The US economy is slow marching into recession and after the AI crash, likely depression. Under capitalism the economy always runs in cycles, up-down, boom-bust. But this time things are different. The worsening economy is a result of numerous unforced errors from utterly incompetent leadership. Rather than magically creating a boom in manufacturing, the tariffs only increased expenses for every household. They also alienated close allies and our most important trading partners. Cutting corners on food supply safety, allowing dubious imports to go un-inspected has led to more distrust in our food supply. The inexplicable cancellation of USAID contracts has hurt the global food supply. Small farmers are being crushed. The biggest error we've made in a long time was launching an unprovoked and illegal war against Iran. Who could have imagined a war with no clear aims, no discernible strategy or international support would go so badly? Now we are facing skyrocketing energy prices with no end in sight. Oh, and let's not forget we have burned through much of our Strategic Reserve to keep prices artificially low. We will soon find out if the light at the end of this tunnel is a train or a real way out.
If Trump and his enablers do indeed find a way to steal the midterms, we get the train. We will soon find ourselves in a deeply polarized society based not on ideology but rather wealth inequality. Privacy and protections once covered by the Constitution will become things of the past. The uber wealthy will retreat into enclaves and compounds separated from the rest of us. Everyone else will be on their own. AI will continue to grow and develop in an unregulated and uncontrolled manner, possibly putting all of humanity in grave danger. AI + nuclear weapons? We have all seen this movie before! Please understand that as the United States pulls back from global leadership, the number of nuclear armed states will proliferate. This leads quickly to no place we want to be. We must do what we can now to mitigate and start reversing the damage. I think the upcoming elections will be step one.
You may know already I'm no fan of the Democratic Party, at least in its current Centrist form. One election cycle will not get us out of this mess. Hopefully, we can push Democratic party further left and give people a better reason to vote than simply the lesser of two evils. I think a lot of people would get behind a party that truly supports an actual living wage, single-payer healthcare and a green New Deal to put people to work building a better place to live. For the last 10 years Democrats have only been the party of “We are not Trump” without offering what the alternative looks like. We did not get here overnight and building something better will take time.
The upcoming election can be a step in the right direction. But even if everything goes great we will still have up to two more years of dealing with an erratic, demented narcissist occupying our highest office. The most we can hope for in the short term is damage mitigation. I don't think a change to J.D. Vance would necessarily be a change for the better. Lindsey Graham has proven prophetic, Trump has indeed destroyed the Republican Party. You know it's bad when even Karl Rove abandons the party. It will have to be rebuilt from the ground up without the Culture War nonsense, nakedly serving the interests of the super wealthy and anti-science positions. Only time will tell what that looks like. Personally, I'd like to see more than two parties at the ballot box.
So where is the good news, a path to a better world and a real way out of this mess? The good news is we have created our own problems and we can create our own solutions. We know what it will take to reverse climate change but must find the will to do it. Same for wealth inequality, we need better safety nets and the restoration of power in the hands of the people, not the billionaires. As long as people are going unsheltered, hungry and living in despair, I don't think we can afford billionaires. I mean that worldwide. We do indeed have the resources to take care of everyone. It is a question of distribution. I'm not against AI. I am against a handful of tech-bro billionaires developing AI in an unregulated, unmanaged and uncontrolled manner all the while passing the costs onto the rest of us. We can do AI right with safety and ethics while being transparent. None of these changes will happen overnight or in a single election cycle. Our problems have multiplied and compounded over decades. Hopefully, the solutions won't take as long. But to stay on our current path is unsustainable and unthinkable.
