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mermcoelho's avatar

Hard to click like on some articles- this one is brilliant, but its conclusions are absolutely terrifying.

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Gordon's avatar

Crashing the economy crashes civic bonds, civic order, as resource scarcity drives and accelerates internal divisions, tribes turning against each other. The spaces between those social cleavages, in that chaotic environment, will give his paramilitary allies (Proud Boys, Oath Keepers…) the purchase points they will exploit to leverage their relatively low absolute numbers into local enforcement dominance, executing his - and their - will and power.

I don’t think he’s particularly conscious of this. I don’t think he needs to be.

The malevolence burns itself out eventually, or oppositional forces succeed against it, or both. It won’t be pretty, and what emerges on the other side is opaque. Presumably, we’re girding ourselves for the inevitable conflict. First steps in anticipation of the collapse as described here should comprise consolidating alliances and support resources like food, water, medical supplies, communications.

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Christina Ballard's avatar

I've always thought this:

"Trump is a fool who hoovers up foolish ideas and then never questions them because he’s convinced that his every orange synaptic blurp is a testimony to his own stable genius."

Sprinkle on the fact that he now wields power and he realizes he has a tool to try and make others beg.

His enthocentrism is so ridiculous that he cannot fathom a universe in which the USA is not the center with him at the helm.

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DR Darke's avatar

I still think Putin is to blame for all this. If he's not, this is the greatest stroke of luck he's ever been handed....

Though I do think Trump seeing tariffs, and alienating NATO and our other allies, IS his way of "getting back" at other countries for not letting him always have his way. "Trump is an instinctual, gutter fascist" is another saying "Donald Trump is a two-year old who learned his first word—'NO!'." I wouldn't have thought that a Big Baby could destroy the United States, let alone in record time, but he's sure doing a great job of that!

What really gets me is that NATO is seriously talking about kicking us out "over a 5-10 year period", and Japan and Korea, two nations where we've been their shield against Chinese aggression for longer than I've been alive, are allying with China to oppose Trump.

Which brings me back to Daddy Vladdie Putin on the Ritz. If I were any good at AI, I'd replace Clark Gable's face with Vladimir Putin's in this clip....

https://youtu.be/aNFffHQOXMc?si=_pPXWM3RUk3D13Bb

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Noah Berlatsky's avatar

i mean, he's somewhat responsible in that he's given Trump election help. I don't think he's pulling strings or anything; Trump just really likes tariffs.

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DR Darke's avatar

I DO think Putin's pulling Trump's strings, but not in a direct way like "Tariffs! Use tariffs!" or (though maybe it is Putin in this case?) "Get out of NATO!"

I think it's more "Da, Donal'd Ivanovich, it's so sad how Canada lets those evil drugs over your border—You should make them pay for it...." or "Konechno, Donal'd Ivanovich! NATO is riding on America's coattails, always have been! Stalin tried to warn you about this back in 1949—but it's never too late to fix it."

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