As a Western Europe based, peace loving, tolerant, introvert software dev I'm highly worried by what's happening in the world but at the same time feel totally powerless (I admit to be - for now - selfish enough to not be willing to jeopardise my family and career above this worry).
The frustrating thing is that there must be so many 'of us' and I can't help but think 'we' should organize. Not sure if this (blog) could be a starting point for that?
I cannot stress this enough: for those of us not in the US, do not get sucked into the circus, focus on addressing the same forces locally where you can more easily make a difference.
And you don't even have to organize. Just participate in the world. Go to improv classes, or play PnP RPGs, maybe in a bar or something. Go to a sport club, learn new things. Don't despair, and don't get caught in the circus. Do the best you can to avoid consuming too much, especially avoid solitary consumption. The organization will come organically.
no one just accidentally turns into a political action campaign. esp. the glued-to-the-phone 2025 bourgeoisie tech worker.
like I don't want my DnD session to turn into a revolutionary committee; I'm just here to cast spells and eat pretzels, man. Ditto for other places -- there is a right time and right place, and most of the time it's neither.
you need to make a choice to get involved and organized
The post doesn't make specific claims but as a non-American observer (and without taking a position here) the major changes planned/in progress seem to be DOGE, deportations and tariffs. The proponents claim all of these are for the benefit of working-class Americans and not the elites.
Without addressing that it's hard to see what this post actually adds to the conversation. It makes vague assertions against parties unnamed that Business is not the Way to Run a Civilisation. Those that see a clear and urgent need to reduce spending, immigration and globalisation will not be moved one iota by this because it will not make sense to them. They believe they are already saving civilisation.
the major changes planned by DOGE are gutting the US FedGov in ways that allow the hyper-wealthy access to everything without restraint. e.g. hitting the Dept of Tresury, annihilating all of the Inspector General positions, removing oversight and regulatory groups, etc.
some of those hyper-wealthy happen to be the Russian president + Chinese + Israeli + Saudi, et al, and would love to see NATO split apart and the US economy sputter. They are, arguably, the strongest of the hyper-wealthy vying for influence but not the only ones, though they are likely the most successful.
deportations and tariffs exist to serve as a distraction, or as a way to further the above to points.
> It may feel like we have more freedom if some of us are successful. But that's a myopic view. We are not free. It is more like an addiction. Genuine freedom can happen only if it is available to everyone.
>If we truly are to be a society of people who live on this planet together – a civilization - we must take care of each other.
I'm not even really seeing the short term gains here. It seems like despite making grandiose claims, the administration and the "broligarchs" are relying on cheap political wins ("owning the libs/woke") to placate their base in place of even pretending to accomplish anything that helps their constituents. This honestly surprised me. I'm not a fan of the MAGA set but I genuinely expected there to be some upsides here and not just an immediate private equity style looting frenzy
The short term gains are things like $TRUMP bringing in a huge amount of money for insiders. The long term gains are things like firing the FEC, enabling erosion of voter rights.
The supporters aren't really in this for the money, they're in it for the blood. I don't know if that will change once some crisis forces gas prices up.
I read that as a preemptive counter against any argument involving upsides; even if they are there (possibly only for or in the eyes of some of the beholders), the division and abuse of power are a(n immediate) problem (and that's putting it lightly).
You don't believe their stated assertions that e.g. they are genuinely disturbed by the size of public borrowing and the growing debt and are taking what they see as desperate measures?
Not even remotely. Same line since at least Reagan, never been honest, never will be. It doesn't even make sense. It's relying on laypeople not understanding the economics at play. Hell, going after stuff like the CFPB that are deeply revenue-positive and not things like DoD contractors makes this claim ridiculous on its face
Also, even if it was believable, that's not an upside, it's a claim of ideological justification. An upside needs to be an action they've actually done that has actual tangible benefits
The point is that Congress is the one responsible for indebting the US, and it's both parties that are responsible. The Executive can only do so much to correct this, and even if Musk's claim of saving $2T turns out to be true, that still isn't even nearly enough to stem the tide of spending that has bankrupted the US.
Hardly bankrupt, but: none of this is going to make a difference without cutting into the big pie of military spending which is pork-barreled to individual constituencies. Or the large amount spent on retirees because they're an important class of voters who have no employment income. Or putting up taxes.
The dotcom boom was popping just as Clinton was leaving office. Clinton also lifted the legal restrictions (he signed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act of 1933) that would have prevented the banking / mortgage crisis of 2008.
This whole framing is nonsense. The US is the reserve currency of the world, and its influence in both economic and soft power has had massive ROI for the entire economy for decades. There is no other government that plays this role in the global economy, and it's a ridiculously advantageous one. The fact that a balance sheet shows the sum of the investments to achieve and maintain that as a deficit is not a reason to freak out, this is a drastic misunderstanding of how nation-scale economics work that comes from people who are only familiar with household and business budgets
But if we were concerned about the budget, contractors are drastically more expensive than federal agencies and are much more dubious in their value proposition for the state or the public. It's just that the people involved made their fortunes on cushy government contracts and corporate welfare, so they won't go after it. The whole "fiscal conservatism" concept has always been a massive grift and this is the most blatant and obvious it's ever been
And you're absolutely right in saying that the Democrats are on the same grift, as their strategy has shifted to triangulation in the last 40 years, though the economic shocks they tend to produce over this insanity are generally smaller. The fact is, neoliberal economics has failed to produce widespread domestic prosperity, was likely an attempt to loot modern economies for an oligarch class from the beginning, and people keep accepting doubling down on these policies because they've been systematically misinformed about economic cause and effect through trite little analogies
Congress found $2.7 trillion (with a T) in improper payments from Medicaid and Medicare over the last 20 years. This was Congress, not even DOGE, at work (finally), and the yelling and screaming is still over "you can't look at that data!"
They can, they should, and there needs to be an actual clean up, not a "we're totally doing it, honest, Scout's honor!" like we've seen from the last 30 years worth of administrations (and yes, I know who's included in that span :) ).
Trump added $8.4T to the national deficit as a president during (mostly) good times. Biden added $4.3T to the national deficit as a president during challenging times.
It would be nice to declassify vaccination trials data. Perhaps this "broligarchy" could take a spin on them. Old guards and their "zero evidence of lab leak" is very old.
The frustrating thing is that there must be so many 'of us' and I can't help but think 'we' should organize. Not sure if this (blog) could be a starting point for that?