I feel so incredibly sad and exhausted at what has happened to my country. The US has had its flaws, sure. I was born in the late 90s and just within my own lifetime everything I grew up with has been ripped to pieces as an adult over and over again.
It's some sort of sick joke.
I no longer have any hope for the future and am just bracing for impact at this point with what little I have.
The fact that he can make these statements and there still are people ignoring or defending him is just so incredibly gross and further proves how f'ed we are.
Basically at this point I don't think there's any comfortable way out of this, it's going to be a very painful and costly road ahead for us and I don't know if I really believe in this country anymore. If we actually make it to a real election in 4 years I'll eat my words, but seeing how this is just starting I would say its extremely unlikely.
Trump seems content on driving us off a cliff
Yup. I'm just one person but I warned people voting for Trump that we were about to get fucked over again by this. Now we're going to have less services and a shittier future because it takes so much more effort to raise taxes than it is to cut them.
I don't want to be dramatic, but if this passes we're fucked and there's almost no way to come back.
Taxes were cut during Reagan and hardly came back after all those years, Trump came in and cut them even more than Reagan. Once Biden took power taxes were only slightly raised, but nowhere near their pre Trump levels, Trump is trying to lower taxes again.
Our government is not going to be able to function or handle the debt load, there's just not enough income. It was so obvious that this would happen again, but I guess the people that voted for him don't mind a shittier government and a larger deficit. Trump is going to leave office with the largest deficit in history, or maybe second to his first run.
We're at a serious risk of losing the dollar as the reserve currency at this point. If that happens we can say goodbye to this country for good.
I can't tell if they're actually following Putins orders or are actually just that dumb.
Id love for the US to transition to having less influence globally without totally collapsing, but if this is how we do it, so be it.
It's kinda the devil we know situation, if the US steps down, who steps up? Are they going to be better or worse, who knows. I never really bought into the notion that we had to be the world police or that all the evil stuff we did, we did because we had to.
As an American I think I'm going insane? The last 3 weeks have been some of the most anxious and stressed I've ever been.
Trump's first term was nothing like this, there's a feeling of apathy in the air among people and coworkers (I live in a very liberal city in the deep south). Folks around here just seem to be on edge at all times, whether you're pro or anti in a much more divisive way.
There's a strange feeling knowing there's a solid chance we won't make it out of this one. There have been plenty of times in the past where we've had doom and gloom (Trump v1, conservatives and Obama), etc. Nothing ever happens, but this time I'm fairly confident the country I was born into will be dead and gone given the shear destruction being waged against our institutions.
I'm protesting and will continue to do what is needed to ensure 47 isn't the final chapter.
It could be as simple as losing access to grants, scholarships, and general funding. Add to that any of them hoping for a government job doing something they're passionate about (wildlife/park/environmental sciences) only to have their future prospects crushed by an ignorant foreigner.
I want no tax cuts. If they're serious about the deficit (they're not) then more tax cuts for the rich make no sense. A fair compromise would be some modest budget cuts and no tax cuts to shrink the deficit.
Id also like to see some more transparency and oversight into President Elon, and maybe some guardrails.
Problem is, government shutdown is what president Elon wants.
I think quite simply, it makes him look crazy.
Democracy died a long, long time ago. The options were preservation of our neoliberal corporate order, or fascism. The status quo died in 2016 and Dems are hodling hard until I'm guessing America is a completely hollow husk of its former self. But at least they played fair!
Notice a similar pattern? Nazis went after trans folks first. Don't let them dehumanize trans and non binary.
These fascist bastards are going to learn something about some of the rights we have as Americans to protect ourselves from tyranny if they keep going down this road.
We need both! More income and less spending. The amount of debt we carry is enormous and any other nation would default. If the dollar ever loses its status as the reserve currency and we never worked on lowering the deficit or making payments on our debt the entire country will be fucked beyond repair.
It does because our debt is exploding. In part because of Trump's first term when he lowered taxes and increased spending. I believe that we have more than enough income to pay for better services, but the government is kneecapped by an incredible amount of bloat that needs to be cut out, things that do not serve the average American needs to go.
We're in an extremely dire position as a nation and both parties refuse to acknowledge this and would rather just keep going bau. This is the closest we've ever come but it's going to destroy the country in the process. We need experts to come in and tweak things, not idiots and interns with chainsaws.
This is why so many Americans are just quietly letting it happen, but I don't think they realize quite how dangerous these type of reforms are. It's all very exciting to them because they've been fantasizing about if for so long.
This admin does not care about rules, laws, preexisting norms, etc. Congress has decided they don't care and have turned a blind eye.
At this point I just want there to be more transparency because some of what is being done needs to be done to some capacity, but we need to know what is being investigated, that they're respecting our privacy laws, and the final decisions about funding and the future of departments need to be decided in part by Congress or a grandjury of some sort.
I'm all for simplifying and cutting cold war budget bloat, but this is not the way to do it and I guarantee this will blow up in our faces as Elon is way out of touch with what services the average American needs.
It's hard to take their claims of balancing the budget seriously when at the same time there are even more proposals for tax cuts. You'd think if they are serious about cutting into the deficit they'd maintain taxes or increase them and reduce spending.
Yup and let's see what they're up to, oh they're trying to strengthen anti-piracy laws I'm sure that'll help Americans
I think that's mostly true, I see Democrats as the power brokers. Basically they hold power between the people and corporations and attempt to maintain order. This was the mo of Republicans until Trump.
I think that they probably believe they're doing the best they can, but the reality is they serve corporations first, us second.
Except openai and all their investors
I don't think he understands how open source works...
I think this has value even if it doesn't cause immediate change. People need to just get out and express how they're feeling and network with like minded people instead of sitting online doomscrolling. We've got to organize.
Yes please. For the love of God it's not too late.
I get the feeling of defeat. It sucks. But we must come together and stop this fascist takeover before it's too late, whether you're a conservative, liberal, or leftist we need to join hands and fight for a nation for the people. Luigi was a right leaning libertarian.
Seriously, the train has left the station and if we don't derail this train now it's going to mean we're finally handing all of our remaining power to self important narcissistic billionaires. America isn't for sale and it's not a business, it's our home, it belongs to us. These gross conmen pricks who think they know more than us because they got lucky in life think they can just take everything away by force.