Also fear is easy and simple to sell and us USAians are a frightened bunch for sure.
Domestic consequences of the 2024 US presidential election: the quickening
- Thread starter Scotttheking
- Start date
Is it fear, or is it hate? Because some decisions seem to be made out of “it may hurt me, but it’ll hurt someone else more”.
But ok, some of it may be fear, it’s just so irrational and intolerant, that it really looks mostly just like hate.
I think both.
For me the fear here (with the culture shit) is that people don't generally like change. Take healthcare. My provided HC might suck and I might be fired but I have no knowledge of that socialist stuff so no way jose.
Or something like the trans stuff, the dei stuff, the woke stuff, whatever. Things are changing faster than ever now and people just get freaked out and scared. Something that might have taken a decade in the olden days now flings across and takes root much more quickly due to the internet/social media.
It's a mix for sure.
Yes. Given we are discussing bigotry here, they are effectively the same thing.
More stupid as fuck:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/20/uline-mexican-workers-trump
So they complain about immigrant invasions, yet use illegal immigrants to staff their facilities. What assholes.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/20/uline-mexican-workers-trump
So they complain about immigrant invasions, yet use illegal immigrants to staff their facilities. What assholes.
It would be nice if this actually were hypocrisy. Sadly, though, it's likely entirely internally consistent, after all, if you complain about illegal immigrants, it makes it easier to staff your warehouses cheaply with illegal immigrants. What are they going to do? Go to the authorities and complain?
The best summary of immigration politics was written in LA Noire.
You're talking up the soup factory owner because his soup cans keep turning up in the possession of Mexican drug dealers and you discover that hires primarily illegals because they're cheap.
[Factory Owner]: You're going to overlook my little immigration problem, right?
[Your (asshole) Partner]: Relax fatso, we'll let you continue squeezing these poor saps. [Sneering grin] Well, at least until some commie union types infiltrate this place and make trouble...
[Factory Owner nods knowingly]
I'm not surprised it's Uline. At [previous job] we used their large cardboard boxes (about 30x30 x6 to x12 inches) and those would fall apart just pulling them off the pallet, let alone unfolding them.
Also Uihleins: "Mexican drug gangs!!!!!"
You know why they get away with it?
Democrats and other left of center groups have no ability to amplify this information on traditional and social media, try to gin up outrage.
Or they don't even try.
It's not that Republicans are that efficient at it. They just keep beating it over and over, probably even years afterwards, collect several of these types of incidents, make it eventually go viral, even if the payoff takes months or years.
Not just using undocumented immigrants - it's one thing to put someone to work who is already here. They courted and trafficked people who weren't already in the country. They actively created the "problem" that they're railing against.
All to save a few dollars in benefits (like health care) that American workers would expect.
Well I'm sure these fine, upstanding Americans wouldn't be going to all this trouble trafficking people if we would just let them save money by owning people directly.
At the end of Trump's 1st term they were trying to remove laws against child labor.
Next step would be indentured servitude. They're not gonna go straight for slavery from the jump.
Why these issues disappear from the conversation so quickly astonishes me. I guess there is just so much shit they are trying to pull that it's impossible to keep up.
No one fights harder over small amounts of money than ridiculously wealthy people who don't need it.
We know Musk wants to go back to building "company towns" and that usually means paying people in scrip they can't spend elsewhere, so that's probably on the agenda for the next four years.At the end of Trump's 1st term they were trying to remove laws against child labor.
Next step would be indentured servitude. They're not gonna go straight for slavery from the jump.
Why these issues disappear from the conversation so quickly astonishes me. I guess there is just so much shit they are trying to pull that it's impossible to keep up.
From the article is actually sounds like they had trouble finding American workers who were able to pass (or willing to put up with) their bullshit hiring requirements like follicle drug tests.
Perhaps the onerous requirements were set up specifically to discourage Americans from applying, and give a fig leaf of justification to their trafficking schemes.
I don't know who the target audience for that would be, though. Courts would see right through it.
Yes, but the owners are billionaires and politically connected. They could fight it all the way to the Supreme Court. With the current climate, it would be interesting how that tableau would play out.
It's hard to oppose everything in a Gish Gallop of awfulness.At the end of Trump's 1st term they were trying to remove laws against child labor.
