The Return of Trump

[tussock]

So. It turns out hateful men using hateful lies beats "oh noes, that hateful man is using hateful lies" as an election campaign, repeatedly.

The New York Times (as owned by a billionaire) insists that the real problem is a lack of sucking up to billionaires.

But regardless, Donald Trump will be POTUS for a 2nd time, and Democrats are already trying to clarify he doesn't get two teams each time. Because of course he's made statements to that effect.

Anyway, he's announcing his cabinet for the coming kakistocracy, as found elsewhere.

Matt Gaetz, Attorney General
Marco Rubio, Secretary of State
Pete Hegseth, Defense
Mike Waltz, National Security Advisor
Kristi Noem, Homeland Security Secretary
Tulsi Gabbard, National Intelligence
John Ratcliffe, CIA director
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Health and Human Services
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Department of Government Efficiency
Elise Stefanik, UN Ambassador
Tom Homan, “Border Czar”
Lee Zeldin, EPA Administrator
Susie Wiles, Chief of Staff
Dan Scavino, Deputy Chief of Staff
Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy
Mike Huckabee, Ambassador to Israel
Steve Witkoff, Special Envoy to the Middle East
William McGinley, White House Counsel

I think the funniest is probably Tulsi Gabbard, because obviously Putin told him to put his girl Tulsi in charge of Intelligence. And Trump's just the kind of guy where you have to tell him it'd be smart for him to do that, and he'll do it, and damn everyone who says otherwise.

The actual Nazi boy is back as chief of policy, so there's gunna be some awful policies for everything, designed to wear down resistance to everything by being perpetually awful in a "that's just a bit worse than the worst was last time" kinda way.

Elon Musk, he's funny, you see, because it's DOGE, see. Funny. Like, he spent millions fighting in court to oppose installing air filters and giving protective masks in the part of the factory they spray painted his Teslas, because he had a solution to workers getting really sick there all the time, he just hired black guys for those jobs. And he was so fucking angry that they forced him change that simple solution to one where no one got sick, even though doing so saved him money. That's exactly the kind of regulation he sees as wasteful. Because they spoiled his funny joke.

Gaetz as Attorney General is just .... So, the man who decides if people need the law applied to them, is the man who thinks law should not apply if you were just breaking them to end-run around a much more serious breach of the law. You can see why Trump wants him there, very much a 1-step planner, can't copy the secrets for Putin? Just take 'em home, where no one can see if you copy them or not. What? Why would that be illegal? That's nothing!

Kennedy is, well, his history is mostly a guy who pushes fake medicine, as a replacement for actual medicine. So, you'd hope when he's put in charge of healthcare, that's the worst he'll do. But, also, he really does hate vaccines. All of them. He has caused outbreaks of disease that killed thousands, as a private citizen. Could get very 19th century. Will come into office facing five simultaneous epidemics, and probably suggest getting more sun.

I dunno, it's sort of all the same, they're either Trumps Lawyers who he hasn't stiffed yet, or they're totally opposed to the position he's giving them, or are like extremely racist fantasists. Which, I guess, is the Republican party. So, it suits? You rail against expertise and learning for long enough, you get shit.

--

Though, I guess, not all that different to Reagan's cabinet, or GWBs. A lot of their stuff is still hurting the country.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

So. It turns out hateful men using hateful lies beats "oh noes, that hateful man is using hateful lies" as an election campaign, repeatedly.

No. Don't rewrite history.

The choice was the Bad Orange Liar and his Bad Lies Promises

OR you could have the same old Neoliberalism that ALSO now promised the Bad Orange Lies Promises AND they were COMMITTING A GENOCIDE RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.

Don't try and make this a battle of whether or not Trump as mean and stupid while the other side was just sorta meh or neutral.

It was a battle of bad ideas and bad campaigning on all sides, both sides could not have tried harder to lose and the Democrats won the contest of losing by doing and saying really bad fucking things, many of which they straight up copied off Trump. AND THEY DID A GENOCIDE.

And if you are doing an analysis of any kind of the Democrats election loss, OR of what is about to happen under Trump, much less both, and you do not even think to mention THE ONGOING GENOCIDE. You are not just out of touch, at this fucking point with the amount of second chances you have been given to learn about it, you are personally complicit.

[JourneymanN00b]

I think we can be more creative with the thread title, as I think the Return of Trump is a bit too generic for my tastes. Below are a few suggestions:

Trump 2025: The Dark Project
Politics 2025: And the Crowd Chooses Barabbas
U.S. 2025-2029: The Fourth Reich
U.S. Fascism: The Great Dumpster Fire

Any other title suggestions that can best encapsulate the horrors of the upcoming dictatorship and the destruction of democracy would be welcome.

