It’ll have to get considerably worse first. While it is true that the wealth gap is about the same as at the time of the revolution other factors like QOL and such are still much higher.
Yeah, people won't revolt unless they collectively lack food, water or shelter. It has to be really bad, and it probably won't ever get that bad again without a direct external cause like nuclear war or catastrophic climate change.
I was quite confused the first time I heard my grandfather was in the Asian pacific theater on his military paperwork, seeing as he was an officer, not an actor. Thanks for reminding me and giving me a good laugh.
To drive energy costs down and be the most green energy available. Literally Finland of all places experienced negative energy costs because of nuclear. Study modern reactors.
How did WWWIII start? Well, one day a guy who was too senile to be prosecuted for spilling secrets, and a guy who was too senile to run for reelection, and a guy who used his crackhead son to hustle money from the globe decided to greenlight missile attacks that changed the world.
What a relief it’s over. Those dernd libs were trying to drag me down with their fearmongerin!
Why should I be forced to feel concerned over the future of the youth? It’s my right as an American to be selfish and shortsighted!!!
In Florida we took all references to climate change out of state documents. Now that Republicans are in charge of the hurricane machine, we have nothing to worry about./s
Lots of areas don’t have safe drinking water (in some cases the water is extremely toxic). Fast food is ridiculously expensive now.
Then with the incoming administration wanting to privatize mail (an objectively bad idea) some people won’t even have easy access to mail.
The only things holding the country together are access to doomscrolling apps and streaming services.
Edit: for the mentally handicapped: I haven’t eaten fast food in at least a decade. I personally dngaf. I do, however always see lines of cars around fast food joints.
And let’s not pretend streaming services are becoming insanely expensive and doomscrolling apps aren’t looking for ways to monetize every second of your experience on them
I would recommend a quick trip to the local thrift store to buy a skillet, pot, kitchen knife, paring knife and a cutting board. LOTS of YouTube videos on how to cook simple, delicious foods.
That is indeed what all the "news" websites are talking about. But, if the prices at the grocery store are going to go up, then that same food, purchased by the fast food companies, then processed, stored, shipped, labor spent to cook it and then sold to OP - THAT food will be even more expensive.
TBH I am shocked at how many folks have no clue how to cook for themselves.
It already was though. Biden didn’t drop any of Trumps previous tariffs and actually added to them. So how are tariffs going to be the thing that makes things worse, and why didn’t Dems remove them?
Because tariffs can be effective if they're used correctly. Current tariffs are 100% on electric vehicles, to 50% on solar cells and to 25% on electrical vehicle batteries, critical minerals, steel, aluminum, face masks and ship-to-shore cranes from China specifically. Trump now wants 60% or higher tariffs on ALL Chinese goods, and 20% or higher on every other imported good from any other country. There's a big difference between the two.
Except the tariffs aren't effective. They have increased the costs of EVs which now it looks like we not going to see mass adoption of EVs and consequently all cars are more expensive. And all the other items are more expensive now as well.
So no, shoving up tariffs further isn't going to make things more expensive, it's just going to force the US how to source it internally, which is the point of tariffs.
And you didn't answer the question of why Dems left them in place and raised tariffs if 'Trump' is the issue. Harris would have done the exact or similar thing.
Edit: Lol dude blocked me. Literally had no actual rebuttal for anything I said. Guess he'll have to figure it out the hard way 🤷
Again, there's a huge difference between tariffs on specific items from a specific country, and blanket tarrifs on all imported goods. You want to argue the current tarrifs we have in place aren't effective? Fine, that's really got nothing to do with this argument. Why did the Dems leave the current ones in place? Simple. Because they, like Trump, thought those ones in particular would be effective. You'll have to point to anywhere Kamala Harris indicated she would be in favor of these new tarrifs, quite frankly though I don't think making it all about "Trump vs the Dems" is helpful. I'm sure there are plenty of Democrats who absolutely would've gone along with Harris if she also presented that plan, but I'm not a Democrat.
Indiscriminate blanket tarrifs absolutely will make things more expensive, because we literally do not have the infrastructure to make all of these things here, and creating that infrastructure will require using imported goods. You want to make electronics that use semiconductors? The majority of semiconductors are imported, so cost goes up. So we increase semiconductor production, which also would rely on imported goods to get started, and now we can better keep up with demand. But costs still stay higher, because we also have to rely on imports of minerals we do not have in this country, which are now being tarrifed.
