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Comment by unsnap_biceps | Hacker News Reader

I think the former is most likely. The people are largely unhappy with how things have been and it's unlikely to get materially worse for the majority of people in the near term, so I don't think there will be a fire lit under enough of the population to rise up.

If it gets bad enough that most people are starving, rather then just struggling, we'll see action, but I doubt it'll get there anytime soon.

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The weird spanner in the works is that while people may be unhappy, they are unhappy because of things they believe that aren't true. Covid response in the US wasn't that bad; global warming really is causing the floods and fires and hurricanes and the EVs really are helping, as would methane emissions rules and so on; if people think the bi-coastal elites are looking down on them (and they are), like so what; that's not a serious problem. If the wealthy don't pay enough taxes, the middle class will be harmed. Making sure black folks and other historically disadvantaged groups do better will raise the quality of life for all of us; if we don't encourage the successful migration and acculturation of people from around the world, our population will decline and our economy will decline. If we don't invest in science, we will loose power and knowledge to those that do. The entitled white folks that teased all the kids that were good at math and science in the 1970s etc. might wish it weren't so, but it is so.

But they now believe that movie actors are drinking the blood of babies and that China somehow rigged up the increase in CO2 as a way to confound us. They think scientists are mostly lying.

It's not clear from an information theoretic perspective how to restore stability to the US system.

Maybe once they've killed a million immigrants, I'm sorry had excess mortality in the camps in the hot SW and in Cuba, and things all around them are worse for their own children and families, they will repent and embrace truth, justice and the American way. One can hope.

It's a third rail to touch but important: "wokism" has been weaponized by the right, and for low information voters (i.e., a majority of the population), voting is an emotional act. Hate and anger are powerful emotions.

> Covid response in the US wasn't that bad

...what?

Trump's son-in-law was put in charge of supply distribution, refused to invoke the defense production act, and when they finally did, Trump took ages to actually "order" ventilators. They refused to implement testing because they knew that tests would show how bad things were and justify measures that would hurt the stock market.

Trump largely didn't do anything at first because COVID-19 was most severely impacting the coastal blue states because of higher population densities.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/did-trump-kushner-igno...

and https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/jared-kushner-let-th...

They routed supplies away from blue states to red states. He sent ventilators to Russia, FFS:

https://ru.usembassy.gov/delivery-of-u-s-ventilators-to-russ...

Trump told states to get their own PPE (because blue states needed them more badly than red states, and he didn't want red states to have to pay for it), then the feds outbid state agencies for PPE. And when that didn't work, just outright had customs steal them:

https://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/letters/warren-deman...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/how-the-federal-gove...

Our state's orders for PPE was impounded at the port by the feds, who them claimed they had no idea what anyone was talking about. Our state got a bunch of PPE because the NFL football team owner sent his team's 737 to China to pick up masks and gowns (which turned out to have all sorts of problems, like being sized for children.)

Our governor stopped just shy of saying "yes" when asked if he'd sent state troopers into NYC to meet the plane and escort the truck.

https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/04/14/baker-mum-on-whether-st...

> If the wealthy don't pay enough taxes, the middle class will be harmed.

"Will be"? It's been going on for decades. Bush and Trump tax cuts made it even worse and skyrocketed the deficit to boot.

Ugh it sucks to be reminded of all that bullshit. Though it's good not to forget.

But I think the earlier comment may have been referring to the restrictions in the US relative to other countries. Most other countries were much more severe for their lockdowns

I think what the commenter meant to address was the right-wing perception that mask mandates and shutdowns were the first step that ends with the government taking away your guns.

The president just threatened Greenland with military action. That is absolutely fucking unprecedented in living memory, and well before.

And that passed without much more than an exasperated sigh.

No, I think the populace will go along with whatever these folks deem acceptable. It’s like a bad movie.

The latest is that the US is gonna take over Gaza and deport everyone there. I do wonder if there's any hot button items anymore.

My (perhaps naive) take is that we all got “Trump immunity” from the first time around the rollercoaster and understand that a lot of it is ineffective bluster that never goes anywhere. Look at the tariffs that’s already been “delayed”.

In a normal administration, gutting the NSF would be the main story. If his statements on Gaza are indeed just bluster, they still succeed in focusing attention away from his current actual actions.

I'm not American, but my read of this announcement looks something like:

* The Trump Administration doesn't believe in the two state solution stalemate. * They have leverage over The Netanyahu Administration in Israel due to the ongoing military support needed. * The Netanyahu Administration wants to incorporate Gaza into Israel as also doesn't believe in two state solution but cannot do so without repercussions. * US could take over Gaza as the West won't sanction it, China needs to sell to it, RoW not an issue. * Trump wants US to take over Gaza, use US corps and workers to rebuild paid for by Israel, and then sell back to Israel at a later time.

