[bdelmas]

I think that those in command are also waiting for the next President to undo all that but it is going to have a tremendous effect for a decade or more. Hopefully for the US they won't go in a similar crisis like the UK is going through...

Cutting off countries like Japan or Taiwan like that when we know their geopolitical situation with China and how critical their economy is to the US is quite crazy.

[baranul]

Things are easier to break than they are to fix. The next president, if there will be another, will not be able to easily glue the pieces back together.

[swat535]

Yeah, this is the core issue. How can any ally fully trust the U.S. when major foreign policy commitments can be reversed every 4 years? One administration signs on, the next tears it up.

It's starting to look like U.S. agreements aren't really with the country, but with whoever happens to be in office. US allies is isolating itself and it's allies are going to hedge. The trend is already starting and it's going to be hard to reverse. Restoring that trust isn’t just a matter of electing the "right" leadership, either, at this juncture, I think that it would require institutional reforms and a consensus on foreign policy that transcends the electoral cycle.

I'm not going to cheer for the "downfall of US", but America is doing it to itself.

[OJFord]

> Hopefully for the US they won't go in a similar crisis like the UK is going through...

Err.. do tell about the UK's larger crisis than US'?

[Gregaros]

I’ve been seeing people call this GEXIT, or global exit.

[OJFord]

As a comparison to Brexit? At what point even momentarily was that in a worse situation, nevermind as an ongoing matter?

[losvedir]

Are you pretty young? The narrative when it was happening was pretty catastrophic. I remember reading about people not being able to get prescriptions, for example, because no one knew how imports worked.

I don't know how things panned out, but the discussions in the early days around Brexit were absolutely on par or even worse than what we're seeing in these two days of discussions around tariffs.

[OJFord]

I don't know what 'pretty young' is, apart from condescending, but I voted in it, so I remember as well as you do I imagine.

Regardless of contemporaneous comparisons, the up-thread comment I initially replied to suggested there was some ongoing worse 'crisis' in the UK than the current situation in the US, if they meant to refer to Brexit it was not clear at all, regardless of whether anyone things that's an ongoing worse situation. (Except that the fact it's not clear really suggests it isn't...)

[Gregaros]

Sorry, the implication is that this is far worse than Brexit, but that this is the US’s Global Exit, riffing off the strong negative connotations in te US. I saw it from on Bluesky, but that linked here https://theradicalfederalist.substack.com/p/the-neoreactiona... - so, being framed as much worse than Brexit.

[lunarlull]

> I don't know what 'pretty young' is, apart from condescending, but I voted in it,

'Pretty young' would imply maybe you haven't been voting for very long, and are likely under 25.

[eddythompson80]

What? The didn't happen, or it's not how it happened. Are you pretty young to remember Brexit?

The UK voted for Brexit in 2016, but it was up to the UK itself to invoke it with the EU. They took almost 4 years to do it in January of 2020 after 4 years of arguing about it with a transition period and trade talks with the EU until the end of 2020. It wasn't a surprise and "no one knew how imports worked". Yeah people online made all sort of wild hyperbolic scenarios, but trade was unaffected until the end of 2020. There were shortages in the UK around that time, but I wonder if you remember what happened shortly after January 31st of 2020?

The prescription drug shortages is still a problem in the UK. It's not because no one still knows how imports work in the UK, 5 years after Brexit. It's because the overall imports and exports in the UK has been falling since Brexit. Because the UK economy hasn't been doing great. Brexit, COVID, and then Ukraine/Russian energy dependency came in a pretty bad time for the UK.

[rsynnott]

> They took almost 4 years to do it in January of 2020 after 4 years of arguing about it with a transition period and trade talks with the EU until the end of 2020.

Oh, longer than that. Some transition arrangements are _still in practice in place_, for instance see https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-brexit-border-checks-dela... . Brexit is not done, yet; things will get worse before they get better.

[rsynnott]

Note that these tariffs largely don’t take effect til the 9th. That’s when we start seeing what the second-order effects are.

[BobaFloutist]

Frankly, the first order effects as well.

Right now we're seeing the 0th order effects.

[rsynnott]

Currently, Trump’s tariffs have kinda broken the stock markets, and caused some difficult-to-measure economic damage (investments will have been delayed or cancelled, that sort of thing). If, tomorrow, Trump chokes on a well-done steak, or Congress puts him back in his box (remember, his ability to do _anything_ with tariffs is entirely within the gift of Congress), or otherwise the tariffs go away, then the markets will pretty much spring back, and the economic hit will be small enough that it’s hard to measure.

