Is DOGE the end of America?

DOGE, not acting alone, but with Trump's rubber-stamping plus cuts of his own, could be the beginning of the end of America. How?

1. DOGE cuts $1t with another $0.5t coming from Trump near term, assuming the courts don't significantly react in time to stop him. I'm leaving out Trump's proposed tri-lateral halving of the military budgets because there won't be agreement, at least not in time for step 2.

2. While everyone is still reeling from the cuts and the courts are ponderously going through appeals and endless delays like how Trump avoided prosecution until the election, Trump and the sycophant congress will slash income taxes in the next round of budget negotiations, coming up in March with the debt ceiling, then again in October for the next fiscal year. People will be starving and homeless in greater numbers by then, our western hemisphere allies will be in trade wars, but tariffs won't be cut, because without them the deficit will get even worse, because the promised savings won't materialize once inflation crushes middle class spending power. The middle class won't save on taxes because the states will attempt to make up some of the cuts, or if not, the decline in grants, gov't services, and just simple functioning - e.g. falling bridges, breakdowns in airline safety, court backlogs, rising crime from poverty, plagues (bird flu, measles in Texas), etc. (all already happening) - will get so overwhelming that the rich will start to leave most of the country to rot, or leave America altogether.

3. Trump's federal government, or what's left of it, will be so draconian and incompetent that the states won't be able to rely on it for anything. Trump is getting sued for $80m for migrant housing costs yanked out of NYC's bank account retroactively, by NYC's Mayor Adams - despite the illegal quid pro quo prosecution abandonment that Trump's corrupt DOJ just gave Adams in exchange for help with mass deportation (another labor purge we'll miss when it's gone, and when crime from "natives" goes up to make up for the relatively small increase from illegal migrants). Eventually, the federal government will become such an unreliable partner and provide so little anyway, that states will just say "we don't need your money with all the strings and problems attached."

4. Then, the United States will become a loose federation of independent states, also split by mass migration/sorting and culture wars (abortion rights alone are ripping the country apart since the overturning of Roe and where SCOTUS comes down on mail order abortifactants to states where abortion is banned could make it even worse). The center will not hold, especially with trade wars & a rump military/FBI etc. too gutted to function (we'll be lucky to be able to fight ANY wars overseas & Europe & Canada are already talking about aligning without America, when NATO gets gutted after Ukraine falls due to Trump's surrender).

5. Once taxes are slashed, it'll be next to impossible to replace the services cut to dysfunctional status, and the oligarchs will prevent new taxes or any politician promising new taxes, from being elected. America will cede every basic research advantage - which private industry never paid for anyway. China will firmly take America's place in all innovation industries, automating everything even while their population shrinks. Attempts to meet domestic needs will mostly fail or lead to inflation and shrinking markets. Automation will mean fewer jobs will be created compared to those lost due to tariffs decreasing foreign supplies of everything from Chinese solar panels to Canadian steel. We'll run out of basic commodities as Canada and China keep them for their own use and other non-adversaries to import.

6. Elections, already unfair due to purging, gerrymandering, and not counting absentee ballots (see Greg Palast's reporting), will become like they are in Hungary or even Russia - preordained phony choices among carefully selected candidates adhering to dear leader"who will be J.D. Vance when Trump eventually leaves the scene (maybe even before his term ends if a few republicans can join the current effort for impeachment #3, or age finally enfeebles him).

7. America will basically cease to exist, breaking into fractions or regional alliances in practice, or even legally. Human rights will be on a state-by-state level. There may not be an invasion - though Alaska might fall back into Russian hands - but the world will move on without America, mostly led by a China-Russia BRICS+ block already forming.

8. For a while, the fiction of America will continue to exist, like a slowly developing fog. But eventually, it will cease to matter in the world, and old-timers will lament "how things used to be...".... if they're lucky or rich enough to withstand the rise in crime and breakdown of any social safety net. Cities will fail as faux progressives, often Muslim, take over and strip away all human rights progressives thought they were fighting for, along with false allies who really want to dominate and even kill them. The local police, unsupported at the hollowed out federal level, won't be able to control the anarchy and powerlords will take over with their own private militias.

9. No other country will come to America's aid, since America abandoned them previously and because Trump's isolationalist philosophy will happen all over what remains of the free world. World War III may happen in Europe, this time with Russia against eastern Europe, Ukraine, and threatening a neutered NATO and the EU.