What really is going on in the US right now? Is this worse than the first term? Why're legal people being kicked out? When is it time to really consider leave?

FYI you're not going an unbiased answer to any political question on ml
- IMO I think this is a bad take that is spread around. I get worse takes on LW than ML or LG. Yes bad takes exists on the latter two but I rarely encounter them outside of more apologist-like coms.
- Hard to get an unbiased answer on a question of subjective experience.
  I've seen a new vim and vigor in my local Houston PD's crusade to ruin the lives of homeless people. I have to assume folks in ethnic and religious minority neighborhoods, LGBTQ communities, and anyone easily designated as "Woke" are have it particularly hard right now.
  But if you're just some white-cheeked, white-collar, middle-class schlub, things haven't meaningfully changed.
  They should ask again when we're in the grip of a Bird Flu epidemic or another Tech Sector crash. But for now, life drags on in America not all that much different than under the last regime.

Is it worse than the first term?
Yes. Trump didn't think he would win the first time. He had no plan for what do do if he won, so he leaned hard on institutional knowledge of party stalwarts and military people, along with a few trusted insiders from his campaign, but they didn't know how Washington worked.
This time hard core ideologues from the Heritage foundation were ready. They are tired of democracy and limits on the power of wealth so they are dismantling it with project 2025.
Why are legal people being kicked out?
Trump has only a few actual policies he cares about and one is to stop brown people from imigrating to live in America. This is also a test case of his own power. Because if he can disappear green card holders without due process he can also get rid of citizens that are a threat to his power.
He is getting ready for a night of long knives and a krystalnaght.
When is it time to consider leaving?
Depends. If you are an anti Israel green card holder with a history of organizing college campus protests you should probably pack your bags and make your way to the nearest airport.
If you are a citizen or permanent resident you have to make a judgement about what you are giving up, where you can go, and how likely we are to go full 3rd Reich.
I will say that if we declare war on Canada or Mexico, you should probably make your way to the other one unless you want to stay and fight it out.

What really is going on in the US right now?
Fascism
Is this worse than the first term?
Yes
Why're legal people being kicked out?
Fascism
When is it time to really consider leave?
November 6th, 2024
So people don't think I'm just fearmongering, here's an in-depth explanation: the Republican party learned from their mistakes during Trump's first term, and not only figured out how to use him, they had a plan for dismantling the government from day one. Unfortunately, their plan was to keep people focused on survival while they took away any public services, leaving only the parts that could be abused to enrich the billionaires.
As usual, they utilized divide and conquer techniques to keep the working class fighting amongst themselves about irrelevant issues like gender and immigration and the price of everyday goods. Now they have to make good on those promises to keep their supporters from turning on each other, but since they cannot control the price of goods through sheer will alone, they have to focus on purging the scapegoated groups.
They achieve this by attacking anyone and everyone who is an immigrant or visitor, documented or not. They are not trying to enforce the law, they are abusing the paramilitaristic forces they have control over (ICE) to see how much they can get their will done through sheer force.
The reason this works is because everyone in ICE "just follows orders" assuming if anything they did was out of line, someone else would stop them/clean up their mess. Our society operates on one big ethic of "that's Someone Else's Problem™." But here's the thing: you need enforcers willing to enforce the law, the system of checks and balances, at every level. Right now, there is no one arresting Trump for violating court orders, and everyone's unsure if they even can because the Supreme Court ruled Presidential Immunity (the president can break most laws if he believes it's "for the good of the country").
On top of all that, the bureaucrats who would usually stand in the way of such gross misconduct are being purged. The red tape is being burned to the ground. The peons are keeping their heads down, "just following orders" as aforementioned, and the high ranking officials with weight to throw around are either following their duty of office—resigning if they refuse to follow orders—or being replaced with sycophants. The sum total effect is that there's no one within the hierarchy who will stand up to abuse of authority.
As such, the presidency is free to do whatever he wants.
And he has. The other lesson The Party learned was to just unleash a constant barrage of policy. No matter what doesn't pass, there's a flood to hold back, so some is guaranteed to get through—and every bit that does is that much more power centralized in his office... And the dam will break eventually.
Meanwhile the liberal "opposition" will continue to waffle for three reasons: one, they're still trying to play by the rules which have long since been discarded by the GOP; that only serves to benefit their opponents who use that against them. Two, they are easily manipulated by rhetoric, thinking they can bring GOP over to their side by engaging in the same rhetoric as the fascists (e.g. "so much for the party of 'Law and Order'"); what they fail to comprehend is that the rhetoric fascists engage in is meaningless to the fascists, it is just a smokescreen: to a fascist, everything is about power, and words are just empty containers that you use to manipulate people into doing what you want (a form of power). Three, ultimately the Democratic Party is also in the pocket of billionaires, their interests are the same as the fascists: concentrate power into the hands of the wealthy, privatize the government.
If you can, leave. It doesn't get better until after the fascists are violently deposed. They will stop at nothing less. Unfortunately, they have all the people who bekieve in doing that kind of thing on their side, so it's only going to get worse.
And by worse, I mean that they're already making plans for camps. They will market them as firstly "work retreats to heal lost souls," or some similar rhetorical mixture of corpo-jargon and christianity (the 2 major ideologies) to justify rounding up anyome they deem a useless eater. Or maybe it will juat be called "Prison Labor" (which is really just constitutionally allowed slavery) and they will find whatever excuses to criminalize people they don't like.
First it will be "illegals," then it will be the homeless, addicts, the mentally ill, terrorists, or anyone else that is labelled a threat to society. And collateral damage will be acceptable (and encouraged) this whole time; so sometimes legal immigrants will get scooped in, or trans people who are clearly mentally ill by virtue of being trans, or anti fascists because antifa is a terrorist organization (because big brother tells me it is), or people who express leftist ideals publicly, or gun owners who haven't pledged allegiance to The Party, or PoC with non-european names, or autistic people, or disabled people (because their secretary of Health and Human Services has "proven" that that disability is fake) or anyone else they believe they can "fix" by forcing them into labor.
And when those people don't magically get "fixed" by labor, well... they're just taking up too much space, aren't they?
And the public will largely have one of three reactions: 1. "He can't do that, that's illegal! Someone (other than me) should really do something about that! I hope they do sooner than later... Anyhoo, better get back to struggling to survive in the worst recession since the Great Depression"; 2. "Well, business as usual, as long as it doesn't affect me"; 3. "Hahaha FUCK YEAH, FUCK THOSE [bunch of slurs] AND ESPECIALLY THOSE [more slurs]."
If you can, leave. If you can't... Well, read up on your rights and practice as many as you can.
sent from the concentration camp I'm now fated to because writing all this will probably labelled an act of treason by The Party.

