The Trump administration is threatening to all but shut down the Social Security Administration in response to a judge’s ruling blocking activities by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — an action that could delay payments to millions of beneficiaries caught in the middle of the legal battle.
this would be one of those things to spurn people of all levels of political engagement to become singularly focused on burning down the regime
makes me think they’ll go for it because the recklessness seems utterly haphazard and drunken. they’ll go right to the edge of fascism and total consolidation and then just invite every child, grandchild, and boomer to storm every capital in the nation. there won’t be enough drones or loyalist cops/ICE agents to put down that kind of event. whatever comes after won’t be what we want it to be. this isn’t an endorsement of accelerationalism
People on social security are generally on a knife’s edge financially (it’s not just treats) and it creates a large web that will touch everyone materially. the MAGA cultists just won’t have the numbers (and I doubt even all of them will mindlessly nod along to this).
I suppose they could throw accusations around on why the checks stopped. Blame the judge and try to direct millions at this one person. Or make up something about terrorists or migrants. I personally don’t think it would work.
If they are even slightly reasonable, as in thinking almost cohrrent thoughts, I believe they will end up at the usual “compromise”: fuck over the marginalized. The vast majority won’t feel the pain and will therefore tolerate it while those most vulnerable die early.
yeah my hypothesis used to be they would just create “errors” that would slowly purge people off social security and then make it impossible to reapply/appeal. spread it out randomly enough it just looks like “computer bugs”.
also declare people at random to be committing fraud and force them to disprove it. starting with Hispanic last names and then going from there.
but yeah Elon doesn’t seem to have the patience for this kind of methodology
Yeah I agree, something like that. Or even just cancelling all low payouts and selectively restoring them.
I think you hit the nail on the head with the last point. They’ll blame somebody else for bad stuff that happens, and people will just eat it up.
The problem is that I think when it comes to protestors Trump will demand wartime powers entirely illegally that he uses as he sees fit. As a demonstration of his power - he might use military to kill and injure protestors before the GOP justices even give their ruling. The show of force would be for their benefit too. They are the only thing stopping him from having no limits at all.
I don’t see it happening in any western government. If anything, they’d happily eat the slop fed to them by their fascist overlords
There will be massive protests, but because power doesn’t grow from the barrel of a sign, it’ll happen anyway and the crowds will grow smaller and smaller until nobody cares anymore because the Kill The Elderly Lottery will have been normalized.