There’s probably multiple motivations. He serves a motley-crew of white christian nationalists, oligarchs (many with very fascist ideologies themselves), and himself. I think he’s kinda acting like a power-broker/deal-maker for many different people (similar to his buddy Epstein). The numbers don’t make sense because they don’t really matter if the goals are to 1) cause the world to lose faith in the US 2) can be used to negotiate things like de-dollarization 3) can be used to solicit bribes from politicians and businesses. If they really want to bring manufacturing back to the US, the dollar must be unseated as the world’s reserve currency, and there must be very bad stagflation so that we get enough inflation and depressed wages so people are desperate enough to work for roughly the same real wages as Chinese factory workers. If the US is less dependent on other nations for things like manufacturing, the US can do things like invade countries, set up slave and death camps, etc, with less consequence. And the chosen oligarchs get to rule over their own fiefdoms of oppressed workers.

He tariffed countries with no people and trade deficits of thousands of dollars, and tariffed Ukraine.

We live in a capitalist society (unfortunately). Rich people hoard their capital during recessions, which means fewer job openings. I graduated HS during the 2008 recession, and it took me 6 months of applying everywhere I could to get a temp job in a factory paying minimum wage (and no benefits or any job security at all, of course). It was literally hard to get a job at McDonald’s or Wendy’s. IIRC, it took nearly both of Obama’s two terms for the job market to recover to what it was. So yeah, you may be able to find a job after a lot of hunting, but everyone’s so desperate they’ll accept anything. The way things are going with deregulation and all that, I wouldn’t be surprised if company-towns make a comeback (which, incidentally, is kind of like the corporate city-states people like Peter Thiel, who worked with Musk and groomed JD Vance, openly talk about).

I think a lot of them are ideological psychos. Saw an interview with Forbes magazine founder, and he’s giddy about these tariffs because he thinks they’ll enable tax cuts. I don’t think he cares if his shares tank or whatever, as long as he doesn’t have money “taken away” from him to help the poors.

Meh, I think it’s fine and good for countries to specialize and be dependent on each other. Keeps the peace through mutually assured economic destruction. Global upticks in isolationism preceded the World Wars. Also, it just makes sense, because different countries have different resources, and their populations are differently skilled.

He wants to use tariffs (which act like a flat-tax) to lower income tax on the rich. There’s speculation he’s also doing something like the “Mar-a-Lago Accord,” which involves devaluing the dollar (causing inflation). If wages don’t rise with the inflation (which they don’t want), US labor will be more competitive, so people can work in factory jobs with pay analogous to current Chinese factory workers.

I could not renew online (not sure why it wouldn’t let me). You need an appointment in my state now. Before this change, it was an all-day affair. I.e. get there before it opens, stand in an extremely long line that wraps around 3 sides of the building, and stand in line for most the day (in the extreme heat, in the summer).

And, I guess it still took most the day even with an appointment too.

It disenfranchises many voters. I know several people who don’t have valid IDs. I was almost unable to to vote last November because my ID expired, and all my local DMVs were booked for many months. Had to set an appointment 3 months in the future at a DMV 50 miles away from me to get an ID just before the election.

Yeah, almost seems like it. I am convinced they are at least doing something like the “Mar-a-Lago Accord” to devalue the dollar, unseat the USD as the global reserve currency, inflate debt away, and make wages low enough and people desperate enough so more manufacturing is viable in the US again.

