We’ve Slipped Back into that Alternate Universe
“If you think this universe is bad, you should see some of the others.” — Philip K. Dick
Took a nap, what a bad dream! Trump got elected, and the Senate was taken over by GOP! Like an alternate world! I mean, a rapist felon in the WH, a Senate that would work with Trump to make sure they can’t be voted out–that could never happen.
What? No. Come on. No don’t tell me that. I said no.
But yes. Remember 2016, when Trump was elected and we all looked dazedly at one another and said, “What alternate universe have we slipped into?”
We clawed our way back to our native universe, and stayed for four years. Now we’ve slipped into a worse universe. It’s worse because disinformation and voter shallowness has led to the GOP taking over the Senate too. And from here it looks like they’ll also get control of the House. With those tools–and yes they’re tools, aren’t they–Trump can remake America from the ground up, for Project 2025 and for the benefit of Big Oil and Big Chemical and for the evangelical-theocratic far-right.
Let’s get real. Not only will women’s rights continued to be suppressed…not only will our aid to Ukraine be halted, leading to Trump’s sugar-daddy Putin taking Ukraine and becoming emboldened to take more of Europe…not only will they repeal the Affordable Care Act–Obamacare–and whittle away at Social Security, and Medicare, and quite possibly entirely end Medicaid…not only will they end federal projects and treaties to deal with climate change, accelerating its damage to the world as we know it…Not only will Trump install RFKjr in a post that will enable the crippling or ending of federal support for vaccines, inevitably leading to a wave of pandemics…Not only will protections for gays and trans be erased…Not only will immigrants be targeted–some legal as well as illegal, especially the brown skinned ones; they’ll be rounded up, put into camps where misery and sickness will proliferate, then dumped across the border willy-nilly if they live that long…
But also–the erosion of civilized standards will extend into every federal bureau:
We can expect the privatization of the US Post Office, IRS, the FAA, and FEMA. As extreme weather will only get more extreme (especially as the new Senate and White House will end efforts to ease climate change), FEMA will be constantly challenged. You’ll have to subscribe to the new FEMA corporation: Gold memberships, silver memberships, basic memberships in FEMA. Basic memberships mean they’ll toss you some paper towels as they drive past your house. (Only slightly joking about that last.)
The new regime will radically weaken the FDA and HHS, and eliminate the EPA. Toxins in your food will proliferate and so will bacteria. Many chemicals, found to be extra dangerous, were banned. None will be banned hereafter. Ingredient listings on foods will go away. Protect yourself accordingly.
The act creating the EPA will be repealed. So will the Clean Air and Clean Water acts–inconvenient to the billionaire oligarchy. Air pollution will visibly increase; you’ll smell it more often, and it’ll burn in your lungs. Banned pesticides will be allowed, new pesticides and herbicides and other materials, normally checked for toxicity, will be no longer vetted. Expect a consequent generational increase in cancer and neurological disorders in the general population, but especially in areas already known for exposing minorities to industrial waste.
In a year or two, the Senate/House GOP and WH will create a bureau to monitor media, and eliminate “antiChristian” and “unpatriotic” media, “False characterizations of US history” (which means actual history), and media that “promotes homosexuality and trans lifestyles”. Real censorship. Maoist levels. Stalinist levels. Orwellian in scope. Hard-right “Christian” in its fixations.
With the Senate and House working with Trump, federal oversight of public schools will end, and evangelical Christianity will be imposed on public schools. Many public schools will shutter, to be replaced by private schools run by corporations and megachurches. The sciences, of course, will be largely cast aside–except for the ones useful to the corporations: chemistry, engineering, physics…But evolution? Gone. Astronomy? How does that make the multinationals any money? Gone. Zoology? Ditto–makes them no money, so…gone. NASA will be cut back to military usages and whatever profits Elon Musk. He may well be put entirely in control of it–it’d just be a sort of subdivision of his holdings.
And speaking of zoology, endangered animals won’t be endangered anymore–all protections will be removed. They won’t be endangered, they’ll be doomed.
States rights? The west coast being a refuge for progressive life? No. The new federalization–completely ignoring the previous postulates of conservatives–will be imposed over California, Oregon, Washington.
Unions? The GOP Senate and House and Trump will extend so-called “right to work” conditions to the entire nation. From there, unions will be weakened–and it’s possible they’ll be banned entirely, after the “right to work” stage. Unions being famously combative, Trump’s regime may have a military round-up of union leaders on the same day the ban is implemented.
What about the military? It’ll take some time for Trump to remove all the disloyal top brass. But he’ll install his own people. Then the purges can begin. Then come the special new federal prisons–privatized, profitable for some, of course–you can expect around 2028. It’s likely Trump will set up a special militia or branch of the Secret Service that is hardcore loyal to him alone.
You’re thinking, perhaps, that we’ll all see what’s happening and we’ll vote these people out. Why suppose that will be allowed? Consider the steady drumbeat, for years now, of Republican gerrymandering and other schemes for suppressing inconvenient voters. If they’ll do that, why wouldn’t they take this opportunity to change the Constitution? Trump has said he would like a third term. Why stop there? Voting will likely come to resemble what it’s become in Putin’s Russia. And Trump will have his third term–or President Vance will have his first and second, and third and fourth. All this in a world now diving deeper into the existential threat of climate change repercussions…
All that and more–I’ve only described the fetid scum at the top of the bubbling cauldron of societal toxins 52% of American voters have given us…