The various regulatory bureaucracies of the US were, until the start of last year, considered some of the best places to work as a subject matter expert in very nuanced and advanced fields. But I guess that’s too “woke”.

Honestly, the absolute cratering of institutional knowledge and competence across the entirety of our government is going to be damn near impossible to recover from.

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 1 points 3 minutes ago

If a civil war happens and the conservatives lose, America might be able to recover. Building whole new institutions, would remove a ton of institutional grift and corruption. Skilled people of integrity would be able to do their work, with less bullshit to get in the way.

[–] evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 23 points 14 hours ago

The various regulatory bureaucracies of the US were, until the start of last year, considered some of the best places to work as a subject matter expert in very nuanced and advanced fields.

These jobs have traditionally been good jobs in terms of stability, benefits (compared to peers the US which is low compared to other countries), and a lot of the intangibles like "flexibility". They usually are not highly paid (compared to peers in the US, who are paid highly compared to other countries).

I'm making this point because it's important to note that most of these subject matter experts have not been working in their positions for decades because it's lucrative, they are working there cause they've actually believed in the work they do. Think people working for the FDA, NIH, etc.

Like you said you don't recover from that. These aren't people who can give a two week notice and train someone new in that time. They make 5 year plans for training replacements like apprentices, or they switch to a part time position as a contractor to fade out as they teach the next generation. We are going to be completely rebuilding so many of our institutions for literally decades, and many people will die because of it.

[–] SGGeorwell@lemmy.world 32 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

All of this is revenge for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mortal wounds are the point.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 27 points 16 hours ago (4 children)

Indeed.

Side question: what the actual fuck was the FBI doing back when he was a candidate originally back in 2015? Because it’s an open secret orangeboi had a thing for Russia and the Russian mafia since, like, the 80s.

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 1 points 46 minutes ago

The fascist thugs did what fascist thugs do.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 13 points 13 hours ago

They didn't want to seem unfair or partisan leading up to an election.

So instead they publicly announced an investigation into Hillary Clinton a few days before the election, and then retracted it a week later...

[–] the_tab_key@lemmy.world 11 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

To busy investigating Hilary.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 6 points 13 hours ago

Yeah, and that double standard was pretty fucking deafening

[–] photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

They didn't think he was a serious candidate. By the time it was apparent he was, it was too late.

At least, that's my entirely-too-charitable theory

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 15 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

That’s great, but they also could have gone “yeah so we have this fucking HUGE dossier on him, specifically because of his ongoing involvement with elements of the then-Soviet - now-Russian - government, as well as many suspicious ties to Russian organized crime”

But no - that would have been partisan.

[–] photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

The worries of the time are all so laughable now.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 7 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

It truly is maddening how feckless our political leadership has been for fucking decades.

And neoliberalism is how it got here. I think (and I myself feel this way) that Obama getting in on “change you can believe in” and then… not changing much at all was essentially the final nail in the coffin.

A reasonably large majority of the country went from super stoked about a black candidate who was promising to meaningfully make the lives of normal people better to utterly dismayed that neither he nor anyone on the ostensible left did fucking anything to materially and meaningfully help normal people - but billionaires and corporations sure as fuck made hay the whole time.

And the other infuriating aspect is that this whole game plan of the right - yes, the overwhelming majority of the right, not just the far right - was known, visible, and predictable. It wasn’t a mystery. Political foresight would have been to realize in the early 90s, with the rise of Newt Gingrich, that this is no longer a poker game, because the right stopped playing by rational rules and norms, and just decided to go all-in on populism… and the “left” didn’t fucking care, or admit that the paradigm has massively changed.

It’s also utterly dismaying to realize that a big part of the relative political stability in the US since the end of the Cold War was based solely on the fact that the USSR was the Big Bad Adversary, and that without a common enemy, the bipolar political system we’re forced to operate in would spiral out of control.

[–] chunes@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

When I think about how the Obama administration helped the common man, all I can think of is getting rid of the pre-existing condition thing. But all that did was cause insurance companies to deny treatment after you pay them instead of before...

[–] IronBird@lemmy.world 0 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

not even really revenge, closer to punching themselves in the face.

Putin's rise was backed by the US explicitly because he agreed to hunt down any remaining communists, american capitalists/powers that be for some reason took this as a sign they had "won"...but nope, russia just switched back to doing what they've always done.

if the US would just stop fucking with countries trying to destabilize targeted parts of the world every other 4 years, maybe they would have less enemies trying to destabilize them in return.

[–] AntiBullyRanger@ani.social 0 points 5 hours ago

Killed*

[–] fyrilsol@kbin.melroy.org 13 points 17 hours ago

lol and they tried getting them back.

no chance.