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Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of May 5
This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.
This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.
There are already tildes posts about most of these, but here is a short list of things that Trump said in tweets or interviews over the last few days.
I don’t think I have to mention the absolute chaos these statements would have caused if they were done by any other president in history. Anyone else would be quickly be removed with the 25th amendment, Fox News would cover his mental decline 24x7 for at least 6 months, and in every town conservatives with Gadsden flags would be waving rifles around and calling for his head.
Sith lord. Not a Jedi. ;)
If I had the capacity to feel humour anymore about any of the dumb shit this waste of cells is doing, I would have chuckled at the red lightsaber. At least they understand that they are the bad guys.
It's also entirely possible that they just think red looks cooler.
Yes, it could just be a "how do you do fellow kids" situation where they wanted something cool but didn't know enough about it to know that only the bad guys have red, and red looks cooler. But I think I am coming to the realization that they are smarter than I give them credit for, and they like to wink at the fact that they're evil and getting away with things.
Or maybe I'm becoming more cynical, who knows.
There's a subreddit called EmpireDidNothingWrong. Its probably just memes, but also the Venn Diagram of Trump Supporters and Empire supporters is a single circle
Genuine empire supporters? Yah, definitely.
People larping as empire supporters on a reddit forum? Not sure that's as complete an overlap
Yeah, could go either way honestly. I feel like nothing surprises me anymore, which I suppose is at least in part an intended consequence of the flood of nonsense.
Jan 30 Order by Hegseth to cancel Ukraine weapons caught White House off guard
Homie just has no fucking clue what he's doing in one of the most important jobs in the world.
Investors’ risky bet: they can shrug off the trade war
It's like a catch-22. The markets need to crash for Trump to kill his tariffs. If Trump kills his Tariffs, the markets bounce back like they did during the COVID crash. The markets know this, so the markets aren't crashing. Because if the markets crashed hard enough, Trump likely kills the tariffs and then the markets would likely need to bounce right back again.
So the only thing that will make Trump kill his Tariffs would be voters and companies feeling the pain of empty shelves. By which point the markets will correct downwards, because it will be too late for Trump to undo all of the damage.
Many exporters in China seem to be routing around the tariffs:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/05/09/trump-trade-pressure-china-exports/
If that's a successful strategy at scale then we should see shipments to the US from Southeast Asia rising soon.
This was coming, really, I've mentioned it several times already. It's going to effectively subsidise some other developing countries and provide the US a shock to its supply chain. The river analogy is pretty fitting on that too, as it'll reroute some of the water and affect the ecosystem. And eventually, more water will get absorbed elsewhere while you receive less water.
It's going to be interesting to see how the Mangolomaniac will reply to this. Will he deny it, or then just go on with those insane tariffs from back in April anyway due to all the shit?
I'm wondering what specific shortages we might see. There are fewer shipping containers coming from China, but what would have been in the ones that weren't shipped?
I haven't seen any predictions yet that I trust.
Oh yeah, the specifics is impossible to say. Especially given the sheer amount of goods and kinda China produces and exports. It's like driving through plains in mist, you know you'll hit something eventually if you just hit the gas, but what?
Well, maybe. There are a lot of people who criticize consumerism, materialism, overconsumption, and waste. Suppose those criticisms are true? Maybe the average American could consume less, run up their credit card less, without really noticing? And environmental damage would go down?
Though, I don’t see how that doesn’t cause a recession. I would still expect some bad effects, but I’m also wondering if it turns out that there’s no obvious problem, outside of being bad for business in general, which itself can cause lots of suffering.
I'm pretty sure we could.
I don't understand how entire classes of stores stay afloat — stores selling "stuff" for want of a better term. Home goods.
Basically, our moeny goes to rent, bills, food. We get things when abso;utely necessary.
My computer is still on a folding table from when we moved here in 2018. I don't like it, but it's on a very long list of things I would get if I could, and nowhere near the top.
Yeah, I agree. I think there's a distinction between making your economy more circular and just crashing your consumption. If it'd just hit investors, mweh. I guess it would hurt a lot of retirement accounts given how it usually works in the US though.