While estimates of the damage done by Brexit are of course very politically sensitive, nearly everyone agrees that some substantial damage has been done, particularly to trade and jobs (one estimate has the UK with _over 2 million_ fewer jobs today than it would otherwise have, Goldman Sachs says that the UK economy is 5% smaller than it ‘should’ be, etc etc)

[makeitdouble]

Reading the parent's comment I was expecting the UK GDP to have been plunging since Brexit, but that's not the case apparently[0]. Some sectors clearly profited from it, compensating for those who went down the drain.

GDP isn't everything and from the outside the UK feel like in a very bad place, but I wonder what's the metric that really captures that status. Inequalities aren't getting that much wider as well.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/gbr/uni...

[bdelmas]

There is a lot of data to talk about that's why I linked the video directly in the other comment. Maybe check it out. For the GDP it may not look bad but compared to other countries and especially the US, the UK is going through what we call a "lost decade". Their GDP should be +25% higher than right now... That's just one (huge) metric talked about in the video.

[mike_hearn]

Yup. Sadly, discussion of Brexit on HN is trash tier. Almost every claim about it you'll find here is completely wrong. Not in the sense of differing values or priorities, but in a "this is totally made up" kind of way. It's really concerning that so many people's understanding of the UK and Europe have suffered such a huge rupture with reality. The map is not the territory!

Leaving the EU had no effect on the British economy. Not positive, not negative. Even the trade balance with the EU merely continued along its long term trend, so apparently the single market wasn't delivering any value in the end. The closest thing you can find to an economic impact was the currency dump that happened the moment the result was called, but the economy did fine in the post-referendum years and so those traders who panicked just took a bath and the currency recovered later. Not that a currency devaluation is such a bad thing for the UK anyway, its exports could use the help.

Even some non-economic impacts failed to materialize, in both directions. The UK rejoined the Horizon research programme (supposedly a "cherry" that would be lost), but also the reduction in immigration that voters were promised didn't happen either, in fact immigration went into overdrive.

A lot of people who support the EU don't realize any of this, partly because the news doesn't report on things that don't happen so they never hear about it. But mostly it's because they conflate predictions with reality. For example, there's someone saying in this thread that "the narrative was pretty catastrophic" followed by "I don't know how things panned out". And when I pointed out this lack of impact less than two weeks ago here, I got a reply that cited another pile of predictions as a refutation:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43469356

It's a systemic problem that crops up in other areas too. During COVID modeling predictions were regularly repeated as if they'd already happened, and you see the same mental slippage in climate change discourse. The line between "we think this might happen", "this will happen" and "this has already happened" blurs to nothing.

[pmags]

Can you provide some citations / documentation of your claims about "no effect"?

As a non-EU / non-UK reader I went searching for more detailed analysis after reading your post. The first detailed analysis I found was the UK Office for Budget Responsibility's Brexit Analysis. [1]

The OBR's analysis suggests outcomes like the following (all quoted from that assessment) that seem to suggest some degree of negative economic impact:

* The post-Brexit trading relationship between the UK and EU, as set out in the ‘Trade and Cooperation Agreement’ (TCA) that came into effect on 1 January 2021, will reduce long-run productivity by 4 per cent relative to remaining in the EU.

* Both exports and imports will be around 15 per cent lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU.

[1] https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/the-economy-forecast/brexi...

[mike_hearn]

With respect, argh! Lol.

That link is neither analysis nor reporting on outcomes. That's more predictions. This is the exact problem I'm talking about!

To analyze outcomes you must look at the actual data. There's a report that does so here but you can look up the raw data too if you prefer:

https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Perspectives_5...

From the summary:

"Contrary to initial concerns, Brexit has not had a major detrimental effect on UK–EU trade.

● Trade data doesn’t support the Office for Budget Responsibility’s claims that Brexit has caused significant negative impacts on the UK economy.

● Data from 2019 to 2022 indicates that the trade in both goods and services between the UK and EU hasn’t shown a discernible Brexit effect."

You can look up more recent numbers but the story hasn't changed.

I'd really like to understand the psychology of this phenomenon better. I don't mean this as any personal criticism because it's good that you're asking, but the fact that every time I bring this prediction/reality conflation up I get a rebuttal with more predictions in it is fascinating.

