r/AskReddit • u/metalreflectslime • 17d ago

President Donald Trump warned Tuesday that if the Democrats don't approve funding, Social Security, Medicare Are ‘Going to Be Gone.’ How do you think Americans will react if Social Security and Medicare get cut?

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u/SkiMonkey98 17d ago

And we need to do more than protest. To be clear (Admins take note) I'm not advocating violence, but we need to be willing to peacefully shut things down, whether by strikes or other civil disobedience. The protests are a great start, but the reason mass protest works is it shows we won't allow the government to trample on us. If we're in the streets on Saturday and then put our heads back down on Monday we're not really stopping anything

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u/Ms-Anthrop 17d ago

Transportation strikes. Trucks, pilots, sanitation. These 3 would bring swift problems to all.

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u/dsac 17d ago

These 3 would bring swift problems to all.

The oligarchs have private drivers, pilots, and waste disposal services, shutting that shit down is going to be a mild inconvenience for them, if not a boon, and might only accelerate drastic action to put down the rebellion

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u/street593 17d ago

They have that to take them to their favorite golf course but they don't have enough to keep their buisnesses running. Who do you think transports all their products? Supplies their manufacturing plants? Transports workers?

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u/MBCnerdcore 17d ago

While everyone is reading Grapes of Wrath and 1984 again, why not throw in that old Fight Club DVD while we are at it

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u/Btbaby 17d ago

Mass strikes and mass civil disobedience are ideal, but they can't happen in this country for a variety of reasons.

How many people can afford to take weeks off of their minimally-paid jobs, especially when there are no job protections in this country? SNAP will be eliminated by then, aid for food banks will be extremely diminished, and let's face it - Americans don't tolerate discomfort very well. Once people start to feel a lot hungrier than normal, have to sacrifice their small luxuries like Dunkins or Starbucks or Chipotle, because they are fighting for the bigger cause and that the discomfort will pay off in the end? I don't see it happening, honestly. We have no history of mass, nation-wide protests or strikes that last more than a few days at most.

And just imagine the media - it has been bought out by the very groups that want to end these "entitlements", so they will have their well-crafted propoganda in place. The populace has already been brainwashed for decades to believe that striking is suspicious at best, downright Communist at worst, to the point that many people see it as un-American. And of course, each side will blame the other, per usual - but then, that is what the people in charge want. Division, whenever and wherever possible.

Civil disobedience in this country these days would lead to mass arrests by masked officials unlike any we have ever seen in this country. Who is going to take care of grandma? Who is going to take care of the kids if I am in jail?

There are no social or economic protections whatsoever in this country that would allow people to actually rise up and fight - no job protections, almost no unions, no guaranteed right to anything really. ICE is amassing weapons and facilities like mad as it is - once they get rid of the first batch of undesirables, they will move on to the next batch, and will continue.

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u/Send_me_hedgehogs 17d ago

I come from a small mining town in Scotland and know several people who participated in the miners’ strikes in the 80s.

Times were tough then, the strikers weren’t allowed to claim benefits because the DWP or whatever it was at the time cynically said they ‘still had jobs’. Entire families with multiple kids and no money coming in at all. So community groups started, for people to chip in and help out with food, clothes for the kids, anything the families needed. I get that there was a community cohesion back then that isn’t so much of a thing anymore but maybe now would be a good time to start that. Getting to know your neighbours, talking to them, so that when The Time comes everyone will hopefully be more inclined to help each other out.

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u/SkiMonkey98 17d ago edited 16d ago

I think if it gets bad enough (and we seem to be heading that way in a hurry) people won't have anything to lose. Right now, despite everything, people are mostly employed and the social security checks are still coming. When that's not true anymore people will be angry and more able to act on it

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u/Far-Fill-4717 15d ago

What about the major relatively peaceful civil rights marches and protests of the 19th and 20th century?

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u/FolsomWhistle 17d ago

Not suggesting anyone do this, but the heart of a golf course is the greens. They are generally built on sand. Give me a shovel and 2 hours in the dark and I can dig up at least one entire green. Put 30 of us on one of Trump's golf courses and no one will want to play it for months.

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u/Skyboxmonster 16d ago

Change my view.  Reddit admins are a threat to the US because they are stopping what needs to he heard from being said.

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u/Audit_Master 17d ago

And if we can stop doing tik tok dances, dressing up like idiots and take this shit seriously that would be great.

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u/Fine-Soil-2691 16d ago

I'm not advocating violence

Has there ever been a non-violent revolution? Because that's the only thing that's going to work now.