Musk’s various ponzi schemes, up to the Artemis-killing SpaceX fiasco, were coming due. Trump provided the opportunity for him to pivot into government, by replacing it with his AI, gps with starlink, air traffic control with whatever he comes up with, etc etc etc, making himself even more too big to fail. The US government the latest offering on the ponzi|pyramid. Trump’s ideology aligning with Musk’s own true beliefs is a bonus.

It will severely weaken the US in direct measurable short and long-term ways, to the point it is a real disaster for the US. Those to blame are all those that never called him out throughout his rise. Not to mention those governments (Republican and Democrat) who fed him public money throughout the entire period.

Edit - Bezos’s The Washington Post is apparently supporting him now. No surprise, they want an oligarchy. The Democrats are moving rightward, they are more or less happy with it too.

I guess it is some version of the land of the free home of the brave, but maybe it is the freedom to do what you want if you’re rich, and have been brave enough to brazenly take everything and exploit everyone.

This is what Canadian and European rivals of the US should have been doing for some time, and should be doing now.

Unfortunately I think there is a good chance that history will come to view brexit as a warning shot that was ignored.

Farage was given a decade or more of regular airtime on the bbc despite not having one MP. This is a top-down driven rise to political power. The bbc is a defacto nation state information operation, it primarily serves the interests of the British establishment, of which the very wealthy are a significant part. They prefer the alternative to the red/blue Tories to come from the right, rather than the left.

Young people have and are witnessing their quality of life and future prospects diminish on an ongoing basis. Climate change is the biggest crisis multiplier humankind will ever experience. It isn’t just being ignored by Tories red and blue, protests against government inaction on it are now criminalised, and the surveillance state built to ‘protect’ society has reached a point of extreme data-totalitarianism that will breed extremists. Not to mention what happens when Tommy Robinson, or whoever is Farage’s Musk takes control of that surveillance state apparatus?

All of this has rendered mainstream parties non-credible. It is just more of the same austerity, more economic inequality.

With the best will in the world, the scale of immigration (not far off a London a decade) is not sustainable. It is impacting the unskilled labour markets and ‘benefits’ system many of these potential Reform voting young people are reliant upon. Its use is the easiest of wedges for any politician to use. This immigration is nothing compared to the coming climate change refugee crisis. We haven’t seen anything yet.

The home-owning-electorate’s response: “These people are racist. We should rejoin the EU” (thus completely disenfranchising former brexit, now potential Reform voters) can only make this situation worse, if anything driving those young voters into the hands of worse extremists.

Yeah it is other countries fault, lol.

Another 50% claim to have read a book.

10% have read a book

Do you really want to carry your lifetime supply of honey around with you every time you move apartment?

What other foodstuffs are you going to buy your lifetime supply of? Dried goods? Tins? You could get yourself a winnebago and fill it with all your lifetime’s worth of food or something, which would make lugging it all around with you forever easier. Just hope nobody nicks it.

His name is Trump. Russia completed sidelined America’s military.

MAGA by bringing back US manufacturing, which means creating developing world conditions, thus enabling it to become a sweatshop.

And I guess these four supreme justices think the world should continue to buy US debt lol. You reap what you sow.

pretty on track

lol. SpaceX are destroying Artemis as we type - and America’s prestige as a space-faring nation - and are not going to Mars on any timeline, as Musk well knows. Musk doesn’t care at all, it is helping him get to trillionaire status.

Yeah I said in another post that the Americans I have known irl have been great. I love America’s contribution to stuff like music and literature, and the arts generally. And I take your point it is a minority.

But this oligarchy has taken a while to build but it wasn’t stopped. And I do think this is a watershed moment for the US and Europe, BRICS and the dollar. I think we are entering a global economy that reflects the multi-polar world we actually have.

As a Brit, whose economy is 50 - 100 years past being the global reserve currency, I think the people most likely to suffer over the long term are Americans, after everyone suffers the coming short-term instability.

This total breakdown in cooperation happening just as we roll straight past climate change’s last chance saloon (to butcher a couple of metaphors) is an even bigger disaster. Some of us ‘doomers’ are being proven right. I’d rather not be.

I know that eminent computer scientists wrote to I think Harris a couple of years back voicing their concerns over the security of voting machines.

I think the Democrats are as done as a credible political force as the Republicans are.

America you have switched sides. Expect a European pivot towards China, provided China maintains some degree of pragmatic neutrality.

Foolish bully.

If you accept his shit he will try and get away with more.

The people most at risk from this moron are the American people themselves. They appear to be accepting most of it. They didn’t lock him up, instead they voted him into power.

(Sorry Americans, I don’t want to be inflammatory for the sake of it. I do like those of you I have known irl.)

This might sound daft but I’ve traveled for years and literally found that mime, the more extravagant the better, works fine.

You are note dealing with reality.

The Democrats have helped construct the explicit oligarchy that is unfolding before your eyes.

It absolutely is about both sides, given both of them who are responsible for the current situation. Or it is about the fact that there is only one side pretty far right neo-liberal corporatists, or fascist far right oligarchy.

And obviously it matters if your only hope is to turn to the other side who are going to prove themselves to be utterly ineffectual.

we the poor are not a fucking bank for these lazy bastards that just keep taking all our shit for their own personal financial gain

Capitalism is a trickle-up system, so yes, that is exactly what you are.

As are the Democrats, which pretty much means the US political process is completely lost.

EDIT - Who do you turn to? It would appear that the CIA themselves have been subject to a far right coup, which is somewhat ironic, so I can’t see the intelligence services doing anything, but who do you turn to? The military? Is that where America is at?

I mean, they never hid their intentions.

From a European perspective, even though the Americans I have known in life have all been great, the fact is that the American people voted for all this, including the harmful alliance with Russia. It isn’t just Trump.

Unless of course Trump wasn’t lying again when he hinted at manipulating voting machines. No one has mentioned it other than Trump (as far as I am aware), so I assume it is nothing, but there certainly was concern pre-election from experts in the field regarding the security of voting machines.

I’m aware this sort of idea creates conspiracy theories, something I really am not trying to do. If anything I am just trying to find a reason that potentially lets American people off voting for Trump! https://apnews.com/article/election-security-voting-machines-software-2024-80a23479d8a767ba9333b2324c4e424b