The people in cities and in blue states made this economic turn around happen. Trump does not deserve the credit he will claim. Burn it down.
Edit: If you leave this thread learning anything please let it be this one thing. Organic political movement isn’t schemed up in a board room or carefully planned and executed every step of the way. It starts inside of you and people like you and you lend your support not knowing the outcome but believing in the cause. If it’s not here, it’s not here. I don’t mean to supply you with fuel needed but only the spark to ignite flame waiting to be ignited.
I’m out though.
My plan is to stop participating in the economy as much as I can. Only the basic necessities now. The fun times are over. Let’s help crash the Trump economy.
a lot of us have been ‘existing’ on ‘only the basic necessities’ for years
That’s true. I guess I sounded privileged there.
Maybe to some, but that doesn’t minimize your stake in anything. We’re all in this together.
And to strike
I would join one if it happens. I feel like one of the best ways to strike is just to stop buying shit. The economy thrives on American excess and consumption.
A consumption strike is still a strike, and honestly could be more effective than a traditional strike.
The US economy is essentially completely reliant on consumption at this point, it’s the place where we have the most leverage.
It’s also very easy for an authoritarian regime that is inbound by law to retaliate against traditional strikers. It’s much harder to force us to consume.
It also doesn’t have to be zero consumption, by loca, but used, use cash, barter, and trade.
We need to heavily reduce consumption anyway. Remember the three Rs? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The first two quickly got dropped, recycling took off for a while as it was the more profitable and easiest to shift blame onto the consumer while maintaining consumption. Then we all learned very little could be or was being recycled, it was just being dumped elsewhere. Excess buying is one thing totally under our control. Maybe a better society can also come out of it.
This is probably the only way a general strike in the U.S. would ever work. Employers are draconian, and nobody wants to be the first to risk their neck at their workplace for a normal strike.
The problem is organization, and keeping everybody to it for more than just a few days.
You explained that very well.
So you think people are going to pass on the last Christmas of We The People of the United States of America? You’re not wrong in your method but it’s like trying to get your workplace to unionize when they’re running on inertia, fear, and conflict avoidance.
Most people you know are conflict avoidant, sadly.
Oh I know it. Americans as a whole are selfish, spoiled and cowardly. Guess they have to learn the hard way.
Christmas is a losing battle for a consumer side strike. We gotta pick our battles, and that ain’t one of them. Pretty much any other time of the year would be fine, because for the most part people would only be personally sacrificing consuming things for themselves.
And it thrives on our LABOR
Everyone should save as much money as they can and probably not play the stock market. I have a feeling 401k’s are going to take a gigantic shit.
I have no idea what’s going to happen. I hope none of this happens. it’s just a very pessimistic gut feeling.
That’s a completely asinine take. Just live your life and try to stay out the Trump administrations path.
It does not matter a single person might think. It only matters they strike on Jan 6th and together we show them what we all think about oppression and authoritarianism. That no amount of money can buy my freedom. That no exchange of goods is worth exchanging the people I love and am suppose to protect.
Do what you want. I won’t be there. The people voted for this overwhelmingly. I will only be protesting actual shit policies they implement, not gonna protest an essentially ceremonial vote count.
You mean half?
It was more than half.
No it wasn’t he had 73 million vote for him out of the 187 million registered.
And yet he got 50.6% of the popular vote and 301 electoral votes.
Fuck that. I want to help crash Trump’s economy. Sabotage them in every way possible.
There’s no need.
Really.
If Trump does what he says he was going to do-and I don’t doubt he will–then the economy will crash on its own.
Tariffs will raise prices, and will drive inflation. Why will tariffs raise prices? Because the people selling will just add the price of the tariff to the goods sold. And unless the tariffs are the result of a new law, any incoming president can cancel them. That means that it would be a very risky environment to try and build domestic production in. The place I work for uses aluminum extrusion; we get it from a domestic supplier, and they get all their raw aluminum stock from China. When tariffs were enacted on Chinese aluminum, our supplier passed the cost on to us, and we had to raise our prices to account for our increased costs. So our customers had to pay more to get exactly the same product.
Deporting all of the undocumented immigrants will mean that we’ll suddenly have lots of jobs not getting done; most produce is picked by undocumented immigrants, a ton of general construction is done by undocumented immigrants, most meat-packing plants are full of undocumented immigrants laborers. We’ll suddenly be a negative unemployment; there won’t be enough workers in the workforce to fill demand. That means wages will have to rise, which will drive inflation, and housing costs will rise sharply because new construction will be so expensive with undocumented immigrants. One of the people I work with is undocumented; if he gets deported, then we’re up shit creek, because no one else can do his job as efficiently as he can, if anyone can do it at all (yay, lean manufacturing…).