[pmags]

Also "with respect":

● The analysis you link to is exactly the same sort of analysis the OBR provides -- i.e. a synthesis of current and past data and updated projections of what that means looking ahead

● The OBR report links to detailed "Economic and fiscal outlook" (EFO) data that includes the actual data the conclusions are based on. I haven't tried to look at the linked data for many of the analyses in the OBR report, but for those I have I find data in the cited EFO documents that seems to backup the statements made. For example, Box 2.6 of the March 2022 EFO report: https://obr.uk/box/the-latest-evidence-on-the-impact-of-brex...

● I gather that the "Institute of Economic Affairs" (IEA) is a long running right wing think-tank/advocacy group -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Economic_Affairs

● The director of the IEA was apparently recorded by an undercover reporter telling funders that his organization was in "the Brexit influencing game" [1]. Why should I thus trust that the IEA isn't trying to spin Brexit outcomes to their funders advantage? This applies to the government too of course, but many of those OBR/EFO reports seem to have been prepared when the Conservatives were in power.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/29/rightwing-t...

[bdelmas]

Well before what's happening now the US still was doing very strong on the economy (plus their advantage to be that big, their military advantage, them owning half of their continent, etc...). But with what is unfolding now...

If you want to know more about the current situation in the UK I would recommend this video [1]. His channel is amazing for geopolitical content.

[1] https://youtu.be/OTWDzMjgsEY?si=hxoB8ef_y2Qy4u0I

[Centigonal]

Some stats from this video:

- The UK has one of the worst homelessness problems in Europe, with about 1 in 50 Londoners experiencing homelessness.

- The UK economy stagnated for 10 years following 2008, resulting in a "lost decade"

- The median disposable income in the UK was slightly lower than the US and Norway before the GFC by 6-8%, not it's 16-20% behind.

IDK if I'd call this a crisis, i.e. people aren't rioting in the streets. That said, this is not the direction you want to be moving in as a developed country. The trend of people in formerly dominant countries electing leaders who keep making stupid own goals (increasing economic inequality, Brexit, gutting the NHS, gutting US foreign aid, tariff-pocalypse) is very worrying.

[card_zero]

Ten times? More like two times:

US population is around 340 000 000, 770 000 homeless.

UK population is around 68 000 000, 354 000 homeless. (Possibly calculated more inclusively.)

That's 0.23 % and 0.52 %.

(Numbers from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Kin... or more specifically from a govt department and a homelessness charity. The US figure "does not include those staying with friends or family because they do not have a place of their own".)

[Centigonal]

Hey, so I was wrong in saying the UK has 10x the homelessness rate of the US. I used a stat from the video that "approximately one in fifty Londoners are now homeless." That's London, not the UK. Thanks for catching that -- I will update my post.

But also, uh, you're wrong too! Your numerator for the UK figure is actually an estimate for homeless people in England, while your denominator includes the whole UK.

[orwin]

Homelessness is a housing issue first, a poverty issue second. See housing as a game or musical chairs. If you don't have enough, the one getting stuffed first are the slowests (in that case, the unemployed poor, then the working poor).

[card_zero]

Fair enough. (England's population is 57 million, so that's 0.62 % in England.)

[wooger]

You probably don't want to get your stats from random youtube videos.

[tdeck]

It's interesting that this video is so focused on productivity since 2008, when a worker's income has been decoupled from productivity for decades.

[OJFord]

If you can't give me any words that indicate what kind of crisis the UK is facing, while there's general agreement on 'Trump', 'tariffs', '(especially US) equities', 'the US dollar', 'global recession fears'... then I don't have time for your video recommendation.

[anigbrowl]

Brexit was pretty bad for the UK proportional to the size of their population/economy, and is still causing problems even though the initial dislocation is over. If you think it's a lesser crisis, you could just say that. I haven't done the numbers to make an exact comparison, but they both have the qualities of being being abrupt, severe, and self-inflicted.

[OJFord]

> If you think it's a lesser crisis, you could just say that.

I do, but the principal reason I didn't say that is that I had no idea it's what the commenter I replied to was referring to.

'Brexit' feels mostly completely irrelevant / not a topic of concern or debate since at least the beginning of the pandemic five years ago. The vote was almost a decade ago. 'If bdelmas thinks it's like Brexit, they could just say that', to paraphrase your own comment.

