To be really glad I don't live in America right now

[AnonymousBleep]

I really feel for ordinary Americans. It's bad enough on this side of the Channel, hearing daily about Trump's latest petty, spiteful, idiotic bullshit - that rant against the Bishop who asked him to have mercy on immigrants, the ridiculous and insulting attempt to blame 'diversity' for the plane crash - but living under it must be so much worse. And heaven help you if you're LGBT or a woman. Or an immigrant. Or not white. Or poor. Or anyone else Trump and his freakshow of a government despises. I moan about the UK all the time, like everyone else who lives here, because god knows it's far from perfect, but at least we don't have a government in charge who is trying to strip huge swathes of the population of their rights and citizenship.

Geez you do like to exaggerate don't you?

You're entitled to your opinion, obviously
😂 Thanks very much, that’s very gracious of you. I’ll try to express it wisely.

How am I refusing to engage with the opinions of others? I'm engaging with you right now. I didn’t see what the other poster said that was deleted. As it was against the talk guidelines I’m guessing it wasn’t a hearty endorsement of your opinion. But you just shut them straight down with a ‘Reform Supporter Alert’ rather than engage and debate what they were actually saying. And you acknowledged yourself that you didn’t think it was worth engaging with Farage. It’s a blinkered response

I don't agree with you - not on any point you've made so far, including how valuable it is to engage with Trump or Farage Well that might be because you’re not listening to what I’m saying. I don’t think it’s ‘valuable’ to engage with either of them. Neither have got the best interests of the general public at the heart of their policies and nothing of value is going to come from either of them. What I’m saying is that it’s dangerous not to engage with them. When you shut people down without listening to what they have to say, or without trying to understand the reasons for their opinions, because you think their opinions are bigoted or stupid or just plain wrong, then you leave them feeling like you don’t understand what they’re dealing with and that you don’t represent them. I think both the Tories and Labour and the Democrats are all guilty of doing this. And what has happened? A pair of self serving little toads have come along and filled that gap, spouted a lot of nonsense, promised that they care about everyone’s concerns and now one of them has been elected President and the other is quickly gaining traction in the UK. And all because of the arrogance of our politicians and their supporters that anyone who doesn’t agree with them isn’t worthy of consideration. Literally all they would have to do is debate Farage and pick his policies apart. Show him up for the windbag that he is. It would be a very easy thing to do because there’s no real substance there. But they won’t, because they are so convinced that he isn’t worthy it and that he’s just a bigoted old fool. And then when he takes seats from Labour in the next election, you’ll be shocked and wondering how it could possibly have happened.

The latter wouldn't have got the traction he has now if institutions like the BBC hadn't insisted on 'engaging' with him - in fact, disprortionately so, given his minor status as an ex MEP, particularly during Brexit. He was given a platform he hadn't in any way earned and exploited it 🤦🏻‍♀️ If you think Nigel Farage wasn’t going to create his own platform then you’re fundamentally misunderstanding the very nature of the man. And this goes back to the thrust of my argument. You cannot ignore people like him and Trump and not expect there to be any consequences. They are filling the space that the left and the right think is beneath them to acknowledge.

There is an awful lot of that going on on this thread.

What was that about the handmaid's tale? Posted unironically whilst bemoaning the restoration of women's sex based rights and boundaries!

The hypocrisy!

My two closest friends are American. And live, now, back in America. Both have lived in the UK and follow UK news closely. Both are looking at how they can move back to the UK.

One works for a non profit providing training for disabled adults to get them into work. Thanks to Trump, this week, because disability is a DEI characteristic, she has had to close down her linkedin and 'work based' social media as she has been receiving death threats. She is likely to lose her job, as funding has been taken away from them. She is struggling to find a women's health centre who can fit her IUD as funding has been removed from anything even vaguely linked with abortion in her area. The other was hoping to have another baby in the next couple of years, but it likely the scant maternity relief they receive will be removed. She also needs to have IVF, but the centres near her have also, previously performed abortion, and so aren't accessible anymore. She also works for a federal agency, and so, as a woman, her job is at risk as she may have been a DEI hire (she works in a male dominated area, but has two Phd's to her name so was not hired due to being a woman! But she will be losing any work protection she currently has). It is also an area that Trump is against, shown by leaving the Paris accord.

But at least they won't have to race against trans women.

Ah so only some women matter, the ones with the right jobs?

The girls who had to lost out on lucrative college scholarships to go to university to males, don't matter?

Isn't it a shame the Democrats were hellbent on ensuring that women and girls lost those opportunties? Women could have had everything, even single sex spaces where they could have reasonable boundaries from male bodied people.

Neither party gives a shit about women. What a time to be alive.

Make that millions… it’s hundreds of thousands every month.

Which is why a lot of people outside the US have trouble grasping why illegal immigration is not just Americans being ‘big meanies picking on people of different nationalities’ and it’s a big fucking problem.

The "right jobs"? How the hell did you read that into what I posted?