That said, if the supply chains where they sustain themselves such as mechanical parts for maintenance I guess it could hurt in a physical way quickly, but I have no idea how realistic that is or how in practice that'd look like. The future is mighty difficult to predict. Butterfly effect and all.
I can't even.
NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions
The National Science Foundation's grant-making authority underpins most U.S. university research. Say goodbye to the basic research that's made the U.S. competitive and innovative.
Anyone with any basic knowledge of how academia works will know how utterly stupid of an idea this is. Anyone with any basic knowledge of how scientific progress boosts the economy will know how utterly stupid of an idea this is.
There are probably a few more but man this is going to impact shit felt especially in America but also across the globe. Research into diseases will stagger, international collaborations will also be hurt a lot - and many in other western countries will probably have to work with China and India more.
Given how difficult it is to say which research will provide more returns for any academic community, this is also taking a sledgehammer at the experience the American scientific community has...
US bill to ban Israel boycotts faces right-wing backlash over free speech
I've often wondered what goes on inside the mind of MTG. Is she a grifter opportunist through and through? Or is she actually high on her own supply? Today doesn't bring us any closer to the truth, but if I had to wager, I'd say her anti-Semitism outweighs her "free speech" advocacy. I think that counts towards the "high on her own supply" case. By my count, this broken clock should be right one more time.
Native American woman gets a chance to topple Hogg at DNC
This is from last week, but I haven't seen any follow-up on this anywhere. Obviously, it's not great timing for Hogg, or anyone else who wants to see new blood in the Democratic party. I haven't seen much about Ms. Free, either. For all I know, she could be better, but it would be hilariously on brand if the DNC propped up some ineffective, centrist, loyalist goon on the basis of her identity.
My problem with Hogg is that he was effectively glad that Congresswoman Mary Peltola lost her seat in Alaska to a Republican because she wasn’t pro-gun control. (Xitter link, sorry.)
I'm not familiar with the intricacies of that particular race, and I'm not really interested in looking that far into it. Though after a few quick googles, I came across this which might have something to do with Hogg's attitude towards that particular congresswoman. It's also worth noting that the race/tweet was from 2024. Hogg earned his post at the DNC this year. Prior to that he was an activist, best known for his stance on gun control.
In any case, I have my own issues with David Hogg and I think he is far from perfect. However, I'll stand by anyone who shows willingness to go after the (metaphorically) limp-dick geriatrics that take up seats in comfortable districts and don't offer any meaningful contribution to the fight against fascism. After the last 25 years of Democratic Party politics, it's important to have people like him in positions of power.
I definitely understand the need for new blood. The 2010 midterms wiped out a lot of prospective leaders and the strong desire for seniority contributed significantly to the party’s problems today. But there has to be strategy rather than purging. You can’t run on an identical platform in 3,043 counties and county equivalents.
I know Hogg’s background, and that the tweet was from last year, and I actually think it reflects quite poorly on the party having him in the vice chair position knowing he made that comment. Ultimately, Alaska, outside of maybe a few neighborhoods in Anchorage, is not going to be a bastion in favor of gun control. Trying to run such a candidate will not meet with much success, and this is applicable across all states and on many different issues.
David Hogg being one of the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL during the mass shooting there. He is 25 and has built much of his career on gun reform.
An isolated John Fetterman clashes with colleagues and staff as he skips his Senate duties
A couple of interesting longer reads that I didn't feel like turning into their own topics:
Naomi Klein: ‘What They Want Is Absolutely Everything’ - The Shock Doctrine author elaborates on her "end times fascism" essay.
Donald Trump Rules Over a GOP in Disarray - a nice recent history of the Republican Party.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/05/11/justice-judges-threats-intimidation-pizza-deliveries/
Ye song glorifying Hitler gets millions of views on X while other platforms struggle to remove it (NBC News)
I don't even know where best to post this. Could go in ~music or ~tech, or as a submission in ~society, but he's a two-times US presidential candidate, so why not here I guess.
Trump is threatening to put a 100% tariff on Mattel products.
So, essentially sanctioning a company from your own country? In practice this'll probably mean that the company will rely more on consumers outside the US. Between the labour cost and migration abductions, it's not going to be profitable for the company to manufacture stuff inside the US.