[Thaluikhain]

U.S. 2025-2029: The Fourth Reich

Only til 2029? You're optimistic.

[JourneymanN00b]

U.S. 2025-2029: The Fourth Reich

Only til 2029? You're optimistic.

Apologies. That particular title should probably be U.S. 2025- : The Fourth Reich. I was just thinking of titles off the top of my head, and certainly do not think that the orange convict's Reign of Terror would end on January 2029, as free and fair elections in the United States will probably be abolished by then to keep him in power. The United States definitely blew it by not only returning him to the White House but also giving him the House *and* a larger than 2017 Senate majority. He can certainly do whatever he wants starting on Inauguration Day, and there is not a thing any sane citizen can do about it.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

You are SO worried Trump won't be held accountable for his crimes.

Tell me. Which president HAS been held accountable for all the fucking crimes?

Again you are ONLY sad and seething coping because its mask off Fascism and you prefer yours with a thin mask and a D for Democract.

[MGuy]

A new 'Reich' under Trump is a silly thing to conclude though. Whatever you imagine a Reich would include America has already done it and we've been in extra Reich mode for over a year. If the American people were worried about doing a Reich neither party would have been electable. System is not prepared for that so there is no opting out of empire building. Besides that it's a bit late to care about Trump being a threat to democracy. By letting him run they legitimized him. Didn't the Dems also themselves say that making him out to be Hitler was probably going too far? That's why they toned down the rhetoric right? He was supposed to be a legitimate choice. As a legitimate choice he legitimately claimed office because he is effectively no different than the other choice Americans were given. It's just teams after all.

That being said I suspect this thread isn't about analysis on why what happened happened but about what Trump is doing and possibly will do. I don't think Trump is going to be doing much different from what he did last time. I think the only new things he has on his plate are the legal issues he'll be doing a revenge tour over, the genocide Biden is faithfully keeping afloat, and the rise of BRICS.

[JourneymanN00b]

The orange convict just picked fraudster Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Holy SMOKES is he picking every bootlicker and cheat from the Republican Party.

Democracy and the social safety net is definitely being incinerated, folks.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

YAWN. Tell us why you almost certainly were (and likely still even in informed retrospect ARE) AGAINST the things that would have stopped him winning if you are so sure of this end of the world you are CRYING about.

[PseudoStupidity]

One of the weirdest things about Trump's return is Biden's actions. Is he trying desperately to secure rights for people here and trying to do things like forgive more student loans? Fuck no! Biden is going whole hog on starting WWIII, we approved strikes on Russian territory with long-range missiles and immediately closed down our embassy (and a few other countries did too) because we are anticipating massive retaliatory strikes. Is his brilliant plan to leave Trump with WWIII so that, assuming nukes don't fly, Democrats can win future elections?

Trumps cabinet picks are total ass though. A whole suite of anti-experts on stuff, it's almost beautiful in how perfectly backwards a lot of his picks are.

The good news is we're going to have mandatory pro wrestling in schools. After all, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a Stunner.

[Kaelik]

Biden literally calling every democratic senator who votes to stop arming Israel "Hamas supporters" because killing Palestinians is the only thing he still cares about. The point of a lame duck session is to kill as many people as possible not protect people from Trump.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

The priority of the Democrats has never been to protect anything from Trump. There is nothing whatsoever that they ever prioritized that ahead of. Anything they ever actually pretended to was just something they really wanted to do anyway that Trump gave them a pretext to do, like the racist anti migrant bullshit.

Biden AND Kamala wouldn't have dared openly save ONE Palestinian life if it was the cost they had to pay to defeat Trump, and now with what power they have left they still won't even if it would protect "Democracy" or one of the other things Trump somehow threatens more than they do.

I also bet that Biden's traditional pardons on leaving office will be worse than the usual average pile of shit ignoring all the usual highly deserving cases.

[Sir Neil]

Also in the mix is the orange clown floating Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education. She's used to cleaning up after a violent crooked pervert, so I think she'd serve better as chief of staff. I also see a lot of potential in making states that want to enact vouchers have to win a MitB match to earn it.

[Kaelik]

Apparently 1 rape of an underage girl is NOT enough to drop out of consideration for AG, but TWO is.

Matt Gaetz has withdrawn for consideration after the ethics committee got a second complaint about him sexually assaulting another 17 year old.

[violence in the media]

Well, Trump loves golf; so I guess everyone gets a mulligan.

[tussock]

Whatever happens this term, there's going to be no record of it in any details. Musk and the Heritage foundation have decided that the people who work for them can work in the government buildings, using servers that they provide instead, and therefore none of it is official government business that anyone can OIA or subpoena or anything, even when when they are literally doing government business and sending memos on government paper.

