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I don't know anything about anything, obviously, but here on Week 2 Day 1, I'm really struggling to figure out how this situation is going to play out. It clearly FEELS like it can't be sustainable even through a few months, but I can't even begin to see what ends up resulting.

There's obviously the outcome they want - Trump rules as a dictator, they destroy the federal government, have their dreams of Hungary/Russia West. The fall of democracy, etc, etc. That's where they've been driving so far, and haven't faced any significant obstacles thus far.

Neither the Republicans in Congress or the judicial branch have shown any sign that they're going to take action against the blatantly illegal actions so far. Not that their "we are the party of the Constitution" talk was ever sincere, but they're clearly here to enable.

Democratic leadership is still trying to pretend that we are in normal times. No united opposition, no united messaging. A few individuals (AOC, Crockett, etc) are trying to push back, but the leadership isn't on board. 3rd parties are vanity projects and in hiding.

And the media where most average Americans get their information are still pushing the framing of "Trump takes bold steps to reform government". On social media, true-believers and disinformation operations are whatabout'ing every comment section. All while the damage piles up.

But between the halting of government funding, the firings, immigration raids and threats, tariffs, military invasion threats, etc, it seems like things will quickly reach a point where people start to notice the destruction, right? But can anything be done before it gets to that point?

I really don't see a world where the American people, for lots of reasons, pull a South Korea and flood the streets or engage a general strike. If that was going to happen, I'm pretty convinced that it would have happened before now. Lawsuits will take years to work through if they are allowed.

So I'm really struggling to conceive of a way that this either gets stopped or slowed, or at which point it becomes obvious to everyone what's happening. And when/if that happens, do people blame the people making it happen, or do they turn that anger on the minorities currently being targeted?

Maybe the system is too chaotic to understand. But I think the expiration date on normality is coming very soon, and there's no guarantee that what follows it will be in any way pleasant.

Everything feels so goddamn heavy right now. You can't make sense of it bc, well...that's impossible. Yet we are expected to, in some ways, carry on as if the country isnt a dumpster fire and work our silly little jobs.

I frequently fantasize about leaving this country.

Oh, I've got a spreadsheet already.

My brother investigated the possibility of Italian citizenship since our grandfather was born in Italy. But the citizenship chain was broken because he became an American citizen before our father was born and had to renounce his allegiance to the King of Italy.