This is by far the worst term than the first.
Massive Federal Firings
Musk openly doing the Nazi Salute
Trump/Musk claiming 'domestic terrorism' over Tesla vandalism and protests
Trump just left and right, trying to stall, threaten, intimidate and insult judges that ruled against him
Trump and his cronies ignoring all sorts of federal orders from judges
Trump attempting to pull the biggest deportation operation seen in history
Trump actually starting tariff wars with Canada, Mexico and other countries
Trump and Vance talking down the President of Ukraine
Trump siding with and favoring Russia/Putin
Trump and cronies dismantling federal departments
Trump telling everyone to 'shut up' about egg prices
He is just going on a infantile tyrannical rampage on everything that threatens or demeans him. Not the country, not the people, just him. He and his couch-fucking friend Vance and his boytoy Musk.
Oh and people always threaten to leave all of the time when someone they voted for didn't get office and the opposing side did. Always happens every election. It's all nothingburgers until people actually do leave.

If you want to know where it is going in the short-term, have a look at Orban's Hungary. Rightwing populist voted in and then got to work at dismantling the state. Control judges appointments, curb the power of the judicial branch, silence critical media, pick a group to scapegoat, buddy of Putin. The list goes on. Democracy only works if people defend it and from my outside POV there aren't enough people doing that just yet. It's worse in Trump 2.0 because this time he came prepared.
There are already horror stories about people being caught up wrongly in the deportation efforts. That's using very mild language for very traumatic events here. It's come to a point where erstwhile allies of the US are advising their citizens not to travel to the US. Because they have lost faith in the rule of law there. Take a minute to let that sink in.
If you're a US citizen, resist. The free state is under threat. If you're an immigrant, be careful.
- If you’re a US citizen, resist.
  Easier said than done. There's no clear point of leverage for people to lean into. The cops are ruthless. The liberal opposition is toothless and lame. People don't really trust one another. There's a strong attitude of "I'm just going to keep my head down until it blows over". But we're not even really in a crisis per-say, just yet. Trump's a fucking menace, but the economy is strong and we're not currently at the peak of a pandemic and there's no hurricane about to decimate a random corner of the Gulf/Atlantic Coast.
  I suspect we'll see more points of galvanized opposition when the winds change. But for now, looks like Americans are going to lay back and think of England.
- horror stories about people being caught up wrongly in the deportation
  You mean people who are caught up rightfully in deportation are treated with dignity, right? Right?
  