[Symbiote]

Britain took 4 years to negotiate and prepare for the new trading arrangement with the EU. It wasn't all smooth, but they did things like massively expand customs facilities at sea and airports to allow for the new inspections, train up inspectors for animal and plant imports. It gave time for people to move, companies to move their HQ, set up new warehouses, etc. Both sides were clear that the arrangement wouldn't be changed back with a change of government — the EU had no patience for that, opposition parties in the UK said they wouldn't aim for it either.

The USA hasn't done any of that, so the situation at this stage isn't the same.

Weeks after Brexit happened, when Covid started, EU governments quickly moved their focus to the pandemic. Since then, they've continued to tell Britain they aren't interested in reopening discussions so soon after new treaties were signed.

That's changed slightly with Russia/Ukraine/Trump, as the UK has positioned itself carefully between the USA and the rest of NATO.

All that time though, it remains a topic of debate in Britain since they haven't seen any of the promised benefits of Brexit. Some things have got worse, but I'd say it's generally a problem of stagnation, compared to improvements in comparable neighbouring countries.

[OJFord]

That's a good summary, I basically agree. It's hardly describing a current and ongoing 'crisis' that the US hopefully doesn't deteriorate from its present position to the level of, though, is it?

I think if I were American I would be longing for the day that <insert Trump thing> 'remains a topic of debate because we haven't seen the promised benefit of it'!

[lazyasciiart]

The vote didn’t implement anything. Britain didn’t actually leave the EU until 2020. Brexit is as of much concern in Britain, still, as Trump is - because it underlies their entire shaken economy. You think some tariffs are bad? Ok now what if Trump simultaneously tore up every trade agreement? And cancelled the visas of every European citizen in the country, who happened to make up 10% of the medical sector?

[OJFord]

Alright take 2020 then: year started $1.32/£, ended at 1.37. The world was shaken by SARS-nCoV-2019, but I do not remember us feeling particularly extra shaken by Brexit crisis.

That is not really relevant anyway, the up-thread suggestion was that there was some current ongoing crisis more significant than anything happening in the US. That user didn't even mention Brexit, but if that is what they meant, no, I assure you it's predominantly Trump and tax year end stuff in our news.

[lazyasciiart]

Here, there's even a wikipedia page for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%93present_United_Ki...

How is this related to brexit? Well, it's mentioned several times in that page, but here: > Brexit has permanently diminished trade efficiency in the UK...weakening the UK’s international competitiveness.....intensified the UK’s longstanding productivity issues...imposed lasting structural constraints on productivity ...Brexit’s negative impact on productivity is enduring and structural. Additionally, Brexit has produced effects akin to a negative supply-side shock...An analysis conducted by NIESR colleagues, published in November 2023, suggested that UK business investment could have been about 12.4 per cent higher in 2023 if Brexit did not happen.

https://niesr.ac.uk/blog/five-years-economic-impact-brexit

Funnily enough, one thing that gets called out a lot is the rising wealth inequality that allows the shrinking group of well-off types to be completely ignorant of the worsening conditions at the bottom. You must be doing ok for yourself - but I am genuinely curious what kind of news sources you follow that you are not aware of the very serious levels of poverty and fear rising around the country, and the economic troubles underlying them.

[rsynnott]

Thing is, Brexit didn’t _really_ happen in 2020. The UK was, for practical purposes, in the single market until 2021 under a transition arrangement, and even after that, it kind of petered out over years. Some special arrangements are _still in place_: https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-brexit-border-checks-dela...

[lazyasciiart]

Oh, you’re actually British, how surprising. Perhaps it’s only still a topic among people who understood what was going to happen.

[darksaints]

This. There is no reason why any country should trust us anymore if entire trade relations can be destroyed by a presidential whim.

Even if Trump fell out of a window today and we got a pro-trade president tomorrow, we’re not fixing this damage for a very long time.

We probably would have to amend the constitution to insulate foreign policy from the whims of a single person if we want any chance of fixing this in our lifetime.

[Uvix]

It's already there in the Constitution - Article II, Section 2, Clause 2. Unfortunately other countries chose not to require things in writing and were happy with pinky promises that could be reneged.

[lreeves]

We (Canada) literally signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement for trade in 2020... with Donald Trump. Trump this February said "Who would ever sign a thing like this?" and proceeded to make up the story about fentanyl coming from Canada as a pretense to ignore this deal. So there was certainly more than a pinky promise.

Additionally your senate just signed law to repeal the tariffs against Canada specifically so I don't know what other receipts or paperwork you'd like here. Not that I expect Trump to adhere to that of course, but I've never heard the perspective of "well these weren't signed agreements" for things that clearly were.