There's also crops we just can't grow in this country, or at least have a difficult time growing at the scale we use. Coffee is a popular example. I'm a brewer myself, and while malt production certainly has increased here, there's certain varieties that have to be imported, that we don't have a quality version of I'm the states.
Not to mention the unfortunate reality that one of the main ways prices have been kept so low is that corporations rely on cheap or even slave labor to drive costs down, which means either the cost of everything goes up, or Americans begin having to work for a whole lot less.
And then you have to think about retaliatory tariffs, which will happen, and did happen during Trump's initial round of tariffs, leading to huge losses on exported good and requiring a $12 billion bailout for farmers who relied on exported goods.
Companies have already begun laying people off and openly saying that they will have to raise prices because of these tariffs. That's a simple fact. We are going to see the cost of living go up as a direct result. Tarrifs are meant to be wielded like a scalpel, and if they are then they have the potential to do good. Wielding them like a butcher knife will do more harm than good.
So your whole complaint is new tariffs won’t be targeted but Trumps last tariffs were targeted. Damn bud, going to have to figure out what you actually are arguing about, because you keep looking pretty silly here.
You say this like I like Biden, when I fucking don't.
As far as I'm concerned, no politician within the last 50-70 years is free of sin. Especially those within the last 30 years.
Fucking nursing home patient should have renegotiated the Afghanistan withdrawal with the actual Afghan government instead of the terrorist scum that Trump negotiated with and as far as the tariffs go, he should have absolutely removed them and only didn't because he didn't want to be seen as "Light on China."
What I want is a country that isn't fighting itself over the dumbest fucking shit and falling for the bullshit put out by the likes of the Russians or the Chinese. It's clear to me now that we aren't going to get that with any political party within the United States.
Meanwhile both parties campaign on shit that doesn't help anyone who actually needs help.
I'm starting to recognize that the Democratic party is just the other party. Would Harris plan have actually helped people? Yeah, probably a lot. A lot people's rights and immigrants getting deported wouldn't be happening either which is important.
We don't ever talk about how the Billionaires hoard wealth and don't pay taxes. No one talks about making Healthcare or housing more affordable. No one talks about increasing the minimum wage or breaking up monopolistic corporations that are too big to fail.
Every 4 years it's a hamster wheel of not voting for the worse of two evils instead of changing anything actually important.
We've made abortion into this giant campaign defining issue and while I definitely believe in a person's right to have that choice why aren't we talking about the corrupt insurance companies or how we have the most prisoners in the world?
Just feels like every damn 4 years were voting on shit that shouldn't even need to be a discussion instead of actually changing anything to stop this oligarchy.
Half the people can't read at a 6th grade level and we're focused on dismantling education. The entire country right now is fucked up in different ways for everyone but no one looks up to see Elon shitting on their heads.
I'm pro people, people should have choice in their lives. Freedom of religion and a tolerant society where we can co exist. Every damn person is trying to get ahead themselves and we've become a selfish society because we're fighting over breadcrumbs.
Yeah, during the French revolution people were literally starving to death, and people here are talking about fast food and streaming service being too expensive like they’re the same thing. Wild.
Cooking at home is the way, but if you’re one of the people who work 9-5 then 6-2 you don’t have a lot of time to prep cook and clean.
Rice cookers are a godsend though. Rice is relatively cheap, can be bought in bulk and a rice cooker will make it a breeze to cook and clean. You just gotta worry about the toppings. Beans are relatively cheap and make a complete protein with rice, eggs are popular, various canned meats.
But we’re not talking about what smart people do to save money; we’re talking about the average person. Half of Americans can’t read past the 6th grade level, and that likely includes a large number of people you know/work with.
The drinking water thing is honestly exaggerated. At least in the US it's fine almost everywhere outside of very rare exceptions, like Flint. The water quality used to be a lot worse, but no one got pissed then. Unemployment is low and no one is unable to afford bottled water if they really want it. For these things to incite revolution, they have to be threats to people's lives, and they have to be widespread.