I would place a financial bet on the economy crashing if Trump actually does what he says he will.
My expectation is that the “mass deportations” will quickly morph into “mass incarceration” will quickly morph into an enslaved workforce.
There will probably be one wave of deportations just to “show we mean business” or something and then the news will move onto the next distraction while the remaining undocumented immigrants are quietly sent back off to do the jobs they were doing only now the business don’t have to pay them.
Brexit was supposed to make farm workers’ wages higher. The EU workers left, and crops rotted on the fields, because Brits didn’t want those jobs, no matter what wages the farmers were offering. So they had to tell the EU workers they were welcome again and introduce special visas to lure them back.
There’s been a recession start in every single republican presidential term of my life. I’m over 40. Each of Reagan’s terms. HW Bush. Each of the second Bush (these were the worst, dot-com crash and the great recession starting in 2007/8). And then the great Covid bungling. As you point out: if they implement their agenda it’s likely to happen again.
There has never been a recession start during a democratic president in my lifetime (although Biden’s term came close).
The opposition needs to be ready to jump on this and yell from the figurative rooftops so conservatives can’t spin it away. And it needs to be most heavily broadcast where the electorate shifted to the right this election. The fact that people generally think republicans are better for the economy is a severe failure on the part of the democrats.
Something I just thought of today…
Industry has been outsourcing for more than 40 years now. Manufacturing has been gutted in the US, and that’s wrecked labor. With the loss of the power of organized labor, money has flowed up from the workers to the executives. We’ve seen labor unions making big gains under Biden, but there simply aren’t enough people covered by unions in the US to reverse this trend. Right now we have a smallish-number of higher-paid information workers, a somewhat larger number of people in manufacturing, and a LOT of people in service-sector jobs that aren’t organized, or can’t effectively organize. An economy built largely around large numbers of low-wage service-sector jobs, with a small number of higher paid information workers just isn’t sustainable.
Tariffs that went on long enough would force manufacturing to be done in the US. And wages would have to rise, because if the workers can’t afford the products they make, then an economy collapses completely (unless you are exporting a lot). Yeah, it would be super-rough until factories were back in the US, maybe 10+ years. But our thirst for more and cheaper plastic shit from Asia is gonna be the death of us. (…That is, if climate change doesn’t do it first.) In that respect, Trump is kind of right, but the tariffs are probably going to be so harmful in the short run that people will reject any attempts to restructure the economy. I don’t think that Trump is principled in this at all; I think that it’s populist, and he’s a broken clock on this issue.
Tariffs that went on long enough would force manufacturing to be done in the US. And wages would have to rise
When the tariff is on final consumer products, these are two opposing forces. Higher wages mean companies would more likely save money by paying the tariffs. Higher tariffs mean companies are more likely to purchase domestically.
But if the tariffs are on precursor products (e.g. steel, lumber, oil, etc …) rather than final consumer goods: the tariffs make it more expensive for domestic manufacturing. The US manufacturer has to pay the tariffs to use the materials they need to produce their final product, and have to pass those costs on. That means there’s less margin for wages.
Yes, definitely. It also forces the US to exploit more natural resources (which I oppose, since I like having forests and mountains). Things like 100% tariffs on electric cars or computer chips made in China would help the US catch up. Tariffs on lithium–I don’t think we have significant lithium deposits in the US–would just sharply raise prices. Tariffs on finished goods that are high enough make it cheaper to produce in the US.
Wages rising? Not if they can help it. Other people mentioned prison labor. But they’re overlooking child labor, which is already being brought back in multiple states. Throw in some pretty weakly disguised slave labor in the form of company stores, and there’s no reason to pay actual workers what they’re worth.
I doubt Trump is going to care enough to keep his promises. He ran to avoid jail and for the ego trip from winning - he got both, so he’s gonna coast and do whatever his handlers tell him just so long as they let him take full credit for anything positive.
They will tell him to do things that will benefit them by removing the guardrails on the economy so they can exploit the hell out of it in record time. As such, it’ll initially look good before it burns itself out, by which time most of his term will be up anyway. By that time he’ll have gotten his sycophants to ensure he is fully immune to prosecution, along with a more fully stacked Supreme Court to ensure it stays that way.
