[Dalewyn]

>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.

[lanstin]

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.`

[pstuart]

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.

[kenjackson]

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!

[kristjansson]

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.

[allturtles]

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.

[pstuart]

They literally worship the flag.

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

― George Carlin

[mastersummoner]

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.

[pizlonator]

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.

[Dalewyn]

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.

[tmerse]

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?

[matwood]

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.

[Dalewyn]

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?

[Animats]

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.

[justin66]

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.

[throwaway_2494]

> 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.

[walls]

Oh no the consequences of your incredibly stupid decisions!

[Sharlin]

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).

[jltsiren]

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.