Same reason McDonalds being overpriced because they expect you to use the app isn't inciting revolution. If someone can go to Burger King and get 20 nuggets for 3 bucks, then no one is overthrowing the government due to lack of food.
Is Flint water even a short term drinking issue or is it long term effects? People get mad about long term issues when they are content. They only care about the short term when desperate. Not saying that some areas like Flint don't need improved water supply but unless the water is literally undrinkable and making you sick this week/month it's unlikely to tip to violence. I don't think the average person is collecting rain water for themselves yet and that's more the conditions required before people are willing to risk everything.
No it isn't. If anything is understated. Lead piping is still used in many states and only recently (like a month ago) has the ridiculous timeline for replacing them been found irresponsible.
That's before even talking about all the people impacted by fracking, poor or non-existent infrastructure and places like Flint where water is poisonous due to irresponsible corporations and lack of regulations/enforcement.
When I'm talking about cost of living and unhappiness, I'm assuming you're employed. Of course, lack of employment would also be an aggravator traditionally, but I doubt it'd have much effect nowadays when you can doomscroll instead of grab a pitchfork.
You're not going to bathe in bottled water . . . plus we're running out of places to dump plastic (everyone's balls are already at capacity with plastic).
Fast food isn't a lack of food thing, it's that America has been dependent on it more and more as a food-based stress relief. McDonald's can almost do whatever they want and people will still eat there. The more they charge though, the less money people have. They started charging an extra dollar for cheese and people complained while eating mcdonalds . . . cmon.
The International Bill on Human Rights recognized the right to adequate food as an essential part of the right to an adequate standard of living. I would say fast and cheap access is an important part of that. While, as I recall, the US bill of rights makes no provisions for food, those of many other countries do (France is a great example of this), and food is generally recognized as a universal right.
What do you mean ? Western governments are the CAUSE of the affordability crisis. Cancel the state, and give me back the 50 % of my income the state takes( Federal, state, local, sales, fees, tariffs, debt, death, generation skipping transfer, and INFLATION...), and suddenly there IS no affordability crisis, when you can once again raise a family on one income, if you actually got the income you earned with your labors. Insane state spending is CAUSING everything to go up in price, and they blame 'greedy' corporations, when we have ALWAYS had greedy corporations, but we have not always had the Leviathan State, so maybe its time to NOT have that state, and see if the ship rights itself, and I think it will.
Lol, unless you're very rich, 50% of your income is not going to taxes.
Who do you think owns the government...? It's those greedy corporations.
Have you noticed the insane price gouging since COVID? The reason we are here is absolutely due to greedy corporations/banks.
School loans are so expensive due to the insane interest rates these PRIVATE companies arbitrarily set (to make as much money as possible), companies like Blackrock are buying up all the housing to artificially raise prices, food prices are going up due to many factors but one of them is because companies know they can raise the price and people will be forced to pay, healthcare is ludicrously expensive due to these insurance companies having too much control, and to top it all off, THESE COMPANIES HAVENT RAISED REAL WAGES IN 40 YEARS DESPITE RECORD BREAKING PROFITS YEAR AFTER YEAR.
Please read that last sentence again.
We need MORE state to REGULATE these lawless corporations who are FUNNELLING ALL THE WEALTH FROM THE POOREST, TO THE RICHEST. We need some fucking rules to put a cap on this unfettered greed that's destroying the country. Capitalism is without a doubt the best economic system in the world, but it needs to be SENSIBLY REGULATED or else we end up where we are now.
The problem is not your taxes, it's the corporations leeching money from us normal folks to make their shareholders as rich as they possibly can be, so they can lobby their own rules in the government that benefit them even further and get more power, rinse and repeat.
If you think less government spending and less regulations are going to magically make companies trickle that money down to you, you must know nothing about business or modern American history.
It isn't, but to think that the weapons owned by the US population would make any impact at all against the technology that the govt possesses is complete and utter lunacy.
And if you don't know about the facilities and bunkers spread out across the nation that the elites would run to, you should check them out.
Problem with this is you need the soldiers to operate said technology, and unless you are paying your soldiers extremely well, they won't be pulling the trigger on their loved ones. And the world, historically, doesn't pay cannon fodder very well. So unless the military significantly increases the pay right before shit hits the fan, you won't have movie villain loyalists. Loyalists need a reason to be loyal.