Need proof? How much has Mexico paid into the border wall, eh? Plenty of other unfulfilled promises from the first time around to point at, if you need more.
See, the issue is that most of Trump’s policies didn’t come from him in 2016 - he went out and hung out with dictators and played golf and held rallies while his Cabinet did almost all of the heavy lifting. Remember that several of his staffers said they couldn’t get him to pay attention to important things like briefings unless they had something positive ABOUT HIM PERSONALLY every two sentences.
That’s how a lot of this shit is gonna get done - dozens of Yes Men all implementing whatever part of The Plan they’re supposed to implement from their appointed office, so Trump doesn’t take the heat for it.
And his cabinet is there to exploit the people. Just like the Postmaster. these people will destroy safety and fairness in America. It will be a cuthtroat nation.
They paid the most to Trump for the right to be in a positon to fleece the people the watythey want to. Pelosi on steroids.
Hey, wages rising would at least be nice.
…not going to happen though, more likely to see an increase in prison labour
Wages rising? No.
Salaries rising? A little.
Executive pay and bonuses? Huge.
Maybe for some things, like working in fields. (Maybe. That would be a preeeeeettttttty good time for someone to pull a runner.) Probably not for construction, where you’d have to be giving inmates access to things that readily be used as weapons. Same with meat packing, where they’d literally be working with knives.
If people that are left of center can get their shit together some day, they really need to rewrite that amendment to ban all involuntary servitude.
Most inmates aren’t actually dangerous, and can probably be trusted with a framing nailer. The percentage of harmless inmates will probably increase, as the Republican administration encourages laws that serve no purpose besides locking up black people and leftists, and clamps down on states that oppose them.
If you live in a legal weed state, start legally buying weed with the intent to stash it for the next 4 years. Stoners are gonna be a great source of prison labour
Demand 4: no new tarrifs.
GENERAL STRIKE JAN 6
The voices of the workers will echo throughout the entire globe. Find a local left wing organization, organize, and when the day comes we fight like hell.
Jan 20. If we do Jan 6th, those who can’t hold out will go back to work 2 weeks later, and Trump will get credit for ending Biden’s strike.
Jan 6 for those who can hold out and Jan 20 for those who cant
It did not even take 5 posts for this global general strike to be split up into two huh 😅
Well people should strike on Jan 6 but not everyone can
General strike on January 6th?
Yup, its time for a general strike. Spread the word to all
You won’t even have to do anything, the Tariffs will.
And the loss of labor in the agricultural, construction, food service, and hospitality industries.
Demand 4: No new tarrifs.
Why strike when you can unionize?
Start building small unions for blue collar roles that focus primarily on employment protection, rather than pushing salaries high. From there, as the cost of living increases, push for a percentage increase that aligns, and strike fully if those demands aren’t met.
If Trump wants to block migration, then forming unions would be the defining legacy of a Trump administration. He can’t go for cheap foreign labour, and he can’t remove domestic…
Let’s do it. Start the plans. Make the sticky posts. I’m about it. Just tell me what I need to do.
That’s the beauty, you do nothing. Jk, no it starts with spreading the word but also ensure every one you tell that you have them. We need to come together and it will cost. Let them know we are in it together.
List of demands:
1 Biden expand the supreme court unopposed.
2 Federal legislation enshrining abortion rights, gay marriage, and decriminilizing Marijuana.
3 Legislation to expand Medicare and make it single payer.
60 million can’t beat trump at the ballot box but they can beat anyone who dare try to oppress them.
Is there a petition? A news letter? Anything for us to use all this anger and despair on right now?
There is your voice. Jan 6th. Stop the coup.
Okay but we need actionable plans before January if we plan on being any sort of opposition.
I want you to make the actionable plan. I trust you to be a leader that will disseminate the information. I’m just one guy who can’t take it anymore. We lead each other into this and there is no one person that can hold the bag.
The only actionable plans I can think of involved putting protective measures in state constitutions. The time for that has obviously passed. There aren’t many legitimate avenues through the government that I see.
We force the federal government to pass legislation. We force the federal government to appoint equal representation on the Supreme Court.
Build community. Volunteer at local organizations such as food bank or mutual aid, or just get your friends together and do something weird like a free public picnic in the park. It’s a lot of fun, you meet lots of cool people. And you make a community more able to resist and protect.
Also stock up on several weeks of food and goods. You’ll want to share when disaster happens.
Woo woo housing market is gonna craaaaaassshhhhh… just in time for me to leave the country to avoid persecution. Crap.
