In the past week or so, the courts have begun to try to set some boundaries on the Musk–Miller–Trump administration’s early blitz of recklessness.

. . .

This judicial review provides at least a small reprieve, hope that some of the administration’s most destructive impulses will be stopped. Or at least pared back. But even with the courts stepping up, and even with the reality of the administration’s ineptitude sinking in, this early Musk–Miller–Trump blitz remains very—maybe irreparably—damaging. Of course, there are a lot of moles to whack: the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are being dismantled at an alarming rate, and the court system is not known for being nimble. The administration is betting, perhaps rightly, that at least some of its thoughtless, lawless efforts will slip through the cracks.

But even if the courts caught them all—and even if every court facing each lawless escapade said, “Nope, that’s not a thing”—still the entire process would be doing serious damage to our institutions. Think of it as someone spoofing your identity and going on a shopping spree with your credit cards. Even if the goon gets caught, you still have to go store by store to argue that the fraudulent purchase wasn’t legitimate and hope the debt is forgiven. And all the while, perhaps long after all the debts are dealt with, the torrent of uncertainty kills your credit score.

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  • The U.S.A. is done. Such sabotage by Trump, Musk and MAGA takes decades to recover from. 40 to 50 at least; rebuilding the civil service, amending all the laws back to normal, fixing the Supreme Court, probably needing Constitutional amendments. This easily echos for a hundred years.

      • @AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Hasn’t it been thoroughly sabotaged by Reagan already? Not to say that Trump can’t do a fine job setting the rubble on fire, but i concur that the US has been a mess for quite some time.

        • @ubergeek@lemmy.today
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          5 months ago

          Not particularly. Especially if you are brown.

          I mean, did we all forget Occupy happening in 2008? And the Obama admin sending in jackboots to clear everyone out, so profits can get back to shareholders?

      • @rumba@lemmy.zip
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        45 months ago

        Slowly degrading since what Nixon?

        If’s been being eroded for a long time, but just recently it’s become fragile enough to be unstoppable at any level.

      • @DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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        15 months ago

        In comparison to what we’re probably going to be left with for the rest of our lives, what we had before MAGA will seem like a fucking utopia.

        • @ubergeek@lemmy.today
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          15 months ago

          Anyone who thinks the US, post 9/11 as utopia, by most any measure, is looking at things through Rose Colored Lenses.

    • Yerbouti
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      5 months ago

      Even if they get rid of pedo-Don, Fox will tell them everything that went wrong is because of Clinton and the woke and they will be like “YeAh dAMn woke-dei-sjw-blm dEsTroyIng ma cUntrY”.

      It’s over. That’s the consequence of decades of under-educating their citizen and raw capitalism. The only question that remain is how much of the world down they will bring down with them.

    • @DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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      15 months ago

      Yup.

      It will take decades of scraping and clawing things through Congress to get back what we’re going to lose in a few short years. Assuming our government is even recognizable by the end of this.

      If you have the means, it may actually be time to make another country home. If you don’t, you need to come to terms that you will probably spend the rest of your life living in a declining nation where your rights are threatened.

      • Honestly theres a good chance that the US may collapse, its tied pretty thoroughly to capitalism which is also showing signs of hitting its end point. Its possible that within the next four years even that the US will be 50 individual countries with the federal government no longer existing. The very problems that are allowing Trump and Musk to wreck shit is the same type of problems that collapse empires, and theres no American equivalent to Russia for the USSR or Serbia for Yugoslavia.

        • That Weird Vegan
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          05 months ago

          What do you think the chances of this happening? I hope it does. America is a cancer on the world. Even before drumpf and president Elon fuck

          • Depends how much Trump and Musk fuck with the states. If they continually piss off the bigger or blocks of states you could see one or two declare independence, that could cause a cascade of states declaring independence like with the former Soviet Republics. But its also possible that the states just start ignoring the federal government which eventually loses its authority.

      • a century of “Red Scare” has made you believe that everything evil in the world is russian.

        While such a simplistic worldview might help you retain sanity in this world, if you look closely, it is the opposite of helpful, as it prevents you from seeing things as they are, and taking effective action.

        • @Jumpingspiderman@lemmy.world
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          15 months ago

          Red Scare refers to the Commies under the bed fantasies of the Cold War. Russia hasn’t been communist/socialist since Yeltsin. Russia is now a mafia kleptocracy. And mafia Russia is a hostile foreign power. Opposition to Putin and Russian criminality is not a red scare thing because communism isn’t what’s the problem or the source of opposition to Putin’s Russia. It’s Russian mobsters who all report to Putin, who also owns and controls Trump and much of the GOP