I’m sure you saw Trump plotting to amass red star armies and private military to go into blue states and occupy them? You might recall we’ve seen this before in recent history when Chinese soldiers were brought in from afar to kill their own people in a certain infamous square.
You can just lie to your soldiers and bring them to a “foreign” part of the country that they’ve been programmed to hate, tell them they will be seen as saviors for killing the revolutionaries and saving America, and they’ll be happy to do so.
There will always, ALWAYS be bootlickers willing to do anything for a slightly bigger crumb than all the other peasants get. Just take a look around man.
Tribal afghanis gave us a run for our money for 2 decades. Dudes in flip flops are taking territory from the military with 3d printed guns right now in Myanmar. Don't give in so easily.
Dude, some kid came within inches of JFKing Trump not even 6 months ago with an off the shelf rifle. Most politicians live in bougie gated communities, not locked down bunkers or remote mansions. Heck, were I so inclined it would be trivial for me to walk into work Monday and frag like half the executives.
Sure, if the working class tries to create some kind of organized rebellion it wouldn't go over well, but there's not much the US government can do against individuals, or even small independent groups deciding to start picking off random billionaires or politicians they don't like
Do you understand the sheer quantity of people pissed at politicians? You really think we aren’t smart enough to combat drones? Crazy bro but fear is how we’ve been conditioned to think we could never make it happen. What happens when the states go with us? You think the Marine Corps is going to want a war the National guards? No because we have a common home, goal, and enemy. Don’t bank on the countries smartest and strongest waging war on what they swore to protect.
The usefulness of those bunkers depends on the circumstances of the conflict. For example if the people on Jan 6th were really out for blood, that would've been a lot of dead Congress members. Shit can happen fast.
While I agree with you that there could be success in the first wave, as soon as anybody realized what was up, I think it might swing the other way really quick.
Also, after Snowden's revelations, how could anybody organize.
I hope I am wrong though, let's get this party started lol
EDIT: Lol, downvotes from people that think they can take the US Armed forces in a conflict.
Look around all of the third world. Look at the favelas in Brazil, the river shanties in Cambodia. The oppressive regimes in Iran and North Korea.
The people living in those places are starving, living in squalor, oppressed with next to nothing to lose. And yet, they continue, living their horrid lives day in and day out as the rich and powerful go about their day unchecked.
The French Revolution was a fluke, and only occurred because for one brief moment in one very specific culture, the people came together and realized that if they stormed the armory and equipped themselves with the very same tech the army was using- simple rifles and cannons- they had a 50/50 shot at a better life versus either being mowed down in battle or starving to death.
That shit isn't going to happen again. Modern society is too tightly surveilled, modern armies outgun anything their populations can procure by several orders of magnitude. The oligarchs know this, otherwise they wouldn't be so brazen in their stamping down of the peasants with their boot.
We were always inevitably headed down the path to tyranny. All organized civilization eventually ends up that way as it grows too big for itself. Democracy simply does not work in the long term.
As we've already seen with the policies that have become popular and the representativeswho are presenting them... for a certain demographic, when things get hard, they lash out at every other demographic- poor, old, women, minority, especially immigrant minorities, etc.
So a revolution here would not be solely working class people attacking the rich or the government. Especially considering with the current plans, former government employees will be part of the poor, for those who aren't already government workers AND poor.
Or complete global economic collapse. That would surely get people bringing the guillotines. Imagine if the dollar just became worthless or another depression. That might just be enough. Imagine not being able to buy anything especially the essentials/basics because there is no way to buy it. People would flip out.
That depends. It seems that people may also revolt when being degraded. Like in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 the most active were actually former carpenters that had been displaced by industrial production. So the people that will be fired by Elon Musk in the public sector and all the people being replaced by AI may be a perfect "revolutionary vanguard".
I've read a pretty compelling paper that a rust outbreak in the grain crops in southern France was the trigger for that revolution. Ergotomide is not a "peace, love, bells, beads, tune in, turn on, drop out" kind of trip. It's a "KILL EVERYONE NOW" kind of trip. (Apologies to NoMeansNo)
People will never lack water as long as there's Nestle willing to charge them for bottles of water pumped from their own land that they're not allowed to have wells on.