There is no greater strike then completely removing yourself from this nation. If you voted blue you were 10x the economic power any red state has ever offered.
That’s a good point. I’m out!
Removing yourself from the nation? So your idea is to just remove what blue voters are left? Also do you have sources to back up your claims about economic power? California is a massive powerhouse but many other blue states just aren’t. Like Oregon.
Eh, almost every state has some key business headquartered or infrastructure deeply invested in it. Oregon has Intel, Nike, and several others I’m forgetting. The Bonneville power administration also supplies a significant portion of power to Seattle and California. Oregon may not be as significant, but it’s critical to California’s ability to be such.
But their whole plan is to have the economy fail, then transfer wealth to themselves:
A general strike will take a lot of planning. I’d estimate that an intense organizing campaign over the span of a year could make it happen, if all the organizers are willing to set aside most of their personal life for that time. Add an additional year if the organizing committee cannot make that commitment. If we start the planning now, it could grind the Trump economy to a total halt in q4 2026, peak profit for most companies.
It doesn’t work unless you can cover the costs of all the many people living paycheck to paycheck.
Yes, precisely. That’s what all the planning is needed for.
Waiting for things to cool off is the one sure fire way to make sure it will never happen. Anyone tempted to subscribe to this belief has already in their head given up their freedom. Has already resided their fate and is ready for the new world order.
I’m not saying this out of ignorance. I’m a professional organizer. I’m telling you that a strike without planning is like jumping into the deep end without learning to swim. The strike will fail if things aren’t prepared first.
ETA: all said, if you want to start organizing this strike I will help. I absolutely agree, a strike is really the only tool left in our “peaceful protest” toolbox.
Occupy Wall Street is a perfect example of this. It may be too old for some to remember now, but the fire was there to do something, people showed up. Because there was no organization, no central message, lots of in fighting on why they were there, it totally failed. People were there interviewing active protestors, asked them what they are protesting and what the demand for change were, and they had nothing.
A lot like MAGA crowds. The difference is that MAGA has organization, not for the messages (which can be all over the place), but because it’s a cult of personality.
I wonder what kind of planning went into Seattle’s general strike. They didn’t even have easy means of communication back then.
I think that’s just the beauty of communications technology. We’ll be trying to reach far more people, but imo (based on the Minneapolis general strike) it will be approximately the same amount of effort
We need you, dummy. I’m not that. I’m know I’m not that. You are the litmus test. We don’t have you and people like you we don’t have a strike.
I’ll need a committee, friend. I was once where you were too, your passion is exactly what an organizing committee needs!
Okay, I’m serious. I can relay this to a senator I am related to. How can we get this started? I am willing to hand out my contact info to you.
I will contact you and OP to set up our first committee meeting!
Awesome, I look forward to it!
This is a take I actually agree with you on. Complacency is this country’s biggest flaw and why shit has cranked so hard to the right. But people need leaders with plans and social skills. In the same breath of saying inaction is deadly, so is unorganized action. That’s how movements die. Remember occupy Wall Street? Favorite example.
I’ve already done all the hard things occupy couldn’t. I set a deadline and given you three non-negotiables. Even if we leave the having gotten nothing we leave accomplishing what we set out to do, putting the economy in shambles and making sure trump actually has to create a successful one through policy.
LMAO you just get cuter and cuter don’t you lil guy
Bullshit like this always pisses me off. You look at the comments, no plan, no organization nothing but more pretty words. Keyboard jockey neo-liberals.
If you want to “resist”, go outside and organize with existing groups and participate. Don’t just talk about how cool it would be if we “stuck it to the man” and leave it there. Just saying “we should strike” doesn’t mean a fucking thing. Lots of people, myself included, can’t afford to strike. I could lose my job, then my home. Get real dude. Don’t just make half assed posts without any plans or actionable steps to jerk yourself off.
Bullshit like this is the exact reason we fail each other every fucking day. I’m asking you to lift others up and all you can do is put me down. I’m not special but I’m 10x more then you’ll ever be.
Then do something. Get off your keyboard and do something. Prove me wrong. Please, I want you to. But you won’t.
We’re primed for a leftist version of the Tea Party. A Guillotine party.
I like it
votes for the candidate openly talking about plans that only help the rich become richer
how could this happen?
Strike? Better make it quick.
When Trump fires and replaces the NLRB with loyalists, you’ll lose the NLRA that defends your right to strike. Without that, you’ll just get fired for job abandonment.
Jan 6th
