CircuitGuy

So, roughly a little less than 2% of the country protested. Awesome.

I think that's actually a lot. It's around 4.5% of voters. Just under half of voters voted from Trump, although some of them may have changed their minds since the election. There are some people who aren't into demonstrating on the streets. There is always some percentage of people with something else going on. For example, my teenagers didn't go because they had both run grueling races yesterday morning. My wife and I were at risk of being late because we went to a neighboring city yesterday morning to watch our kids race and because the roads and bus system were overwhelmed with people going to the demonstration and to the Badgers game, but when we arrived thousands of people were still pouring onto East Wash (the main road the Square).

That was just our life. I'm sure someone else's kid had a big race or performance that did conflict, or their parent just received a bad medical diagnosis, or they had to work, or they're in the middle of moving house. 4.5% of voters getting out and marching is a lot.

ICE is trying to incite a riot in order to justify having the army flatten Portland

Or to justify bringing more military for law enforcement to normalize that and allow the president to declare martial law for political reasons. This is playing with fire. It's hard to imagine a future president worse than Trump, but it's possible, and citizens, local police, and possibly National Guard or military units could resist them militarily, and then we're at civil war, which would be nightmare for everyone.

This is disgraceful.

I didn't like Florida that much when I lived there in the 80s and 90s. It sounds like it's gotten worse.

they are throwing out the mainstream press in favour of OANN and Breitbart from the Pentagon for example. They are building a “new media”, pushing thousands of random influencers and podcasters to drown out established news outlets.

It's new that politicians take conspiracy zines seriously. It's up to the people not to take them seriously and be suspicious of any politician who prefers them over journalists.

Trump is extorting CBS for billions just because he can.

I head he effectively took a bribe of millions by their settling a bogus lawsuit. Decades ago this would have been a huge scandal. Anything where a politician even appears to use the office to get money in their pocket looks horrible to me. I don't understand why MAGA supporters abide this.

Institutions are being actively dismantled, some could resist, but the OPM is in serious peril. They are basically planning to replace everyone and building a new state apparatus.

I do not approve of the illegal way in which they're doing it, but I have long wanted to decrease the size, intrusiveness, and cost of government. I want government to be more nimble. I have hope that they're doing this because an illegal blitz, sold to the masses who pay little or no income tax as being anti-anti-bigotry, is the only practical way to shrink government. That's me hitting the copium hard. It could be an effort to consolidate power.

We’ll see what he’ll do once he sees that Canada won’t do an Anschluss.

If Trump threatens Canada militarily, you will be proven right, and my hope will be proven to be unjustified.

They did it here in Canada to the trucker protestors.

It reinforced the need for non-central-bank digital currencies.
I never understood exactly what they did? Did they freeze all their assets, including stock portfolios, lines of credit, etc? I would have thought that would never happen in the US, but who knows. I wonder if they could freeze access to offshore accounts, e.g. Switzerland. I'm guessing Canadians affected by the freeze have moved a lot of their assets to offshore accounts now.

I think the most likely the despotism and the scenario @HK65@sopuli.xyz describes will not happen. The thing is if they do happen, they are disastrous. It's similar to how in Russian roulette you'll probably be fine. I don't know what level of risk justifies a armed rebellion. At this point an armed rebellion would turn a disaster that might happen into a certain disaster.
I am not saying to appease them or not protest. I am still hoping the US can be saved without violent rebellion.

Protests are not going to work when they’re holding all our money,

To my knowledge they haven't frozen any critics' assets, although I put nothing past them.

We don’t want to do it but it is the only way to deal with a bully. I think tariffs are bad for the people of the country that levies them. If another country puts a tariff on things my country sells, I'm for unilaterally disarming. Let the other country's people enjoy the dubious industry-protecting benefits of that tax, and let us enjoy the benefits of buying whatever is a good deal.

I think it's nonsense to think that when people freely trade money for goods, the person receiving the money "wins" and the person receiving the goods "loses". They made the trade because it was good for both parties.

I'm American, and we're pursing the opposite of what I think is good policy.

This is one of the first claims I remember reading about Star Trek on BBSs linked by FidoNet. It's funny how it hasn't changed.