I gave two examples of actual, living women, both with families to support, who are at risk of losing their jobs, their healthcare AND access to sexual health services. Women I care about.

You do realise there has never been the legal right to women's only spaces? This has not been removed.

@WilfredsPies I listed the women's rights that have protected by Trumps EOs and mentioned the sex of transwomen in a way that offended someone

I’m American but haven’t lived there in about 15 years and very grateful I don’t. I very rarely visit, maybe 3 times in 15 years. I haven’t even bothered to renew my dc’s passports last year (we are all dual citizens except for Dh) because it’s expensive and there is no chance in hell we’ll be traveling there. My friends and family are feeling very worried and despondent and quite a few looking to emigrate temporarily or permanently. It’s embarrassing.

I have family there. I'd move there tomorrow if I could - it's not easy to emigrate there legally. Maybe we could set up a one in one out swap? 😂

You said 'at least they don't have to race trans women'.

What that was doing was belittling the women who have lost out on careers in sport due to males being allowed to enter, which was the Biden first day EO when he removed title IX.

For some women, losing sporting opportunities was not about recreation, it was about livelihoods. We've heard that accounts of the swimmers who not only lost out to Lia Thomas but then we're called bigots by their coaches for objecting to having to remove swimwear in Lia's presence. Lia is male. Why should these women's boundaries be eroded in this way. Why was the Male more important than these women? Why were the women called bigots for objecting?

You have declined to comment on my broader point about the failures of the Democrats to protect women. They failed to codify Roe v Wade despite election promises and they called women who object to males in prisons or to the removal of other sex based boundaries for women bigots. Women rights didn't matter to the Democrats ultimately except, in so far as they benefit males.

If women don't exist as a sex class independent of males then we can't enforce our rights. Minimising this issue in the way you did 'at least they don't have to race trans women' harms ALL women.

It was one of the reasons that Trump won.

This idea has some merit!

@lifeturnsonadime The ongoing failure to codify Roe vs. Wade truly mystifies me. The decision was made in 1973, before most of us were born. Nixon was president ffs!

I don’t understand why such an important women’s right was kept so precarious,.

I won't argue that the Democrats made a serious mistake not codifying Roe Vs Wade. I've always despised the US in terms of governance and foreign policy and this just cemented it.

Trump is horrific to me, but not surprising. Just a natural outcome of the seeds that country loves to sow.

what better way to to energize your base year after year then to trot out the “OMG they want to take your abortion rights away’ line.

Don’t ever think the Democrat leadership actually gave a damn about abortion rights. They cared about the votes.

These are fair points, with which I agree - although I don't swerve from my opinion that Farage is where he is largely through luck. But then so is Trump. We seem to have a gift in the West for elevating turds. Only white male turds, though. There is no female equivalent to either of them.

Why are so many people (who are not white or wealthy) desperate to go there then? Surely people would be fleeing such a terrible, inhumane, North-Koreaesque hell hole, no doing the opposite?

Are there loads of people who are desperate to go there?

@saltinesandcoffeecups I’d never considered it as a political scare tactic, but I do see your point. Sadly, you might be right. 🙁

3 million last year

https://homeland.house.gov/2024/10/24/startling-stats-factsheet-fiscal-year-2024-ends-with-nearly-3-million-inadmissible-encounters-10-8-million-total-encounters-since-fy2021/

Are there loads of people who are desperate to go there?

This shows you're a bit removed from the US tbf

@likeyoubut - thank you

Because North Korea shouldn't be the baseline.
Rather Canada and Australia, both countries with higher net migration.
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/net-migration-rate/

1.35 million illegal immigrant workers work in the construction industry, 45% of agricultural workers in the US are undocumented.
What do you think will happen when those workers are gone? Those workers also sustain the jobs around them. Those workers also have no health insurance and no recorse against exploitative working conditions.
Do you honestly think Americans will start working in the fields picking oranges?

For those of you who are not aware - the Trump second term plan, AKA Project 2025, is to shrink the state so it's small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Hence the emails having gone out to 3 million federal employees offering them money to resign.

The plan is to make the structures of government collapse so that people stop relying on it for healthcare, social services, welfare, food safety regulation etc etc.

It's a radical far right neo-liberal agenda.

@saltinesandcoffeecups

"what better way to to energize your base year after year then to trot out the “OMG they want to take your abortion rights away’ line."

They do.

Trump's boasted about how his supreme court picks have impacted on abortion access across the USA. Why do you think Christian Nationalists love him so much?

The whole 'I won't pass a national abortion ban' is just about creating plausible deniability.

Meanwhile plans are afoot to put major obstacles in the way of women accessing abortion care via the use of the Comstock Act, the threat of endless 'investigations' into the safety of Mifepristone, legislation in other areas referring to fetal personhood that is planting a seed that can later be used by the anti-abortion movement to push for a total ban on abortion from conception.

I'm wondering if you know this but you're just really cynical. You sound quite educated, but you're also on mumsnet quite a lot amplifying pro-Trump propaganda and misinformation.