Not sure if you’re trolling or not. They’re very obviously following Russia’s playbook of consolidating power, dismantling the state and handing it to oligarchs, and “flooding the zone” with bullshit so people believe what they want. They probably won’t outright claim they’re the King and there will be no elections, but they’ll probably rig the elections, at least in red states, so the Republican party has control of the federal government in perpetuity; similar to how Russia has “elections.” Any media that doesn’t toe the line will get labelled as “fake news,” and probably have “legal” and financial actions taken against them. I mean, a few days ago, and executive order was signed that, among other things, requires voters to show a birth certificate or passport which will disenfranchise many, many voters. So, no, we won’t explicitly have a king, but we will have a totalitarian one-party rule with oligarchs at the top, and an extensive propaganda machine to keep people confused and misdirected. I don’t expect voters like the one’s that wore the “better Russian than Democrat,” to organize in a large militia and fight homeland security, the national guard, or whatever other military the government would deploy on US soil (they’re “considering” invoking the Insurrection Act at this very moment). I suspect most Republicans would just be fine with their team being in power, no matter what the cost; and having propaganda legitimizing their beliefs just makes it easier for them. Republican voters surely won’t rise up to fight for a Democrat that “lost” an election.

Everyone in the presidential line of succession are monsters. The entire government is being reshaped into a totalitarian state. A full revolution or counter-coup is needed. I don’t see a revolutionary movement being organized any time soon. Maybe if we get into Great Depression-like conditions. I think the amount of surveillance, well-developed counter-intelligence tactics, and power of the state in modern America would still make a revolution very hard to pull off though. I suppose extremely popular mass civil disobedience could also bring everything to a halt and make the US ungovernable; not sure what would actually happen to the government though.

Article is paywalled. So I’m gonna “keep on rockin’ in the free world.”

Well, destroying democracy is pretty distracting, so kudos, I guess.

Fuck grass, especially non-native grasses.

(Sorry, I have a hatred for lawns that probably stems from being forced to mow as a kid.)

Also, I think children are sociopaths naturally. I know I was. I think there are studies that show empathy doesn’t fully develop until later in life. It’s also one reason child soldiers are used.

It’s not really speculation that they want to weaken the dollar and dethrone it as the world’s reserve currency; it’s in Project 2025. Stated goal is to transition the US back to a manufacturing-heavy economy, instead of service, tech, finance, etc. Probably won’t work well, but that’s what they’re trying to do.

Obviously, the Republicans are the party that’s pushing and doing all this stupid shit, but the Democrats are not using the power they have to impede them. The CR that the Democrats helped pass removes the power from Congress to remove Trump’s tariffs, for example. And the Democratic party keeps following the losing strategy of moving further right. I don’t think they actually care about winning the presidency or congress again; they just want to keep the corporate donors.

Didn’t mean to paint entire religions. It was just a convenient way to differentiate the 2 people I was talking about, and to imply where their motivations may come from. I’ve known plenty of less right-wing Catholics and Protestants. I am an anti-theist though, and think religion does more harm than good.

Yeah, these people are ignorant of and don’t care about civics. The ignorance of the one guy surprised me, because they went to a decent college, but didn’t even know what gerrymandering was. They are un-american, IMO.

I know a couple life-long Republicans I sometimes briefly talk about politics with (one family, one acquaintance). Neither of them like Trump, but like the idea around Project 2025. One is an evangelical Christian, the other is a Catholic.

The Catholic strongly believes government should be run like a business, and the president should be like a CEO, so he should be able to fire everyone and replace them, if needed, with workers that will execute his plans. He’s also an anti-abortion, and tough-on-crime/immigration type. However, he strongly disapproves of Trump seemingly being pro-Russian now, Trump and his cabinet’s personal lives (he’s always strangely fixated on people’s personal lives, in a moral sense, for some reason), the take-over of the FBI and CIA, and the tariffs hurting his stock portfolio.

The evangelical Christian just doesn’t like Trump as a person, and doesn’t like Russia. He’s a just-world-hypothesis, small government, women are subservient, pro-business type; but also low/lower-middle-class, and has needed, and will need the social services he opposes. I guess his opinions are pretty similar to the Catholic’s, just a little more extreme on the social side, and supports policies that have always hurt him. I mean, Republican policies hurt the (fairly wealthy) Catholic too, but at least they get to say their taxes are lower and there’s less red-tape.

I bought a used PSVR2 recently for playing Gran Turismo, but was surprised how cool the gunplay is in some games, so have mostly been playing Resident Evil 4 (which I already had from buying a collection of used games, but never played).