I see a lot of people starting gardens or looking to getting chickens to be as self sufficient as they can. Many are holding off on large purchases to save in case "something happens". People around me who were never interested in firearms and in fact were generally opposed to them are starting to arm themselves at a rapid pace.
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Good luck with the gardens. I've never really been a fan of US gun laws, but now it all seems strangely sensible.
This is the literal, specific scenario 2A was intended to counter. We'll have to see over the next few years if it works as intended.
I'm not sure thats right. I think the 2A was written in order to enable the US to be able to organize militias to defend itself against foreign invasion as, at the time, the idea of the colonies supporting a standing army was impossible.
It's both.
People invoke 2A usually lie, and the reason to arm themselves is to kill dark skinned people they don't like.
I bought several fire arms recently and asked the local gun shops in a very generic sense about how sales were. All three claimed traditional winter slow sales and reported no uptick in sales. Also the local pawn shop guy has a ton of guns, there aren't any ammo shortages, all the paper work is sailed through no delays, the conceal and carry course I was required to take to carry a pistol was no where near full and the instructor said things are slow (but his class did kind of suck it was just the soonest one near me); that's been my experience the last three months.
I've always been interested in firearms, but not interested enough to convince my wife we should own any, well, she's convinced now! and I never had to say anything, so I agree with your comment.
It largely depends on the location. For example, in the PNW, especially Western Washington and Oregon, people are very aware of that fact. Many around here are arming, protesting, and becoming more and more self sufficient.
For their part, the Washington State government has sued the Trump administration multiple times, and for now, has blocked some of the executive orders in federal court. Of course, that depends on Trump following court orders, which as we know, he's more than willing to ignore.
Meanwhile in states like Utah (where some of my family lives), they still have their heads in the sand, and don't seem to be bothered. Not to generalize, because some people there are aware, but they're outnumbered by the ignorant public there. Many people there who are aware are either trapped due to financial reasons or are actively trying to leave for blue states.
I have seen that some GOP voters are starting to feel the financial burn, but most of them still try to blame it on Biden.
Imagine reading som fiction book, like fantasy or something like that.
You see a state that was created by genocide, which was continued until there was barely anyone left to kill, which state then became world hegemon, took control over nearly entire planet economy and proceeded to find new targets for genocide, ecocide, invasion, looting and murdering every political opponent.
You would think it's caricaturally evil, worse than Mordor.
And here you ask "they are now definitely a rogue state"? Now?
Roughly half of the population has absolutely no clue what's going on. Kids, old people, non-news-readers/viewers, etc.
A third of the population is vaguely aware that some shit is going down based on vibes but can't identify the problem.
Half the remaining sixth can identify the problem as political but misattribute the cause. Leaving just a 12th of the population actually aware of our situation.
The fascists own all the media organizations. The population has been taught systematically since birth to have unyielding blind faith in the institutions of the state and capital. Many won't understand that anything unusual is happening until they're hungry and cold, burying empty caskets for their drafted children sent to die in fascist wars of conquest.
Most of us are either completely deluded or utterly crushed by the collapse of our entire system of government. We know this is corrupt, and we want to organize to bring it to an end. But we have so many checks and balances that even if we all marched today with pitchforks and torches it wouldn't effect any real change without burning down every police station, city hall, state house, and the federal buildings. All while hoping the military doesn't show up and now us down with their weaponry. All the whole knowing that there has been a sharp rise in the popularity of police using violence and death as a deterrent.
In short, we know, and we can't see any way out of this mess. It wasn't supposed to be possible, and looking back we all saw it coming. But we were just dismissed as alarmists every time we spoke up and we are surrounded by morons who think this is the best thing that has ever happened to this national.
Mass strikes. Call your union, other unions, whatever union. Organise a mass strike day. Repeat it every week.
Unions? You think we have unions in the US? Most have been systematically destroyed by republicans since Reagan.
The West Coast is well aware. I really can't see anyone in the US not being aware of our country's wannabe fascist status, even though some will plead ignorance. I'm kind of hoping maybe Oregon, Washington and California will get together and ask Canada if we can join them... with a probationary period of course. No one in their right mind can trust us outright at this point.
No thanks, our conservatives are further to the left than your Democrats, and California has the population of the rest of Canada combined. You can make your own country
Kinda on topic, but imma give you some perspective into what it's like to be a liberal leaning person in a deeply red county. Half my friends are independent or republican, all my coworkers and my boss are republicans, and even my dad is straight up MAGA. I've always voted third party because I hated that Democrats never get anything done, but I did vote heavily democrat this past election because I knew how fucked everything would be.
I would say 99% of people do not care or don't think it's a big deal. The ravenous Trump supporters you see on the internet and in videos are more of a minority than the norm. There are definitely some hardcore MAGA here but most everyone is just regular everyday people that are just carrying on like nothing is different. Most of them don't spend much time on the internet and they hardly watch the news. I was talking about the tariff situation to a cashier at a gas station just this morning and it was the first time they were hearing it. And with the news not even covering half the shit that's going on they probably never will. My roommate works downtown and he didn't even know about the protests at the Capitol until I mentioned it to him 3 days later.
I guess my point is that the average person isn't even informed. Not everyone spends a lot of time on the internet so they don't even see what's going on. They decide to vote specifically because the candidate says "Republican" and that's the furthest thought that goes into it. Everyone talks about "this is what they voted for" as if any more thought went into their vote for Romney or McCain than their vote for Trump. And I don't blame them for it because as far as they know, this was just like any other election. They've been bamboozled by local news to think everything is still exactly the same as they slowly pushed the Trump agenda onto them. The hardcore MAGA are definitely fascists in every sense of the word, but these regular everyday people are not fascists. They were just voting for the party they always voted for and were just expecting the same kinda shit from Trump's first term, and the local news didn't tell them anything different.