  No. The label horror story, sadly, applies to all. I suppose I could have worded it differently, had I expected the least generous interpretation being applied to what I wrote.

Half of my friend’s family is gone and ICE is inching toward gestapo territory. It’s pretty bad
- I'm not sure 'inching' is the right word here. 'Speedrunning' might be more suitable
- Were they legal? No judgement from me either way, but if they were make sure you include it when you tell people. I have some folks I am scared for and everybody's argument to me has been "They're only taking felons" or "they're only taking illegals"
  I don't think so. So if you see them take somebody who has papers tell everybody.
  
  The issue isn't whether or not their documented or felons, it's that they didn't have a trial so they didn't have a chance to prove either way
  
  Illegalish, no criminal history, quite possibly the kindest folks you’ll ever meet, formerly on track for citizenship until trump. What really got us was how quiet it was. Just gone one day. No lawyer, no calls. They simply ceased to exist for a time
  I hope never to have to report deportation of a legal citizen or resident, but I will.
  
  there's no such thing as an illegal human being.
  
  They might not know all the details. Even between people who've known each other for a long time it's not common to know their precise legal status, and that goes double for family/friends of a friend.

Think of it this way: the first term was reconnaissance. He and his team were probing all the weak points and creating the conditions for the second term, doing things like getting the right supreme court judges in place that now he's personally almost untouchable from a legal standpoint.
This second term is the main event so to speak, and I don't think the US should expect the pace of change to slow down any time soon.
- I think that credits them with a little bit too much conscious attention. I think they were surprised to even win and kind of bumbled through and were able to retrospect with the look back at that experience and think about what to do once they had a second chance. So I did set up a second term, but I don't regard that as having been part of a singular intentional plan. Like another commenter in this thread said the dog caught the car in the first term.
  
  I hear this kind of thing a lot and I've been tempted to think it myself. But ultimately I have come to the conclusion that twice is too often to be a coincidence and this kind of thinking has been too complacent.
  There's this whole alignment of the billionaire class taking long term, unveiled and direct ownership of the government sphere, in the most powerful, militarised country in the world, in a way that was even unprecedented under neoliberalism. And it really depends on how little backstabbing goes on between them which determines how long this show will go on for. It might be 5 years, it might be 500.
- Definitely, this does feel like “the empire strikes back” hopefully we have enough people to resist and stand up so we can enjoy the return of the Jedi.

They way I explain it is this. Trump's first presidency, the dog caught the car. No one expected, least of all the dog. They had no plan, no idea what to do with what they had.
This time around, they were ready for the impossible, ready to break as much shit as possible, and they have the knowledge of what happened in the first term to give them context on what worked and what didn't.

Nazis are taking over. That is what is going on.

If you have the opportunity and resources to get out, go. Things are only going to get worse.
- I hate to break it to you but you can leave the US all you want but unless you get off this planet entirely you will not escape anything.
  Fascism is coming for the entire world not just the US. It’s already well in progress as you can see many other countries following suit.
  
  "the entire world"

i've made a list of the things that i care most about where i live and are different from the rest of the country and have decided that i need to have my emigrations plans in motion when the first of them is made illegal.
- As someone in the process of leaving, get it in motion NOW. Emigrating takes time. This goes for anyone looking who is at the current situation and weighing their options:
  Visas and immigration laws aside, there's a lot that goes into leaving the country. Get all your finances in order, make a plan for how to move your stuff, and think about how long it would take you to trim down literally everything you own to just the essentials. If you have family or pets, this goes for them as well. Start going through your stuff and seeing that you can donate. Get as much stuff packed as you can. Make a bugout bag, fill it with at least 1 week's worth of clothes and all your essentials (I keep ~3 months of meds in mine). Get a small firesafe and put all your legal paperwork in it. Stockpile your prescriptions if you can. Make sure your car is ready to drive if you're driving, otherwise have a plan to get rid of it. Withdraw cash in small bills.
  You want to be as prepared as possible
  
  i'm had to move 15 times over the last 20 years and it's taught me to live with only the bare essentials. i also have legal entitlement to my target country so i'm not sweating the paperwork either.
  the only things i'm worried about are the regime change the united states is going to impose on my target country and my pets since they're the most important things in my life.
- What sort of things?
  
  everything that has nothing to do with creating a family and moving with them to the suburbs.
- Embrace the differences.
  Where we moved there are no shops open Sunday and it is soooooo refreshing NOT to have every whim available 24/7.
  
  if only it were so simple as shops on a sunday and they're making everywhere homogeneous; this and a handful of other cities are the only unique ones.