[mtgentry]

Yep, he’s doing to other countries what he’s done to contractors, plumbers, and other tradesmen for years.

[vkou]

> Additionally your senate just signed law to repeal the tariffs against Canada specifically so I don't know what other receipts or paperwork you'd like here.

That bill won't pass the crazy house, but yes, CUSMA was signed law.

[ttyprintk]

There is a technicality in normal times, though: ratifying treaties negotiated by the President only need to pass the Senate.

[drowsspa]

I mean, most of international law and deals are basically pinky promises. But grown-ups are supposed to keep those pinky promises

[Terr_]

It doesn't require a constitutional amendment, we can just repeal the law [0] being used, which would ironically involve the same number of votes as keeping the law but slapping down Trump's particular usage of it. (That's now how it originally worked, but the easy-slapdown route got ruled unconstitutional.)

Military alliance stuff might be harder. Some stuff like NATO is supported by actual legislation, but other stuff was set up as a kind of gentleman's agreement with the US President-du-jour on the assumption that successors wouldn't be crazy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Econom...

[ceejayoz]

> we can just repeal the law [0] being used

Only with a veto-proof majority in both chambers.

[anigbrowl]

Maybe, but vetoes are politically very expensive. Even if he threatens to veto, Congress should still do it. Not doing obvious things because they might run into opposition/problems is a recipe for more and worse of the same.

[ceejayoz]

> Maybe, but vetoes are politically very expensive.

As are felony convictions, top secret docs in a bathroom at your house, sexual assault settlements, and the hundred other career-ending scandals the guy has survived without a scratch so far.

[anigbrowl]

Agreed, but maybe Congress takes action on one thing they'll find it in themselves to take action on a second thing. Having been in a lot of real fights, standing there and doing nothing is almost invariably the worst choice.

[ninkendo]

Congress is 55-ish% Trump’s party and 45-ish% everyone else. Nobody in the Trump party would ever, ever, ever do something Trump didn’t want. The entire party platform is basically “whatever Trump wants”. Anyone who disagrees was primaried out of existence long ago.

There is no congress any more, not as an independent body. There is Trump, and there is a body of people who will, in the majority, do anything Trump wants them to do, and is not independent in any way.

[8note]

theres 0 actual political cost to them.

trump doesnt need anything from congress, and probably wouldnt change tariff policy even after said law is passed in a veto-proof way

[anigbrowl]

Doing nothing and just watching how how dictatorship pans out is also an option, sure.

[Terr_]

Yes, just like I said: "which would ironically involve the same number of votes as keeping the law but slapping down Trump's particular usage of it."

Originally it wasn't veto-able (only needed a Concurrent Resolution of 50% in each house, no Presidential signature) but the Supreme Court ruled that part unconstitutional in the early 80s.

[vlovich123]

The president constitutionally doesn’t actually have this authority - the power to set tariffs is supposed to be exclusively the prerogative of the legislature, but Trump declares pro forma emergencies and the Republicans in power aren’t willing to check his power.

[bitmasher9]

Passing law that removes tariff authority from the president would be a good start to rebuilding trust.

[jmye]

The rest of the world would still be at the mercy of an untrustworthy government that is largely incapable of any semblance of long term thinking. To say nothing of the weirdos who regularly vote for that government and who they tend to elect.

[brookst]

I don’t think that would matter at all. Pass all the laws you want, when the head of the executive branch orders the CBP to collect tariffs, they will. We’ve long since left the rule of law.

[Jtsummers]

The US wasn't even in a crisis until 2025. We weren't in a stellar position (high deficits and debt, low unemployment but high underemployment). It was all recoverable before Trump started this trade war and doing things like cutting departments that actually brought in revenue.

[ekianjo]

> was all recoverable

The debt was never recoverable

[Jtsummers]

Well, I disagree but the current policies guarantee it's not recoverable so a debate would mostly be around hypotheticals. We're reducing revenue but not spending (or not enough to offset the reduction in revenue so the deficit will rise), so the debt will only continue to rise at an increasing rate.

Ironically, Trump has the record for the highest deficit ever in US history. He's on track to beat it though and with a reasonably strong economy when he took office (again, not an ideal economy, underemployment is a major issue, but not a weak economy by any stretch).

