I didn’t vote for Trump, this is not a justification for anything he is doing, this is purely me trying to find any crumb of hope in this abysmal situation.

The country was in decline for at least a decade before Trump took office. So far everything has been a slow boil and we Americans just take it imo.

Maybe Trump will make everything so awful so quickly it will force actual change. Basically we were slowly heating the water and when it turned lukewarm Trump just cranked the heat up to max, maybe the frog realizes this and jumps out.

  • ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world
    71·
    11 hours ago

    Long-winded product of a quick brainstorm session incoming…

    So, Americans will have two options:

    1. Wait it out passively. Corporate infrastructure/services will become more prevalent and take the place of governmental agencies as they default due to debt and mismanagement (a position they’ve been put in through the decades thanks to defunding, with Elon’s DOGE being the latest of villains in this story). Get ready for corporate cities, and conglomerates being the de facto rulers of America. As governmental power wanes and after the eventual American balkanization, you’ll be part of the Amazon Republic of Arizona or whatever. Idk what happens after that.

    2. Somehow, Americans fight both corporate and governmental power, through the creation of alternative supply chains, alternative (labour based, for instance) currency and become more self sufficient. Americans are heavily armed as well and, while incapable of fighting an army of drones, it should be enough of a deterrent (especially if the power structure collapses and infighting amongst oligarchs happens but these post American cooperative societies stand by each other). Communities with immigrants that still have connections to the civilized world might help bring foreign aid and intervention. However, this requires trust, empathy, prosociality, generosity and critical thought. You and I both know Americans are famous for lacking in all of those attributes so I don’t really see how they’ll get it together quickly (and no, American Christian dogma, which is even more cursed and against the actual teachings of Jesus than the Catholic dogma, cannot offer a solution).

    God willing something will happen to snap Americans out of their white ethnonationalist, imperialistic fantasies and into love for humanity, and God does do miracles, but I’m not very optimistic. It might just be the new Sodom and Gomorrah, NGL.

    Finally, there’s a reason the Western mind can only picture Mad Max when the government collapses: even they know they’re completely amoral and uncivilised, the only force holding society together is fear of legal repercussions/getting killed by the cops. By themselves, for the sake of being good and prosocial and to have some self respect, they won’t do shit.