A lot of innocent people are being/will be displaced unfortunately. [He] wants to undo everything that his predecessor has achieved. It is never too late to consider leaving.
- Biden and Dems pushed hard against immigrants and beefed up ICE.
  
  A lot less than Trump. They allowed more and mostly it is about the legal ones and refugees. You don't just extend a hand and then retract it when it is convenient. The ones that actually committed crimes, other than coming into the country undocumented, can go.
  Edit: I meant it was less people deported at once like this. Over the course of his term is different than all at once, and what about legal residents and those who have/are going through the process. I apologize for the confusion.
- I just don’t get going after innocent people
  
  Catching real criminals is hard. Pretending innocent people are criminals is easy.
  
  To create fear, distrust, confusion, anger, distraction, and validate the base's hatred of whichever "outgroups" are being blamed for everything. If you fit a profile, they put you in a box. Doesn't matter if you're "innocent" or the reason for the government fucking with you or deporting you is a mistake anymore because agencies like ICE and DHS are so deeply compromised as to not follow any rule of law.
  This shit happens all throughout human history in dictatorships and fascist states.
  
  Despite the rhetoric there's not enough criminals to mass deport.
  
  fascism requires targets to distract and divide the populace
  
  Because he’s a cunt
  
  There are entire industries that profit from people being imprisoned. The more people incarcerated in a location, the more that location can charge.
  All other things aside, there is very much a profit motive.

The US is under the impression that it won the Cold War against Russia.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62zm4eqvp7o
In an interview with pro-Trump journalist Tucker Carlson, Witkoff (Trump's special envoy to Ukraine) praised Vladimir Putin, saying he "liked" the Russian president.
"I don't regard Putin as a bad guy," he said. "He's super smart."
During the interview, Witkoff repeated various Russian arguments, including that Ukraine was "a false country" and asked when the world would recognise occupied Ukrainian territory as Russian.
Witkoff is leading the US ceasefire negotiations with both Russia and Ukraine but he was unable to name the five regions of Ukraine either annexed or partially occupied by Russian forces.
- The quotes you selected suggest the opposite. The US is recognizing that it lost the proxy war against Russia, and it is now willing to accept Russian terms for ending the conflict.
  
  sigh sarcasm and the internet strike again. 🫠
- There was no cold war with Russia?

His first term also started with restrictions on legal immigrants. But it’s much, much, much worse this time around.

Nothing so threatening the Democrats would block it when they had the chance.
- How would they "block" it?
  
  By not signing Trumps funding bill

I'ld say mighty parasites try to create as much chaos as they can to make their victims (the people) revolt so they can then announce some legal status of 'democratic' legitimized dictatorship. my crystal sphere doesnt show much after this, maybe creepy foul darkness, maybe its just not determined yet, but i see some cockroaches in suits thriving. but maybe i didnt look into a working crystal sphere but just into some bottle i emptied earlier, who knows ;-)

The time to leave if you're able to was in his first term.
We got out, no regrets, and we're not going back.
- Any surprises you wish you knew about beforehand that you'd care to share? Any bullshit around financial stuff, filing taxes while abroad, etc?
  
  Banks in the US really don't want to give you your money. Keep a US phone # (I think Google phone has one which doesn't kill you in charges) so you can contact them (when and if you transfer money).
  You should take a trip first to set up some groundwork, find a trusted lawyer (we have two, one is our accountant, who's also a lawyer, and another who is our immigration lawyer). They will go over all your paperwork for housing rentals, they should know people who can get your health insurance set up -you probably will need private health care +repatriation insurance until you are a permanent resident. Cost is around €50/per person per month, paid monthly (for us).
  Downsize as much as possible, do not put 'artwork' on you customs for for import as they will hold up the works. )paperwork, personal clothing, household goods, etc. vague and mundane.
  Your first year RENT a place in a town you choose, you will know in that year if that's where you want to be or not. Our experience was we got a place for summer (3months) then checked out all the towns along the coast and kept coming back to where we settled, so we found a place for a year there, then COVID.... then found the place we are in the process of buying.
  Walkable city, good infrastructure to travel by bus/train, 2 airports 1hr away in opposite directions. We don't drive anymore & bike everywhere, and live 500M from the Mediterranean Sea.
  So yeah... being by the water is absolutely worth any issues we encountered.