[ekianjo]

> Ironically, Trump has the record for the highest deficit ever in US history.

hardly relevant comment since all presidents left and right have been pushing the button to increase deficits (and congress is completely responsible as well for not trying to balance the budget) so this is a systemic problem that will bring the downfall of America no matter what. It's just a matter of time, and with that level of debt, the time bomb keeps ticking faster and faster.

[roxolotl]

It’s relevant because republicans campaign on it. If neither party claimed to be fiscally responsible I’d agree. However one does and isn’t. That makes the relative debt load under that party compared to the other fair game.

[lunarlull]

Can you share your understanding of what you think the debt actually is?

[t0lo]

On top of all of their other preexisting and pending crises..

[paxys]

The next president is going to be Trump. If people don't think that's at least a serious possibity they are extremely deluded about the situation the country is in right now.

[Vegenoid]

We have repeatedly seen Trump say something that sounds ridiculous, and his supporters say "that won't actually happen, and if it does I won't support it", and then he does it and his supporters support it. He has recently said he may try for another term as president, and confirmed "No, no I'm not joking".

If you don't take his threats seriously by now, and the willingness of the GOP to get behind whatever he wants, then you are not paying attention - it has happened over, and over, and over.

[smogcutter]

On NPR they ran a response quote from Ryan Zinke that was nominally against it, but if you read between the lines you can see them laying the foundation. It was something like “I draw a hard line at violating the constitution, that’s something I’ll never support. But also right now there are leftists and activist judges who think they can violate the constitution by taking power away from the executive”

He never directly spoke against a third term, just “violating the constitution”, and then named some enemies. It’s a long way off still, but you can see the groundwork being laid for something like “emergency measures to protect the constitution” if they decide that’s the way they want to go.

[lovecg]

Wouldn’t he have to get on the ballot in all the swing states at least? What if some states refuse to let him run? I can’t see California registering him for example, but that wouldn’t really matter of course.

[Vegenoid]

Only if he tries to get a 3rd term by a fair election. The more realistic way to it happening is by hijacking the electoral process. There are a number of ways to do this, such as by claiming there was fraud and thereby having the justification to modify how "electors" [0] should cast their vote. This is exactly what was tried in the 2020 election.

Really, it's just an "if enough people in power and in general go along with it, then it works" kind of thing. The current trend in the GOP is to whip and/or expel those who do not fully support Trump. What happens if half of the elected politicians, most of their constituents, and most of the appointed government officials, decide that Trump is staying in office? No one knows. The power of words on paper only goes as far as people let it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_Colleg...

[insane_dreamer]

SCOTUS can overrule the States just as they did with CO in 2024

[eddythompson80]

> We have repeatedly seen Trump say something that sounds ridiculous, and his supporters say "that won't actually happen, and if it does I won't support it", and then he does it and his supporters support it.

Any examples?

[Vegenoid]

Attempting to overturn an election, putting tariffs on the entire world, deporting legal US residents without due process, passing a record-breaking number of executive orders, ending birthright citizenship, removing a pillar of the free press from the White House press pool.

[bluefirebrand]

The man is 78 years old

There's a good chance he doesn't even live to the end of this term, forget running for president again at 82...

[paxys]

Trump's father lived to 93, and mother to 88. He doesn't have any serious medical conditions (that we know of). There isn't a high chance that he's going to die of natural causes in the next 4 years.

[bluefirebrand]

> > He doesn't have any serious medical conditions (that we know of).

He hasn't disclosed his medical records, which is something presidents are normally expected to do. You have to wonder why he disclosed his records in 2016 and not in 2024

> There isn't a high chance that he's going to die of natural causes in the next 4 years

Of course there is, he is Seventy Eight and Visibly Obese

His parents living longer is not a strong predictor

[ipaddr]

Natural causes?

[Jensson]

It is likely he will get assassinated, it was already close once, so the poster just didn't include that in his calculations by saying natural causes.

[vitaflo]

The constitution says you’re wrong. And the justices he appointed would uphold the constitution if he tried it.

[newAccount2025]

Sure, on paper, but who will enforce it? He’s already attempted a coup. He has 4 years to prepare for the retry. He’s already putting loyalists into law enforcement and military spots. He’s immune to all lawsuits and has the congress cowed.

[Whoppertime]

If you think January 6th was an attempted coup you must think that BLM was a revolution.

[Zanfa]

And just to be sure he gets the help he needs from the public, preemptively blanket pardon everybody.

[kristiandupont]

>And the justices he appointed would uphold the constitution if he tried it.

I don't feel that's a given. But even if they do, it needs to be enforced which feels much less likely.