| It won't ever be the same, but we could get closer to the old normal. But it's going to be a long time. Things are going to be terrible for four years. Then a Democrat needs to win the White House and take back both chambers in Congress. That's a tall order. Putting things back together might cause at the very least a recession, if not a depression, though we might have that over the next four years too. Then we need to staff up these agencies again. Find buildings to put people in that we've sold or ended the leases on. Hopefully try to protect these jobs better. But we have, and will continue to lose, a lot of good people to the private sector and it could take a decade or much more to find qualified people like we had before and find people willing to go into government. Government isn't a safer job any longer. Why would someone want to join for less money and risk being fired every four years? So some people are going to need to see stability for awhile to consider government over the private sector. There might also be less people going to school for certain careers that government needs a lot of people for. Might take a lot of time for people to choose those jobs as a career again. It could a decade or two. But that assumes no Republican presidents. That assumes they don't control the White House and all of Congress again. I would hope that after this people don't ever let the Republicans control those two branches ever again. Or at least for a few decades until these current idiots realize that running people as stupid as possible isn't the best way to get elected. For now, it is. Plus, people have very short memories apparently. Somehow Trump got back. So we need Democrats in charge for a bit, and then for Democrats to at least have control over something, for a decade or two. And then there is the Supreme Court, which will be an issue for a few decades potentially. To really have the best chance at something close to normal, we need Democrats to control the Supreme Court. I'm not going to pretend that the Supreme Court isn't partisan. For Republicans, it is partisan. It has been for a long time for them. Maybe Democrats can pass term limits or expand the court, but there aren't easy options there. Unfortunately there is such a high standard for Democrats. Being crazy is in the job requirements for Republicans. You don't win the primary unless you demonstrate a lack of understanding of everything. If one single thing is wrong with a Democrat, then there seems to be some people that then don't vote or vote Republican. Of course you also have a lot of sexist, racist, homophobic and transphobic people and that's been an issue too. It's going to be an uphill battle for sure. Sometimes there is a little glimmer of hope, like maybe Musk having a little bit less power, with firings being up to cabinet secretaries allegedly. But they might be lying about that because they lie about everything else. I don't even trust the numbers coming out any more, like on the economy. One of the Trump people talked about messing with one statistic, maybe GDP, breaking apart one thing from another, but why would they do that unless they weren't going to release one of the numbers? Here is an example of how sneaky Republicans are... I like that there is a million views on the video. I was going to say 99% of people don't know what Republicans did and that could still hold true if only a million or so people in the US know what they did. Plus a lot of curious people around the world are likely watching too. Republicans are ceding power in Congress to a strong executive branch. We are becoming more authoritarian by the day. What isn't America they want to become America. My hopes are hopeful. In reality, it might be a long time before we get back closer to the old normal. And we may never get there. One thing is clear, the next four years are going to be bad. Trump is a lunatic, like Vance and Musk. And most every single Republican in Congress is willing to go along with them, so whether they are stupid, know better or they are just scared, if you vote with the burgeoning dictator, you're part of it. None of that, in any scenario, is going away over the next four years. Then it's about trying to overcome the billions some on the right will spend on elections to try to make sure Democrats don't get back in power fully. Musk could lose 99% of his money and he would still be a multi-billionaire willing to influence elections. And they will intimidate voters too by any means possible. They were also preparing to just eliminate the votes for president in some states if needed in the legislatures. It didn't work in 2020, but in 2024 they didn't need to as there were enough stupid people. This also gets to why they are trying to kill the Department of Education. Stupid people vote Republican. If they can get rid of better standards for education, and throw religious indoctrination in there, Constitution be damned, they'll do it if that means they get more first time voters eventually voting for their brand of stupid. Freedom of speech and separation of church and state were among the most important values of our country from the start. They would throw those out if they could and in some ways they are trying. (they would get freedom of speech, but in their minds no one else would get it) Trump held a car commercial for Musk the other day. Trump basically said it was illegal to boycott Tesla. The insanity is maddening. If people want to show they don't like something, they get to boycott. Or they just don't like how dumb a Cybertruck is. Or both. Republicanism is a cult and we're on the path Germany was in the 1930's. I am going to be hopeful enough that we won't continue down this path, even though I can't realistically figure a way out of it. The only solution I see, and it's hard, is for Democrats to win everything, with the Supreme Court being a thorn in the side at times. Maybe after eight years of a Democratic administration, or at the very least Democrats were in charge of everything at the start, allowing the policies to start to work well enough that the remaining elected Republicans and the idiots on social media still yelling at clouds finally start to lose some support. People yelling at how the then Democrat is the worst president in history might finally wake up one morning and realize the sky isn't falling. No one is coming after them. The economy for them is good. They'll come to their senses, themselves, and realize that everything they were told was a lie. They won't have to admit they were wrong. They can vote Democrat then. They can even tell their friends they are still Republican if they want. Or even be honest with people and say, hey, things aren't as bad as that podcaster says or that social media influencer says. I don't think you can deprogram a cult of 77 million people. Look how bad it goes on a small scale of a few, dozens, or hundreds of cult members. They have to wake up. And tens of millions won't. But we're a country divided, and a few million either way is what decides elections. I'm hopeful that enough were just dipping the toes in the cult and will rapidly come to their senses. I think enough have already, but we only vote for president every four years. They need to hold on to that feeling of being lied to four years from now. And then not forget it eight years down the line, four years from then, like a few million people did when it came to Trump this time. I don't know how several million people decide hey, the guy who inspired people to unsuccessfully try to overthrow the government might be just the one to solve all our problems, but we need those voters that changed for some reason between 2020 and 2024 to hopefully permanently come to their senses. For Republicans, they'll vote for anyone. Vance, Desantis, Trump, Jr, even Trump himself if they find a way around the Constitution. For Democrats, our standards are high. We do have some people. Gavin Newsom is certainly going to run. Hopefully the fires haven't hurt him politically. Republicans will try anything and they'll try on that. Mark Kelly and Pete Buttigieg are also possibilities. I'm a little concerned with Democrats running someone that might be too far left. While some very liberal politicians might make good points sometimes, the country isn't ready to swing in that direction hard, even though for some things we really need to. If they keep trying to go too far left all at once, we'll never win and in the end we will be much worse off than if we had someone not quite as far left doing things more gradually. Like I said, this is all going to be very hard. I think we could make great strides if Democrats win everything in four years, but winning the Senate is getting harder. Unfortunately the next four years need to be very tough for America's sake long term. We have someone that wants to be a dictator. He wants it, badly. If the economy isn't really bad and people don't get very angry for a lot of different other reasons too, more people might start cozying up to, or even more so, authoritarianism. A chunk of the country doesn't care if their leaders lie. These are huge problems. People need to reject that. But if things are going well enough, they might not. Trump is destroying things because he can't help himself, he's having too much fun. My hope is that people remember this for the future and reject everything about what led us to all this. Maybe the convicted felon who was responsible for a lot of bankruptcies doesn't know everything. I can hope enough people come to their senses. Doesn't mean they will, but there isn't any hope otherwise so I'll hang my hat on that. Of course I'm also reading about how the U.S. is drawing up plans to potentially take the Panama Canal, so we have to get through the next four years. It's either partner with their military or take it by force potentially. I would hope we have enough military leaders that would convince him otherwise. I'm never going to talk about the darker scenarios where we could head, but Trump taking part of a democratic country would not lead to what he thinks it might lead to. There would be an arrest warrant for Trump, that would be ignored, but it would lead to a lot of other things. I'm going to remain hopeful that it won't happen because the alternatives involve not getting back anywhere close to normal for decades potentially. |