Don't forget that Trump is also talking about shifting control of Gaza to the US for some godforsaken reason (it's beachfront property and his real estate mogul friends will make tons of cash building resorts on mass graves and skeletons).
You laugh, this is literally Curtis Yarvin's (one of Elon's mentors) vision of America. A patchwork of corporatocratic fiefdoms, technically beholden to a federal government that basically only exists to be the arm of violence. The whole "no authority higher than a county sheriff" thing? Came out of his books. The idea of being "educated" will only be for the vaunted manager-class. All of us not lucky enough to be in the millionaire's club, or one of their trusted lackeys, will be lucky to know how to read beyond a 3rd-grade level, or do math beyond simple arithmetic.
The issue when we were fighting those guerillas was brutality. At the end of the day, the military command structure was worried about there being a country and people. Many countries have shown us that it is SURPRISINGLY EASY to suppress guerilla movements if you're willing to be incredibly brutal - roving death squads, for instance, or just annihilating suspected guerilla's families. While I do not think there's a LOT of people in the military willing to do that, it requires a surprisingly small amount of people willing to do it to make everyone else fall in line.
And the new SecDef can just throw out anyone who decides to get in the way or defy orders, no matter how illegal. They'll keep digging until they either scare everyone into following orders, or they'll deputize loyal GOP members as a sort of paramilitary (including their friends in the various militias).
His SecDef is also floating massive restructuring within the military, likely to make it easier for orders to flow down from the top without obstruction from people who might have pesky things like a conscience.
Pretty much this. Even with modern equipment, it would be a huge feat of engineering to fix the locks in a short enough timeframe to not have a huge effect on the world economy. Without the Panama Canal, cargo ships are gonna be burning WEEKS navigating around the Cape or coming around through the Arctic.
And the general distrust of the medical community that RFK preys upon. Don't forget she also helped publicize, and likely contributed victims indirectly to, John of God, a rapist cult leader who (by some estimates) raped THOUSANDS of women and girls.
Remember that you'd have to get at least 38 state legislatures to ratify it as well. Getting any amendments passed in the modern day is a whole circus in and of itself, and I highly doubt there's enough political capital to get such an obviously targeted amendment (since the candidate in question would've had to have two nonconsecutive terms - meaning this applies to Grocer Cleveland and Donald Trump) passed.
Nah, "get rid of FEMA" has been a thing for a long while, since before 2000. The issue is FEMA looks like a giant black box that does nothing but suck money when they aren't being actively used, at least to the layperson, and when they ARE engaged with a disaster, people don't get that it's almost always local aid networks and such that actually handle distributing things because they know their town and the people who need help better than FEMA does, so they still look like all they're doing is dumping truckloads of supplies off in the middle of the area. They also buy scary things like body bags (because natural disasters tend to wind up with a lot of dead bodies), making dumb people think they have some ulterior, sinister motives (see X-Files).
Keep in mind that the American side of the Catholic Church is almost at right angles to the RCC nowadays, to the point where some in the Church hierarchy are starting to see it as a schism.
Omnibus is also good in this vein. Ken Jennings and his friend go over some weird and obscure history you might not know about. It's not very in-depth a lot, more factoids, but always pretty cool.
In an administration run by a man who has stated he wants to be a dictator, we shouldn't assume the rule of law will hold any force, including whistleblower protections.
I'll also say that especially with the upcoming recession we might be facing, mutual aid is incredibly important. If you're in a big city, find your local Food Not Bombs chapter, or just Google "mutual aid [your area]". I guarantee you that someone has put something together in your city or county.
The answer there is easy and horrifying. Since they're "not subject to" the law of the US, you can basically declare them outlaws. The od-school use of the term, basically meaning "this person exists outside of legal sight, so anything that happens to them is entirely legal because they don't exist as a legal entity in our sight."
The end game is open season on anyone who "looks illegal".
Don't forget that Trump is also talking about shifting control of Gaza to the US for some godforsaken reason (it's beachfront property and his real estate mogul friends will make tons of cash building resorts on mass graves and skeletons).