Next step would be indentured servitude. They're not gonna go straight for slavery from the jump.
Why these issues disappear from the conversation so quickly astonishes me. I guess there is just so much shit they are trying to pull that it's impossible to keep up.
They've got the money to make the lawsuits bleed taxpayer dollars. So they get caught, they bargain down to a paltry pittance of a fine, they promise never to do it again (while not actually confessing to anything), and do a rope-a-dope on the employees, moving them around to "prove" that they've stopped. It never actually makes it to a trial.
So, after scanning the headlines this morning, I get the same feeling from the Trump/Musk duality I got from Trump/Bannon in the first Trump term.
Bannon's job lasted 8 months into the new term after which he was kicked to the curb and returned to Breitbart to continue to be a pain the ass to the GOP.
Bannon's job lasted 8 months into the new term after which he was kicked to the curb and returned to Breitbart to continue to be a pain the ass to the GOP.
It'll go the other way though I think. Musk will kick Trump to the curb and just be AmeriKing.
How would that work? Trump’s the one with the army.
I see Musk as kinda like Sejanus, a real Roman guy, played by Patrick Stewart and a comical wig in I, Claudius. At least as portrayed in the TV show, Sejanus was Tiberius’ chief henchman whose own power grew dangerously strong. He overreached by asking to marry Tiberius’ daughter and thereby get himself in line for succession. Tiberius had him arrested and strangled to death.
Even if we're talking about power...
Trump has a mafioso mentality, and always has. Musk has an "I'm rich, so I'm right, especially when I'm not" mentality. Musk thinks he's best suited to be in charge because he's rich. If it gets to that point, Trump will think that Musk is best suited to be in a car's trunk. A car that's headed for a temporary gap in the bollards by the pier.
Doesn't actually work that way though. Trump has job security for 4 years.
VividVerism
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
Yeah but depending on how things play out he might be the powerless less-than-a-figurehead president screaming at the clouds in a corner while the Senate and House forcibly assert their power under the leadership of some other cult leader.
Whenever I see Musk with his son X in negotiations with Congress, it seems less like a tycoon humoring his child, and more like a king teaching his prince how to rule once he inherits the crown. I'm very curious to see how X Musk will turn out 20 years from now.
To be fair, Musk did say the Cybertruck could act as a boat, so toss him in, close the frunk, turn on FSD, and let’s plumb the literal and metaphorical depths of the new Trump era.
I assume the way that it has repeatedly demonstrably worked already with both of these people for literal years on end? In this case, it could be people deciding that Musk is the actual power broker in this new dynamic for any number of legitimate or illegitimate reasons to believe it and then just goes along with it.
I don't know if you've noticed but neither Trump nor Musk should be in the situation they're in, yet here we are. They've overcome every single, "How would that work?" hurdle that's stood in front of their power grabs.
Musk has more money than Trump. Musk has more influence than Trump. Musk is more respected than Trump. Musk is younger than Trump. Musk can pick winners and losers across more domains than Trump. It's not crazy to imagine a world where Musk is de facto calling the shots, especially if Trump's sycophants start to see catering to Musk as more valuable than catering to Musk, which in very real terms... it is.
A job and power aren't the same thing. Trump didn't have the job for 4 years, but he still wielded plenty of power over outcomes during that time because of his influence.
Elon Musk also isn't Speaker of the House, but he managed to sew chaos in the House anyway. He lost this particular round because the Democrats bailed out the Republicans. However Musk's real power and influence over things for which he has no actual position power was clearly demonstrated.
If Trump were smart, he'd never have let this particular shape fox into his hen house. Fortunately for Trump, Elon Musk is also an idiot. So, it's possible he can't realize his leverage either.
The guy in the back is clearly Elon's ex-special ops private security guard, who will shoot you if you get too close...
VividVerism
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
I think the current balance of power is well summed up by this headline and associated image:
This is only round 1. I don't know who will eventually come out on top, but it's not the open-and-shut case for Trump I had assumed it would be, up to this point.
And, Trump and Musk aren't the only players in this game. Vance is one of Theil's people. Some of the prospective appointees have their own pull. It's much too early to tell how even the early Administration will play out.
--shudder--
Uh huh.
There’s a potential for a lot of clashing between some very opinionated stakeholders. It’s a given they have divergent views on how things should be run.