[Arainach]

It bears repeating: for everyone who insists that the US Executive Branch isn't compromised by our enemies, what different actions would someone who was compromised and trying to speedrun the destruction of American power, influence, and hegemony have taken?

[helterskelter]

I just said it in another post today, but I had a family member recently die from colorectal cancer when they were on a list for a new treatment at Yale, which was canceled because of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. The doctor who was to perform it literally said "I want you to think of this procedure in terms of a cure" when they were stage 4 for like 7 years at that point.

BBB slashed funding for cutting edge medical research which would not only save, or at least prolong lives, but also generate revenue for this country -- when we export our IP, or when people come here for some of the most advanced medical procedures. To say nothing of immigration policies which actively repel some of the best and brightest and may be leading us to an actual population decline.

Sure we weren't perfect by an stretch before, but it feels like we're getting drowned in a toilet at the moment.

[Cabal]

> The doctor who was to perform it literally said "I want you to think of this procedure in terms of a cure"

I have difficulty believing a medical professional would say that.

[jimbokun]

This suggests that our executive branch has fallen under the influence of foreign agents through blackmail or coercion of some sort.

Whereas the simpler and more obvious explanation is that the US President shares the general outlook and values of America’s enemies and thus naturally acts in their interests without persuasion needed.

[csomar]

You are massively under-estimating the destructiveness of idiocy. It's more destructive than whatever your enemy or a compromise could achieve.

[specialist]

I learned from playing Diplomacy that a competent enemy is preferrable to an incompetent ally.

[eunos]

> US Executive Branch isn't compromised by our enemies

Or maybe the rots are within? It's tempting to trivially assume it's outside. I'd say they are mostly come from within and beyond Trump admin.

[e40]

I do agree this is a possible explanation, but there is another:

The avarice and narcissism of our leader, along with all the yes-people, grifters and people devoid of ethics and morals he has assembled around him have led to the current situation. Also, it appears a lot of people in the administration are not very smart, but think they are. We can never underestimate the damage that can be done by a stupid person that thinks they are smart. In this case, these people have incredible amounts of power.

[andrewflnr]

... I can think of a lot actually. They could try to unilaterally reduce the nuclear arsenal and other military power, for instance. They could close down foreign military bases. A lot of those would even be more left-coded actions. A popular left-ish politician who had a platform of reducing foreign involvement wouldn't even need to hide their agenda.

I get the angle, and I'm not even ruling out that some of the BS is sabotage, but in the big picture it's too easy for me to believe the current admin really is that stupid.

[Terr_]

> seem evil for enforcing immigration law

When people living otherwise-blameless lives begin getting accosted, beaten, or killed on suspicion of the legal equivalent of unpaid parking tickets, then yes, the new enforcement occurring is indeed "evil."

When they start willfully breaking all sorts of other major laws and violating court-orders to enforce the minor law, yes, that's usually evil.

When rationales last-used to jail innocent Japanese-Americans into US "internment" camps during World War II are being resurrected to declare entire nationalities as foreign invaders, yes, that sure looks a lot like the evil it was before.

When people are being snatched off the streets and then shuffled constantly between prisons purely so that their own lawyers cannot find them to challenge their detention, that is evil.

When you're not just normally deporting people under US law, but start sending them--without trial or even charges--to rot for the rest of their lives in an El Salvador torture-prison run by a paid dictator accomplice, YES, that's f***ing evil!

____

I could continue, but I won't, because those should be ample examples for normal Americans who've had over a year to watch all these well-documented things happen... and there is no amount will be enough for someone that secretly likes the evil when it happens to others.

[autoexec]

The majority of Americans support immigration enforcement, the majority does not support how it's being done. Enforcement of the law is not the evil you see people being upset about.

[Sparkle-san]

Other comparable countries also having roving gangs of secret immigration police that are unbound by the law and the only departments responsible for overseeing them are managed by the same boss that controls them?

[Arainach]

Who said anything about immigration?

Let's start with abandoning science funding, abandoning investments in and tax credits for renewable energy sources that are the future. Then there's applying political pressure to academic institutions to drive even more researchers away, abandoning the civil service and science/reason-based governance. Move over to the medical sector and put a dangerous anti-science nut in charge, kill off funding and research.

You pull out of international organizations, trade deals, and treaties. You throw temper tantrums and tariffs around, flip flopping day to day and making it impossible to predict the costs of doing business. You antagonize the rest of the world and give them a constant stream of reasons to stop doing business with you, leaving you isolated, weaker, and poorer.

Then, sure, let's go briefly to immigration. America has been great because it has been where all the smartest people want to be. Our political and academic environment caused the smartest people around the world to want to be here, and the US benefited massively from their contributions and inventions.

So you build a culture demonizing anyone not a specific shade of white. You destroy visa programs. You send thugs to universities to harass people and make them unwelcome. You tell students and researchers who went home to see family that they can't come back to the US. Then you send thugs into cities to terrorize and murder people. So you give all those brilliant scientists even more reason to leave the US, take their contributions with them, and never return.

That's how you kill America.

[hluska]

In no stretch of the imagination does this even answer the question. I get that you wanted to make a political point, but this is remarkably weak.

[direwolf20]

Idk, I think a much more effective way to destroy the US would be to send armed gangs through the streets and have them kidnap people from their houses at random.

That would cause far more destruction than merely telling people you were doing that without actually doing it.

[foxglacier]

You clearly haven't thought about that question at all yourself and are just repeating mindless political rhetoric. Why even say it? Other people have proposed obvious answers. I hope you learn those answers and stop asking.