I hope that people outside the US are aware of how quickly the rhetoric is shifting within the US. The right wing machine is rapidly spinning up a normalization of the ideas that: the US doesnβt need allies at all, the US has zero obligation to abide by international treaties, and the rest of the world is available for us to take. By βtakeβ I mean utter economic dominion and/or military conquest and/or territorial annexation.
The speed at which things are deteriorating here is shocking. An imperial US is a terrifying prospect. This deranged, entitled joke of a country has both an effectively endless supply of armaments and a depraved indifference to the suffering of people abroad and here at home.
The world has a metastasizing US problem.
Trump supporters are full on gung ho! My parents fully are into ripping this nation apart. They are morbidly obese people that rely on medications to live. Who would die from these issues if medication gets cut off.
The USA was a rogue terrorist state already for decades in it's meaning for foreign policy and illegal wars. They did a worse thing than Russia did with Ukraine when they invaded Iraq and Afghanistan with flimsy excuses, except it was not a country on their doorstep but on the other side of the world.
Nobody is "aware" of this. People continue talking about US doing this or helping that as if they were not a rogue state.
So far Trump hasn't done anything irreversible "rogue state" in regards to international relations. He constantly sprays shit everywhere to get people to loose their minds. Yeah he's threatening to invade any nation where they could plunder, but he's only saying the quite part out loud. The US has been doing that for decades.
I also don't believe (hope) that Trump actually will start a war. It's not his stage. It's a long complicated affair where he isn't in the spotlight and doesn't get to shine and control the narrative with chaos and then hop onto the next thing the next week. He might bomb this or that as long as it's quick to do, but he only wants to appear as the big man. Obviously this is just speculation.
If you mean "failed state" or no longer a democracy, I don't think people think that already. They assume they can vote again for another obama / biden type in 4 years.
Most Americans don't think about other countries enough to really grasp what you mean by rogue state
Midwesterner here. Surveys show Trump's approval rating between 40% and 50%, and here on the ground, I believe it. A lot of people are seriously misled. Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax are considered legitimate news sources, so a lot of people truly believe that Trump is improving things.
It will take decades to deprogram all the people who fell for the alt-right's tricks.
So, in a conversation with someone in the midwest who said he watched Trump's state of the union address and was appalled by the protests organized by the Democrats, that they are beyond lost because they would protest something that anyone should agree with (I think he was referring to not clapping for some veteran or something?) ... anyway, yeah - we're cooked as a country. βΊοΈ
Iβve been saying this is inevitable since at least 2004. Iβve been called every name you can pretty much call someone.
I hate being right it fucking sucks.
Are people in the us aware... No!
ππ¨βππ«π¨βπ
Shithole Country, Failed State. These are understating just how fucked up the US is right now.
The amount of harm Trump has done and will do to this country (in the name of trying to harm the entire rest of the world) is going to last for decades. And when he's done, he's so dumb that he will think he won bigly and his supporters will continue to repeat idiotic statements about how much better off the US is, and most of them will believe it.
This country is fucked.
Here in Canada, the general sentiment among people I've talked to is definitely that the US has fucked up it's relationship with us in a very long-term way, if not permanently. Even if the tariffs went away tomorrow, there's still the issue that Trump threatened Canada's sovereignty, which people here are not taking lightly at all.
I've heard people say that even if Trump went away, there's no guarantee some other dickhead won't take over and start the same nonsense, or we'll just be back here again in 4 years. Even the new Prime Minister said that the relationship we used to have with the US is over now.
For some reason the administration and conservatives want to be a rogue state, they enjoy it. Rest of the country is either politically oblivious or helplessly defiant.
Those of us who pay attention are very aware. The usual suspects remain ignorant to their reality, as usual.
Everyone I know is nihilistic and numb. We know.
We understand that fully 1/3 of our population are absolutely bonkers. It's like being in a boat at sea and 1/3 of the passengers are drilling holes in the bottom of the boat. What the rest of the world should know is that no matter how fucked it seems at the moment, it is going to get worse. We are on the precipice of a climate catastrophe. The AMOC is going to grind to a halt, Europe is going to go into a deep freeze, weather patterns globally are going to fall apart and become chaotic. The real problems are in the distance, so you should prepare yourselves.
the smart ones are. the cultists are wrapping themselves in ~~nationalism~~ patriotism. the rest are just terminally unaware and don't vote.
American Exceptionalism, Baby!
it fucking poison. i moved to the us from abroad as a kid and spent my adolescence there. moving back to my home country, i quickly realized that i needed to give myself a serious attitude adjustment.
i don't think many people from outside the us realize just how pervasive fox news is in america. it's playing on every television in every bar and every airport and just about everywhere else that has a television. it's non-stop negativity, non-stop arrogance, non-stop disinformation, non-stop convincing people that patriotism is fervent fealty. it's gotten a bit stale lately to talk about fox, but holy crap their role can't be overstated in the way things have become.
The people cheering it on think it's patriotism. Then there still seems to be maybe a third of us who think this was just another election we had in 2024.
The rest of us know, and are appropriately freaked the fuck out.
I think in NY we are aware and the state is trying brace for the worse, and I see/hear people starting gardens, getting chickens, and basically have "bug out bags" incase things go sideways.
People know at various levels. You are seeing maga types even recognizing this stuff aint so great for them and repbulicans who go with it to be winning to realize it might not have been a smart move. Then like most of the democratic congress feel they need to make moves with the next election. Then there are the ones with their eyes open who realize he is now clearing house and putting in as many as possible who will heil on command at as high a levels as possible and make sure all the rest are cowed by removing any security their position might have had. We see he is already floating ideas to make new election restrictions and extend his term and has no problem breaking laws and constitutions and court orders and such.