I don't agree with that position but I think that's what the deal looks like overall.

What does Israel produce that we want? Are they paying cash for this service, seems expensive, how did they manage to get so much US dollars?

They are the US's proxy against Iran in the Middle East, primarily, which makes it a strategic relationship. Addition, based on the 2022 data, the US imported $21BB from Israel and had a trade deficit of ~$7BB.

> US's proxy against Iran in the Middle East

If I have to hire a hitman to take out my mistress I'm going to just opt to not have a mistress. I guess we will have never ending reasons for needing a proxy against Iran?

When their children are being drafted to go die in some war things will change rapidly. I'd give it a coin flip that's where we're headed right now.

EDIT: To be clear, that's predicated on assumption things are fundamentally different here and now from Germany in the 1930s. If not, we're already cooked.

> To be clear, that's predicated on assumption things are fundamentally different here and now from Germany in the 1930s.

It's hard to take stuff like this seriously. Even if you're worried about fascism specifically, why Germany in the 1930s and not Italy in the 1920s? The latter seems more relevant to the present moment. I think the reason is that the German Nazis are the bad guys of history and these kinds of comparisons have less to do with historical parallels but more with Godwin's Law.

The economic conditions that were present in both Italy and Germany in the inter war years just aren't present here and now. That's why I think there's a chance we can avoid fascism. Or maybe I'm wrong. We'll find out!

With all these things, part of why it's so exhausting is having to deal with most of the statements being totally bullshit. They chuck around threats without restraint, but they only carry out some of them. So far.

Protesting for Gaza was squashed last time by basically everyone, and will be again.

The majority of americans aren't paying much attention and aren't going to notice things are off until things have really gone off the rails, but by then it'll be too late. There's also a lot of "It can't happen here" attitude (apparently because we're special or something) which is exactly the kind of conditions that make it more likely to happen.

Living in Germany quickly made me understand that Germans were not special - as in, did not have some unique weakness that made them particularly susceptible to fascism. The corollary, that Americans did not have some innate virtue that prevented it, took longer to really get through my thick head.

American Exceptionalism is a hell of a drug.

Deport all the people who harvest crops, and people in the US will be starving pretty quickly. It could happen within 1 year. And this is exactly the track we are on right now.

I don't really get this argument or why it's adopted by left-wing commentators. It assumes that supply and demand don't exist and the agricultural industry couldn't get workers if they paid market rates for such labor. It's basically advocating for immigration as a way to subsidize the agricultural industry by giving them a desperate workforce they can exploit.

You can't make a change like this, this quickly, and expect people not to starve. Crops will be literally rotting on the vine while farmers desperately plead for people to work long hours in hot fields for low wages. Do you know anyone who would do that? No? I don't either. I'm not sure how you expect farmers that work on thin margins to suddenly be able to offer a higher wage that Americans would do this work for. It's honestly insanity to expect this to work out in the short term.

I'm not sure why conservative commentators can't see the result of this knee-jerk policy of deporting every illegal immigrant, and even those with birthright citizenship. It's a scorched earth policy, and you are only going to reap ashes from it.

> it's unlikely to get materially worse for the majority of people in the near term

That’s pretty optimistic…

It just needs something small to be taken away or happen that ignite and capture the collective imagination.

Something small like in-person gatherings for several years in response to a pandemic? Like someone else in the thread claimed was a made-up problem that's only in peoples' heads?

It's really interesting seeing how widely varied peoples' definitions of these things are.

The pandemic was a national emergency. Covid was an extremely contagious disease without a lot of existing immunity. The right call was made for the safety of several hundred million Americans. Most other countries made the exact same one.

I wouldn't say most other countries made the exact same call, only because there are plenty of people who think we didn't go far enough. When the comment I was referring to said "Covid response in the US wasn't that bad," I actually wasn't sure whether they were saying the lockdowns weren't that bad or their effectiveness wasn't that bad. (I can kind of assume the former based on the rest of their messaging, but still, there's a range of opinions people had/have about it.)

I'm glad to have lived in a country where they had strict lock downs pre-vaccine. I imagine there are funerals I didn't have to go to as a result. But flip side people could claim I was under martial law etc. stripped of my freedoms.

I thank NZ for leading the way.

I'd love the fact that NZ went ahead and banned tobacco cigarettes if I lived there (sad they wimped out on it before it went into effect), but there are plenty of people who'd be very upset about that here in the US. And I'd love it if we banned cannabis again here, but again, there are a lot of people who that'd piss off. I can understand where they're coming from even if I think they're idiots for using recreational (sometimes toxic) drugs.

