USA under Trump - input please!!

Hi community,

there is a lot in the net and TV concerning the US. I do not know, if I can believe it all. Can you enlighten me (and others?): Did you life really change, are prices going up? Do you face job-loss, empty shelves...? Just to get it straight. Would be really nice to have some first hand input here.

Greetings from Spain (here nothing changes and nothing will¡ change¡... same old shit - just another day).

Life is basically normal...prices are ass but that has been since about year 2 of the pandemic.

The mouth breathing political types feel like they have free reign and media literacy is going down the tubes. Basically the same shit that has been true for years

There is a lot of fear, anger and feelings of helplessness. This seems to underlay everything where I live.

I live in a tax-mad state. They tax everything but breathing and raise them every year. So life is getting very expensive, but not the fault of Trump. Yet. But country is very divided. Even the political parties are divided within themselves, so very little is getting done right now.

Social Security has become very difficult to deal with. Prices have been getting higher which isn’t new but it seems to be accelerating.

The local economy is strongly dependent on shipping; if the tariffs mean reduced consumption (which they certainly will, since that is their purpose) then we’ll feel the hurt.

My mother works at a school, they’ve stopped all spending on new equipment because of the cuts to the Department of Educatio.

For trans people, we are having legal recognition of our identities taken away from us. I fully expect people here to be dismissive of that problem -- I've seen people here be dismissive of other queer issues in the past -- but it's a serious problem for us that puts us in danger of arrest. I'm subject to prosecution if I use the women's bathroom at any federal facility based on Trump's gender EO. I know trans people who had their passport applications modified to include their birth sex. No trans person should be forced to live in the closet. Speaking for myself personally, pretending to be a man was wildly detrimental to my mental health. Even just thinking about it activates really awful feelings in me. All the evidence, all the scientific consensus, is that living in the closet is awful for virtually all trans people's mental health. And even if a trans person were inclined to comply with this EO, lots of us couldn't pass as the genders we were assigned at birth even if we wanted to. Should I buy a binder and bind my breasts to go use the men's room? Should trans men be forced to shave and apply makeup to mask their five o'clock shadows and use the women's room?

In terms of national news, at least one Target employee -- a cisgender woman -- was fired after a cisgender man followed her into the women's bathroom to confront her thinking she was transgender and the employee used the wrong channels to report the incident. Another cis woman was confronted by cis male police in the women's bathroom because an employee thought she was trans. All of this is happening as a result of Trump and people like him emboldening that perspective, slandering us trans people as threats to cis women and to children. In reality, cisgender straight men are the demographic where almost all perpetrators of virtually all abuse of women and children, including violence towards trans women.

Other marginalized groups are faring no better, and many are faring even worse.

In terms of the local situation, I don't want to dox myself, but a lot of the problems are trickling down to local levels, and my locale is no different. Especially the situation for trans youth and trans kids, it's brutal, and that's been on the rise since Trump I and is only getting worse under Trump II. Grown adults going after trans kids. My childhood was awful, and I'm among the 40% of trans adults who attempted suicide. My attempt was at age 10 after being bullied and learning I had to bury any idea that I was a girl or wanted to grow up to be a woman. No child should have to have a childhood like I had.

I guess these two messages are my answer to your question. Thank you for asking <3

Whao - so it is much worse than I expected it to be. A little less financial problems (I guess they will come), but for me a no-go for vacation. Thank you all for the input.
What I see reminds me a little of Nazi Germany in the very beginning. Ever seen the film "Sophie Scholl". You should!!!

You aren't the only person making that comparison. In terms of visiting, I wouldn't. I really wouldn't. Really.

Just adding my voice to what’s already been said:
Yes, yes, and not yet but the shipyards are eerily quiet, so it’s coming. We don’t have a government so much as a loosely organized crime syndicate that specializes in extortion.

I recommend as strongly as I possibly can that anyone who lives in a free country stay out if you wish to return home. The enforcement arm of our regressive regime will make sure you get out of the USA, but not necessarily to the place you came from, and probably not a place you are free to leave, either. I am pained to put this so starkly, but I think it is important for free people to avoid at all costs placing any trust in someone who has a gun and a badge representing the US government.

I have talked to some government employees who have lost their jobs. Museums and other nonprofits have cut positions and have lost significant funding. This was more evident during National Volunteer Week. Several places that participated did not this year because they did not have the staff to organize it and did not want to lose revenue. Prices have continued to rise. Some shelves are looking bare, but mostly in the egg dept. We'll see how things look post July tariffs.

My friend who has a research focus on the mental health of trans youth had her funding cut and research cancelled. I'm not sure if she will have her role as a tenured professor cut.

Maternal and infant death rate is absurdly bad here. Our number are far below any other supposed first world country. But to be fair, that predates Trump. America just sucks.

I'm so sorry to hear about your friend and also the people you talked about in the previous post. And yes, a lot of America's problems predate Trump by a lot. He's certainly turning them all to to 11 and adding new ones that are truly awful.

Prices have risen, are rising, and will continue to rise. This is inherent in the modern economic model, which implies inflation. According to my own calculations based on FRED data, the annual inflation rate for the dollar is 6.5% (this is the average for the last 80 years). So, ladies and gentlemen, we have to work to keep up with inflation. It's like a carrot in front of a donkey's nose In my opinion, this is very beneficial to psychopaths in power.

This has nothing to do with Trump; it's something that exists in every country. However, as far as Trump is concerned, he has had an impact on the situation in Ukraine. With Biden, everything was more predictable, but with Trump, it became less so.