
• The people whining in Minnesota must have been put up to this by the Radical Left or something. A good hit to the head will calm them down!

Rupert Murdoch gave up his Australian citizenship.

Since 1985, he's 100% US. He's all yours.

That leaves the process for creating another one intact.

brb, off to make an educational video on the merits of announcing "no homo" and how the simple declaration can restore order and civility.

Lindsay Graham is always worried he'll be outed as gay- wait we arent talking about Lindsay? Oh

... Ill wait over here.

Au contraire, a truly "mutualist" society would never fall for the bullshit that is happening.

If everyone had trust and a good working relationship with their neighbors and solidarity with their working class comrades, the US capitalist class and therefore the government in its current form would quickly cease to exist.

The problem is specifically that the US capitalists inserted themselves as unavoidable middlemen into every aspect of US life. Notice how you're not getting food from your community kitchen, you're getting food from Uber Eats. You're not usually calling a repairman from your local community, you're calling a company that sends one out to you. You're not getting help from your community militia, you're getting it from an armed wing of the bourgeois government.

(ironically, this was possible to do through years or "rugged individualism" propaganda, that you are repeating here; other things like car dependency also made things worse)

This lack of local community is a big part of why there is so little organized protest. It's very difficult to rile up your neighbors to take up arms and meaningfully protest when you barely even know them. This would apply even more in your imagined scenario of everyone becoming individualists who raise their own cows - people wouldn't even have time to protest because they would spend all of it on their own survival, and those who stick their head up are easily arrested and thrown into jail, with noone to protect them.

Everything you have written here, I agree with. I think the self-reliance or even community reliance is what's missing here. That service reliance is a big factor in our learned helplessness.

It truly is just a giant mess, with many confounding factors. I hope others take the time to read what you wrote.

By all means. But can you?

My money is on 20-30 years. That's enough time for:

• Trump's death.
• The GOP attempts to prop up a direct successor to Trump, which fails.
• The Dems regain some control over the country as the Never Trumpers and MAGA fight over the direction of the GOP.
• Massive stagflation occurs as a result of Trump's activities when he was alive. And corporate greed.
• Many years pass, and New Trump offers a new way forward for the GOP. He distances himself from Trump by saying he won't TACO, and he'll make foreign countries suffer for putting the US in the current (future) economic crisis.
• New Trump builds up a coalition and wins bigly.

I was listening to a podcast where an expert on revolutions was talking about it.

I think it's something like, as few as 3% of the population can achieve revolution, but their actions need to be very focused and targeted. It's a small number but almost an impossibility.

Like any authoritarian regime there's oligarchs supporting representatives who are supporting the leader who supports the oligarchs with tax concessions et cetera.

Nothing will change until the oligarchs decide that the current regime is not in their best interests.

If you could get 5% of the population to permanently stop using services associated with the magnificent seven, that might be enough. However it needs to be people who are presently relying on their services and they need to discontinue completely, and indefinitely, and in protest. I'm not sure I could convince even 1 person to stop using the services of a single one of those companies. Hell, I'm reliant on microsoft services myself.

It's a small number but getting that small number to do what's necessary is almost impossible.

Almost half of the voting population clearly saw the possibility of him becoming a president again, and decided that preventing that is not worth an afternoon of their time. That's a choice. That's a direct, active action that those people did.
Most of americans were either in favour or a pedo becoming their king, or didn't see anything wrong with it.

Only <65% people of voting age even voted

That's because democrat voters couldn't bring themselves to vote for a woman.

They said her problem was that she smiled too much.. Then the country chose the rapist who's destroying them as we speak.

American voters from both sides are responsible for all the death and suffering caused by their president.

And somehow it's never their fault.

he's the least popular president in history

Still he was elected by the american people, after being a convicted rapist and trying to overthrow democracy in the USA.

Americans should be ashamed that he even was a candidate.

Don't try to make excuses, americans did this.

But Kamala wanted to eat babies (Palestinian babies at that!) she wanted to grab every single Palestinian by the neck and personally strangle them. I couldn’t be bothered to vote for her because nothing would be different right now! Biden was senile and I insisted they changed the candidate. When they did, I just knew Kamala would start a war with Iran! I am just glad I stayed home and let things spiral out of control. Any day now things will get better thanks to me staying home!

— some idiots here who I am more and more convinced are bots or paid trolls.

Not to mention, during Trump's first two races, him and his cronies did everything they could to meddle with the results. Do we all think they just gave up on that the third time around?

because 2/3 of voters did not vote against him, therefore they are either okay with it or were unable to vote

my assumption is that the size of the latter group, while significant, is not 15% of voters

Try explaining that to the single celled organisms here and they might explode.

The WHCD guy was a weapons grade shitlib.

He was complaining about Hasan Piker on the train to DC.

Sounds like the problem may inevitably take care of itself.

No? Two were Ukraine guys, pretty much centrist liberals. One was all over the place

"Why didn't Feudal Peasants rise up against theie Feudal Lords? Were they stupid?"

-asks the modern day corporate indentured serf from his company-provided cubicle residence.

Democrats can use this against Republican candidates running for reelection. Just say this candidate voted against this proposed reform and say what the reform is.

Possible reforms I can think of are limit Supreme Court judges to 6 year terms. After that they would have to be reappointed. The President cannot issue pardons. Non-Supreme Court judges would be appointed by a bipartisan congressional committee which would choose a pool of candidates for a certain position. From that pool one would be chosen randomly. Congress must approve of all military action. The exception is when an immediate response is required. Then congressional approval would be required ASAP.

I'm sure a committee of scholars can think of more reforms.

In Warhammer, there's an Ork flying machine that works because the Orks believe it should work.

In that respect, Ork war technology is more advanced than American law.

the "over policing" could've been a nonissue if there had been sufficient resistance and proper accompanying legislation to curb it and enact better training programs for cadets. scapegoats can be named to anything one chooses depending on which side one sympathizes with, but for my own part i see no scapegoating beyond that thst the executive branch has instituted

I will say, we have seen hopeful amounts of change even in Democratic primaries. Voter suppression has happened in the partisan election, and candidates have been rejected from primaries, but if this continues across the country (slower than we'd like) it's going to signal to Democrats their same old "I'm the only opposition to Trump you've got!" story isn't working.

But in terms of earning back trust: Yeah, I don't ever really see a path to that. That's my main issue, even living here; someone can tell me "I'm sorry I voted for Trump" and I still won't know what motivated them towards mass murder, as well as lying through their teeth to me about how they never imagined he would do such things.

This should be an indictment of the Biden administration.

Continuously embarrassing that Republicans have (functionally) become the party of Giving People Money, while Democrats continue to obsess over a National Debt that clearly doesn't matter

I don't know, man. I-a single adult -recieved over $700 in food stamps for well over a year. I ran out of my saved food stamps in 2025. I was also diagnosed with COVID over the phone and received over $5000 in unemployment per month. Since this income wasn't reflected in Medicaid's income requirements, I got free insurance as well.

Giving this much money to low-income workers has a disproportionate impact on inflation. The skyrocketing prices of frozen meals and gourmet animal products, for example, was a direct result of the food stamps.

It helped both me and the shareholders, but it came with a long-term cost. Everyone who had a job during the pandemic paid the price.

@Maeve @Yawweee877h444 @BygoneNeutrino