People only care about the freedoms to do things they themselves enjoy. Nothing new about that. Much like people only care about authoritarian overreach when the opposition is in power. We should always care, because the power taken by one will remain for the next. Eventually if too much power accrues to any branch it will end the separation of powers. It may have already happened, and once it does, there are no parties, only that boot. Authoritarians are all the same party, they exist at the integer wrap of left vs right. It is why you see extremists from both ends swapping parties far more often than those towards the middle.

Nine missed meals.

If it gets bad enough that most people are starving, rather then just struggling, we'll see action, but I doubt it'll get there anytime soon.

It's mostly too late to do anything at that point. People won't even have money for ammo.

Something depressingly self defeating about people paying money into the system to acquire ammo for the purposes of..

bringing down the system?

Win or lose, I'm thinking money is flowing up to the same people.

lol yeah...

>The people are largely unhappy with how things have been

This is an understatement to say the least, and the fact it's been denied and even refused by the powers that be until today is why the pendulum has swung as hard as it has.

Americans wanted change, and they finally got it with ferocious retribution because it's been held back for so long.

Like the old Mencken quote:

`Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.`

The sentiment I get in this regards is that people are angry and want to "burn it to the ground", without any thought of what might possibly take its place.

The weird thing is these same people will tell you the US is the greatest place on Earth and if you don't like, then leave!

The real U.S. In these people's minds, the federal government and its millions of employees are a parasite sucking the blood of the real U.S., not a part of it. I will leave analogies as an exercise to the reader.

Exactly. Freeways and airports and fallow fields fully paid for. Cheap imports and complete and utter physical security. BLM land to hunt and graze and drill and fell. Rivers that don't catch on fire, not even a little bit. And it would be so much better without the got-damn'd feds.

They literally worship the flag.

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

― George Carlin

More like Americans repeatedly vote for change, because the change they got four years earlier was too bad. It reminds me of Chile, which keeps oscillating between socialist and conservative presidents every four years.

I'm confused. Are you saying specifically that you think the experiences described in this article are for the good of the country? Or do you think they're an exaggeration/lie.

I don’t think that’s what the comment said at all. You’re extrapolating too much.

Explaining the pendulum swinging violently because folks didn’t feel heard is not the same thing as saying that it’s a good thing that the pendulum has swung so violently.

I'm a Trump voter (2016, 2020, and 2024) so I obviously find all this a good thing, just for transparency.

That said, that is tangential and irrelevant to explaining how and why the pendulum swung back as hard as it did.

Trump won his first term in 2016 because Americans were fed up with the Bush+Obama status quo of endless wars and waste. Drain the swamp, fuck the establishment! As the sentiment of the day went; remember Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party? Biden winning 2020 was a sharp rebuke by the powers that be; how dare the people demand change and elect an outsider, how dare the people demand peace and effective government. Biden and Harris's 2024 campaigns likewise were based strictly and ultimately on continuing the status quo; Harris "had no policy" in large part because the "policy" was the status quo.

Trump winning again in 2024 with a historic campaign is a sharp rebuke to that, he is the people's retribution for being denied and refused for so long time and time again. For voters like me and us, NASA and the like having their funding slashed and denied is merely collateral damage for a greater and long-awaited cause.

Trump won his first term in 2016 because Americans were fed up with the Bush+Obama status quo of endless wars and wast

Does this include threatening Greenland with military action or does it not count as war if there is little resistance to be expected?

Or now Gaza. I guess they don’t count trade wars. Dalewyn could have his family deported and still think Trump is doing the right thing. I gave up responding.

As Trump said when an interviewer asked him about Ukraine: "I want people to stop dying." I think most Americans share that sentiment with regards to war, so no, trade wars don't count.

It's objective fact that Trump did not start a single war during his first term (he only inherited wars from his predecessors), his successor Biden immediately went back to starting wars. Americans will not tolerate declarations of war or otherwise military actions on Denmark/Greenland or Panama, we voted for him in large part because he is the first President in a long time who hates wars.

No. More. Wars. This is non-negotiable. Every single warmonger and the military industrial complex can go fuck themselves.

However, if we can get Greenland and the Panama Canal amicably through business/diplomacy then, as an American, why not?

>Dalewyn could have his family deported

If we're here illegally then fuck yeah Trump is doing the right thing; he's just enforcing the law as written. I thought we were all about rule of law?

You seem to be very confused, among other things, about who started the Ukraine war and why. Gonna guess you probably think Obama started the Iraq war and probably the Civil War and WWII as well.

He doesn't care, he wants Ukraine to surrender so they can die quietly.

> However, if we can get Greenland and the Panama Canal amicably through business/diplomacy then, as an American, why not?

was there anything amicable about his recent claims about greenland ?