Musk is flat out announcing slashed government spending, to anyone that competes with his businesses. Of course. It's like a list of the bids he got beat on, all those are getting cancelled. So yeah, they'll be doing open bids in future still, but guess who's gunna win them. Dude's going to make such bank.

Project 2025 seems to be pretty much complete, in terms of the stuff they wanted to do early. The longer term stuff is Heritage turning Justice, Investigation, Commerce, Communications, and Trade into permanent tools of the white Christian church. I can't help but laugh that they want to ban porn, but I guess, if you can ban tiktok (because speech is only free if it can be censored by a local billionaire), you can ban pornhub (to, you know, defend women or something, by taking away their free advertising for their primary income source, unless a local billionaire owns it).

[tussock]

Musk has actually had women's biographies removed from government websites to do with science, like NASA.

Because you know, women don't exist in STEM subject type jobs. That's the new official truth in the US. Obviously all the Black folks were removed first, and across more than STEM type stuff, histories of the Black soldiers in WWII are all gone, because officially only white men can be heroes.

Oh, right, Musk has put out threats to South Africa, for being "racist against white people", cutting all the funding to fight AIDS and such. You'd never guess that ahead of time from a guy whose parents fled a country after Black folks got to vote, right? Or maybe you would. All white South Africans are now automatically to be granted refugee status in the US, because, uh, ... wow, it's just insane, but that's racism for you.

What else this week, forwarded all of everyone's data stored by the government to, well, whoever the fuck wanted it I guess, that didn't seem very specified. But yeah, sort of greatest data leak ever, but you know, it's cool, because they work for Elon and he's buddies with the President, or something.

It's kinda making the first time around look pretty tame. The Democrats have sort of noted they're not doing anything about it because they have no idea of how they can do anything at all. Funny how Biden sending all those riot cops at the tame-ass protests against him has immediately cut off their main option here, of calling for protests.

Something about social security payments being turned into bitcoin, or something, but I think one must be parody, right? No? Surely.

[Thaluikhain]

The Democrats have sort of noted they're not doing anything about it because they have no idea of how they can do anything at all.

Pah. That's an excuse, not a reason. I don't know what they can do about it either, but they should know more than me, and if not, if all else fails they try various things and see if anything works.

Alternatively, they could have tried doing something when they did have power. Or both.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Pah. That's an excuse, not a reason. I don't know what they can do about it either, but they should know more than me, and if not, if all else fails they try various things and see if anything works.

In the USA Trump/Musk have blocked law makers from entering government buildings using... one skinny bald nerd with NO authority and the most punchable face and easily physically overcome figure I have seen for a while (and I've been seeing a LOT of thumbnails of Musk doing the X jump).

The law makers, almost immune to consequences did not physically overwhelm him. They did not try to walk past. They did not get themselves arrested, which admittedly would be hard because no one there had the basic KNOWLEDGE on how to arrest them let alone the legal authority. They did not arrest the skinny nerd, which they COULD have done if by no other means then simply by calling the fucking cops. None of them even punched him in his punchable face. What the elderly Democrat law makers tried was NOTHING, they postured a bit for some cameras and surrendered.

In South Korea recently law makers were barred from government buildings by ARMED AND ARMORED SECURITY FORCES, with real authority and real weapons and real threat.

The South Korean law makers FUCKING STORMED THE BUILDING AND ENDED THE COUP. There is widely circulated footage of an incident during this when a small Korean woman, some sort of MP I don't know their titles, grabbed and wrestled the barrel of an automatic rifle pointed at her and berating the guy threatening her while actively struggling at her own risk.

And I don't know much about much about Korean politics. I'm sure the brave rebels who stopped the coup were the most Milk toast unimpressive moderates imaginable, but at least they were real politicians instead of frauds.

What you have is controlled opposition. The Democrats are what Liberals always are, supporters of Fascism by Action and Inaction that just say they aren't for the cameras.

Liberal guys are crying about the threat to democracy. What Democracy? Since when? Your opposition party is FAKE.

[MGuy]

I feel like it is worse than NPP is making it out to be. It isn't just that the dems aren't storming a building or another. Outside of that the leadership does not know what to do and aren't making plans.

Hakeem Jefferies to the press admitted, on camera, he doesn't know what to do. In private among support groups they are angry that people want them to do anything but went panhandling to the tech oligarchs to get their sympathy or something. They seemingly have never thought about what to do in the face of another Trump takeover and do not seem to be capable of even putting forward fake leadership in the face of a crisis. There are a handful of them that have at least spoken out clearly against what's going on but the people in charge (and not just the old ones, Hakeem is not that old) are useless.

"Fake" opposition would suggest that these people were competent enough to pretend to be opposition. What we have here is a failure to even put on a good show. Useless, garbage people in suits.