it's more like the circus hired psychotic villains because they thought it would be funny. The state of things is a direct result of a functioning democracy.

A car rolling down a hill is 'functioning' too, despite the fact that its brakes are out and it's on fire.

I prefer a more exclusive definition.

Hmm, if the brake system on a vehicle designed to have working brakes… doesn’t work, no it is not functional.

The US is hardly a functioning democracy. You have two bad choices every four years who can only get elected if they have billions to spend on campaigning.

Truly in the sense that democracy is susceptible to demagogues, of which Trump is certifiably one

I'll just comment on the tariff part. They're bad because they're hostile and they damage economic relationships. Maybe you don't care about economic relationships with China but should very much are about Canada and Mexico, the only countries that border the US! They can find other trade partners, and military alliances are now damaged for a long time. Even if the policies are reversed and a new administration takes over, the US is now an unreliable and unstable partner to have. Tariff's can be a useful trade tool, done for economic reasons and after trade negotiations over time. But consider all the demeaning and hostile remarks about Canada, Mexico, their leaders and their people by the current administration, that is the context where tariff's are being applied.

Make no mistake, the current administration is anything but. They are systemically destroying the nation, so that they can forever rule over the ashes that remain. In the mean time, some groups of people will enjoy the warmth of the nation burning down. I desperately wish I was speaking hyperbole, being emotional or exaggerating.

Oh, and what is bidenomics exactly? he hardly passed any controversial economic policies. Just lots of investment on america and creating jobs, infrastructure,etc.. nothing remotely partisan, except the climate focused stuff maybe.

What demeaning comments were made about Canada and Mexico? As far as I know from reading the comments here, they're just part of Trump's aggressive negotiation tactic - same as the tariffs that are currently being applied.

Perhaps you've missed that Trump and several administration officials keep referring to Canada as the 51st state, stating in no uncertain terms that their goal is to annex Canada. Canadians have definitely not missed that. https://www.westernstandard.news/news/trump-dhs-sec-straddle...

Let me ask you a question. What does the US House of Representatives look like with a new 41 million person state? How about the Senate? I’d say that it’s very blue.

Does Saipan vote in American elections, I forget?

The 25p tariffs on ca and mx are not reciprocal.

It’s hard to have optimism when there seems to be no plan to make the economy better, only destruction

Are his voters at least in marginal numbers realizing whats happening and possibly about to happen, to US itself and globally? Or its all fine and going on as expected for them.

We get 0 on-the-ground info here in Europe on such topics (at least not in mainstream media), its all bombastic shit like he still runs his reality show and not directly affecting lives of hundreds of millions with each tweet/outburst. I'd expect massive difference in above between cities like SF, LA, NYK compared to midwest or bible south for example.

My MIL lost half the people she works with in the federal cuts. She’s been a massive massive trump supporter (wears maga hats in public, even in San Francisco, has a painting of trump in her house, etc), but the cuts shook her. She told me “I thought they were only going to fire the people who didn’t do anything!” And “but what we do is so important, why are they firing us?”

Now she’s very worried because her, her husband, and all of their children except my wife work for the federal government. And one of her son’s entire life is funded by Medicare (which republicans have made clear they want to gut to make room for tax cuts).

Of course, they blame musk and not trump, but even for diehards like them I’m starting to see some cracks. They still have “faith” in the Donald but I think it’s a shaky faith now. If things get bad enough people really may stop liking him. We’re not there yet tho.

Sunk cost fallacy for a lot of them, to be honest. I’ve heard people criticize his big policies (trade war, trying to be isolationist and etc.), but still say “still better than what the alternative could become”.

The other side of the aisle did not do themselves any favors with the "bitter clingers," "basket of deplorables," or "hell yeah, we're gonna take your AR" type comments. That was all red meat that fed right into people being able to radicalize folks into "vote for Trump, or the other side is coming for you and your way of life."

People on the right were literally calling 2016 a "Flight 93 election," i.e. "storm the cockpit before they can fly this plane into the Capitol," and it was because they feared Hillary would nominate a Supreme Court supermajority that was the opposite of what Trump did, and that it would bury their way of life. You can agree with this or think it's horseshit, but either way you still have to start by understanding that it's what many voters believe. The dismissive condescending comments that Obama and Clinton got caught making, combined with the backlash to George Floyd being murdered in the form of riots and extreme left-wing viewpoints getting aired fed straight into fears in red states that they were going to get bulldozed unless they struck first.

It's hard to say as conflicting reports float around out there. Some things claim his approval rating is increasing, and others say it is decreasing. And of course there's plenty of stories out there about people who "regret their vote" or whatever, but you can also find stories about upset people who then say they'd still vote for him.

I can't find it now but I did see something the other day where a question like "Are you happy with the job Trump is doing" had an overall positive response. BUT, asking "Are you happy with topic X" for a variety of X like economy, DOGE, etc and most of them were quite negative. I suspect this is closer to reality: people aren't happy but they're not blaming him.

My previously mostly sane center right family members have all been spouting Russian talking points after the blow up in the Oval Office.

I think the information environment of most Americans that do not actively seek out true information is just cooked.

I can give you some anecdata on this. Just yesterday I was talking with my Trump-supporter family members, and they literally had no idea he'd been convicted for felony fraud - they thought his only charges were related to the sexual assault accusations from E. Jean Carroll and they hand-waved those away with gusto anyway.

So to answer your question: It's all fine and going on as expected for them, and if you tell them otherwise you're labeled an alarmist crybaby democrat.

I think that's unlikely. My theory is that the voters will prefer to blame immigrants, Muslims, DEI, the Woke mob, Democrats, trans people, Antifa, and RINOs in approximately that order.

If Hitler could convince 65 million Germans that all their problems were caused by a million Jews, Trump should be able to manage something similar.