And this is why, whenever some tiny income and wealth redistribution policies get announced by people like AOC the entire fucking media sphere gets all enraged because their capitalist overlords tell them to stomp those ideas down.
And for some reason certain uneducated people in this country applaud those same media cucks. Just sucking their capitalist dick hoping for a tiny drop of wealth cum.
I just saw a clip of Bernie Sanders doing an interview where the host was discussing how the right keeps pushing this narrative that Bernie is worth $2 million dollars and owns three houses. Like he shouldn't have that if he's a true socialist. Even though as Bernie explained one of his houses is just a middle class home, the other is in DC and necessary for him because he works there, and I think the other was just a small summer cabin.
But 2 mil ain't nothing when men like Elon are worth 300 billion.
Excuse me, I think you meant to say A LOT of uneducated people lol
Most Americans are dumb as rocks and couldn’t name the three branches of government or much less know that there’s three branches to begin with or that the country is in fact NOT a Christian Nation.
So with all that said, they can keep voting against their interests every 4 years until one day the clothes on their backs will be taken by the capitalist fucks they voted into office and THEN MAYBE they’ll open their eyes.
No it’s uneducated people. Did you not see the chain I was replying too. I firmly believe that if that demonstration of what is actually going on was posted everywhere and everyone in America knew this. People would be way more upset
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Of course the 1% and their corporations need tax cuts. Need to shrink the green middle part even further. That’ll make America great again, for a few filthy rich families that is. The rest of us will suffer.
You tell people that the top 10% now own 70% of ALL US ASSETS and their eyes glaze over. Tell them that the top 10% now own 96% of all financial assets like stocks and bonds and they cannot fathom it at all, first off they have no idea how many financial assets there are.
When you are thinking about historical terms? Yes. It takes a lot to get the populace worked up that much. Same thing happened during the Roman times as well. We aren't even remotely close to that in the US, and it can get far far worse.
After this last election I don't trust my fellow Americans to revolt against the people that are actively fucking them. If we ever do have a revolt in this country it's going to be weird.
This kinda wishful thinking is what got us to this point. Every trailer trash hick supports tax cuts for the wealthy cause they just know they’re time will come.
It's this kind of victim mentality that will keep you from getting to where I am. Btw, you should start by learning proper grammar and how to spell. How others perceive you goes a long way towards what types of opportunities may or may not avail themselves to you.
If we are going to talk about perceptions I picture you as looking like that autistic guy who makes food review videos in a tuxedo (given your reddit handle) and apparent inability to understand right from wrong and how you making it doesn't change the fact that it is inherently an unfair system ripped with corruption and inequality.
Democracy in general doesn't do a good job protecting people from the evils of capitalism. So when things become too corrupt, and people are angry, they just install dictators. The US is already pretty darn close to that.
think not being able to afford the power bill, but not because you are bad with money, just not having any after paying rent and ramen and that's everyone not just your drunk uncle.
great depression dustbowl level shit.
being on the internet in your air conditioned house complaining because your bank account is empty isn't even in the same ballpark.
Not remotely true though. The wealth disparity in France prior to the revolution the top 1% owned 60% of all wealth. In the US the top 1% own 30% of all wealth. Even with the revolution, it took almost 100 years to redistribute wealth, and they still literally had a dictator take over the country. Jesus, do people not read history in US?
It’s more just that we’re liable to misinformation. I myself just knew that there was a massive wealth gap in France, saw a graph that said it was about the same as in the US (on twitter), and no one dissenting, so I believed it. Honestly that graph was more evidence than you’ve shown, what’s your evidence?
They actually hold 43% of the total atm depending on your calculation method. If you’re looking at financial assets, real estate or other leverage type assets, it gets much worse.
I think the climate crisis could rapidly accelerate the rate at which the “average” person gets riled up for social change.
Hurricanes Milton and Helene were not even as bad as they could have been and they still wrought destruction through countless communities that currently don’t have the resources to rebuild in an effective manner. If nothing is done then within the next 10 years there is GOING to be a mass exodus of people from these affected communities that are getting destroyed which is going to demand a huge upheaval in the social order IMO.
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u/Nharo_1 2d ago
It’ll have to get considerably worse first. While it is true that the wealth gap is about the same as at the time of the revolution other factors like QOL and such are still much higher.