How do you reconcile having a leader suggesting curing covid with bleach to know how to make government efficients ? Musk couldn't turn twitter back as far as we know either..

> It's objective fact that Trump did not start a single war during his first term (he only inherited wars from his predecessors), his successor Biden immediately went back to starting wars.

What war?

Seriously, what war?

I've tried searching for what wars, and found that the only ones started by the US this century were by Bush Jr.; neither Obama nor Biden went to war.

Do you mean the war Russia started by invading Ukraine? The ongoing conflict between Israel and various but changing subsets of their neighbours? Because these were not started by the US, they are outside the control of the US.

> No. More. Wars. This is non-negotiable. Every single warmonger and the military industrial complex can go fuck themselves.

> However, if we can get Greenland and the Panama Canal amicably through business/diplomacy then, as an American, why not?

He refused, when asked, to rule out using military force.

FYI, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni... lists the following since Obama's inauguration:

Operation Ocean Shield (2009–2016), International intervention in Libya (2011), Operation Observant Compass (2011–2017), US military intervention in Niger (2013–2024), US-led intervention in Iraq (2014–2021), US intervention in the Syrian civil war (2014–present), US intervention in Libya (2015–2019), Operation Prosperity Guardian (2023–present), Israel–Hamas war (2024–present).

> Israel–Hamas war (2024–present).

As I said, not started by the US.

This seems to apply in general to that list, e.g. Prosperity Guardian is not even a war, and crucially it is a response to Houthi-led attacks on shipping in the Red Sea so the US also didn't start it. (Which can be described as an escalation that was itself caused by US economic support of Israel, but that kind of geopolitical implications are a never-ending rabbit hole even with 50 years of hindsight that I don't get to benefit from).

Their (and Canada's, Germany's) reason for picking sides in the Syrian civil war is completely opaque from the perspective of normal people like me (if I count as 'normal'…), but again, they didn't start it: civil war.

etc.

You said

> neither Obama nor Biden went to war.

I believe this is false.

> It's objective fact that Trump did not start a single war during his first term

No, its not. He certainly engaged in an armed conflict with Iran which was not an active conflict before his term.

> his successor Biden immediately went back to starting wars.

No, he didn't.

> No. More. Wars.

Since election, Trump has threatened war in or with Mexico, Denmark, and Panama, as well as the US actively completing the genocide Israel has started in Gaza. “No. More. Wars." Is very clearly not his priority.

> if we can get Greenland and the Panama Canal amicably through business/diplomacy then

This is a joke right? I'm not sure 'amicably' means holding a gun to someone's head to get them to do what you want them to do. Trump stated he would use force if necessary.

> No. More. Wars.

Biden also didn't start any wars. Trump is talking about annexing Gaza, and he continues to talk about war with Iran. Trumps aggression is how wars start because it puts everyone on edge.

When Trump starts a war, which seems inevitable unless his advisors get some control, will you then admit it was dumb to vote for Trump? I'm sure you'll explain it away somehow as #winning.

> I thought we were all about rule of law?

I just assume you're trolling at this point. Trump just pardoned people who beat up law enforcement. He also talks about deporting people he simply doesn't like. He's farther from the rule of law than any POTUS in history.

> his successor Biden immediately went back to starting wars

Congratulations, seems like you have fully bought into MAGA propaganda.

And no Trump supporter can actually spell out clearly what that cause is besides "own the outgroup" and a religious faith in everything getting better for the cult member despite every single piece of evidence pointing to the contrary (unless you already happen to be a billionaire, of course). And I mean religious in the literal sense: a belief that some ill-defined paradise awaits the true believers and it will be worth it in the end even though it kind of hurts that their faces are being gnawed by the leopards (but at least the outgroup’s faces are being eaten too so it’s all right).

> I'm a Trump voter (2016, 2020, and 2024) so I obviously find all this a good thing, just for transparency.

Burning the system down because of hurt pride doesn't sound like a good thing to me.

Your agent of retribution is now threatening my country.

It's because of people like you that I now have to start thinking of what I have to do if they start massing troops in Buffalo. No wars indeed...

And just so you know, invading us will never work. You are right to not want the US to enter a war. Because it has lost every war it has ever started.

Oh no the consequences of your incredibly stupid decisions!

NASA is ripe for some cuts. The Senate Launch System is a waste; both Space-X and Blue Origin have cheaper big boosters. There are too many NASA centers. The Space Force can take over Canaveral. The moon base should be all robots.

It sucks that the guy currently in charge of cost cutting has a blatant conflict of interest in getting rid of the SLS. It really does need to go, but he's not the one to do it.

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