Are We Feeling Liberated Yet? - Trump thread #141

[Spandauer]

King Donald has bigly new tariffs, First Lady Elmo turns out to be ballot box poison and 'Pick Me Girl' Vance is a meanie to the EU.

(But at least the penguins on the Heard and McDonald Islands are wearing suits)

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5297058-trumpmusk-the-doge-and-pony-show-continues-trump-thread-140

Lots of people saying he is deliberately crashing economy to get interest rates cut so he can refinance the huge US govt debt at a lower interest rate.

I assume he's being plugged in by way of some Musk device each night.

I also assume the tariffs are just because Trump has always fixated on them and so is doing them. Everyone knows he has always had great business acumen and never had any failures so...

How did the April 5th “Hands Off!” rallies go, could any of you actually living in the USA kindly tell me how you feel and what you think the effects might be, if any, please? Did Cory Booker do his marathon in vain, or are people uniting somehow to try to put things in reverse? Or is it already too late?
Sorry for the bombardment of questions!

The rallies were huge and people turned out in unexpected places in very red areas.

I don't ultimately know what difference it can make or how much, but I think it's important that people are feeling energised to break out of the phase of bleakness and defeat. Ultimately, if enough people can convince the Republicans they don't like what's happening, it could make a difference (or that's what I'm choosing to believe). How much of this damage can be undone, though, is hard to say. I think it was a French politician - not positive on that - who said something like, we can't have our future riding on decisions by voters in Wisconsin every four years, which is a very understandable outlook.

https://bsky.app/profile/altnps.bsky.social/post/3lm3wqqs7522q

And, just because it makes me laugh

https://soundcloud.com/jrocklb/hey-donald-trump-i-wanna-know-why-youre-such-a-cunt-ringtone?in=user-754225178%2Fsets%2Ftaylor-remixes

Trump’s reply when asked by Fox News what his thoughts on the protests are is revealing:

According to one of the organising groups, they think numbers were over 5 million people all together. They said 2% of the population. In some towns where 400 people live, 100 were on the streets.

People were even turning out in red towns.

https://bsky.app/profile/altnps.bsky.social/post/3lm42rcsxus2q

He just didn’t really have an answer, did he? He had all day to come up with something a bit more coherent than that

Clear as fecking mud. 'Addled' doesn't even touch it.

Its the turnout in solid red towns that will make the difference.
Red farmers not getting paid to grow crops for the government
Red old folks not getting their SS support
Red retirees with trashed 401k values
Their red representatives are the ones who should get twitchy

Thank you all so much for your very interesting answers. I’m intrigued by the Red State turnouts, too. Many of the comments I’ve seen mentioned from Republican voters who turned out yesterday seem to have the SS support in mind.
The expression “Word Salad” was invented specifically for Trump a while back, wasn’t it? But anyway, he was too busy coming second in a golf tournament backed by the Saudis to worry about rallies, or the return of fallen soldiers to US soil. (I doubt that will have gone down well in some Red states, either?)

@Wallaw - thank you, that ringtone clarified for me what I heard some people at some of the rallies yesterday shouting out, I hadn’t been able to work it out till now!

A second child has died of measles in Texas, after an outbreak of almost 600 cases
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/second-measles-death-texas-child-kennedy-rcna199882

Clear as mud, then.

I saw this yesterday, my apologies if it has already been posted on these threads.

You know, if nothing else this shitshow is generating a LOT of good sarcasm.

Obvs the protests aren't going to even touch Scrotus' mindset or actions. Nor those of his cabinet (who all serve 'at the pleasure of the president'). It will also not touch any GOP senators whose terms aren't up until 2028.

But turnout in red states will hopefully cause some tightened sphincters amongst legislators who are up for re-election at the midterms. So far not much has since they still aren't showing up to speak to their constituents.

Assuming of course that those legislators truly believe that those 'red' protesters actually = votes. And we really won't know if they do = votes until 2026.

His reply is gibberish, he wants to pretend it's not happening/isn't important.

I think his last sentence is chilling. How does he intend to stop the protests?

I wonder where he saw it before, tiananmen Square maybe?

He's already threatened to cut off federal funds to Colleges & Unis that allow 'illegal protests'. Just what makes a protest 'illegal' he didn't say. I assume it's anything that disagrees with what he's doing.

Now, I'm remembering this off the top of my head, but he's also mentioned signing an EO making protests illegal 'in general'. It was more nuanced than that, but that was the jist of it.

Obvs this would be unconstitutional, but so is most of what he's doing.

Agree. It’s the red areas that make the difference. Any amount of liberals can pack the streets of NY and no one cares. But the core, the heartlands, the veterans and farmers, they will make the difference.

They will also make Trump and his cronies less able to do something Hitlery. Like use force against peaceful sovereign nations, or suspend democracy entirely.

He's already threatened to cut off federal funds to Colleges & Unis that allow 'illegal protests'. Just what makes a protest 'illegal' he didn't say. I assume it's anything that disagrees with what he's doing.

Did you see President Obama giving a side-swipe at Trump the other day in conversation at Hamilton College? It was more overt than anything I’ve seen from him since Trump’s first election. I hope there is more to come.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/us/politics/obama-trump-college-speech.html?unlocked_article_code=1.9k4.Iq2-.wGGc3OCGDs8x&smid=url-share

Apologies if I missed other posts about this, it has all been moving so fast I’ve been finding it hard to keep up at the back.

I’ve found this summary of yesterday, which I rather like:
https://bsky.app/profile/marxcomics.bsky.social/post/3lm4gc5gpr22r

Don’t upset the penguins (or the pigeons).

Lutnick: "The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones -- that kind of thing is going to come to America."