Quite simply the 1% is stealing everything we have

[orangecrush]

And lining their pockets with our money.

And they shoved their orange anus face criminal down our throats for good measure, and are probably laughing their asses off about it.

[RockRaven]

1. I was listening to a program the other day which was elaborating the characteristics

of an empire in decline, purportedly generalizable stuff across many declining empires. Amongst the list was, in not these exact words: the powerful seizing a larger portion of the pie at the cost of the size of the pie.

Whether one agrees that the list is correct or not, or that the US is an empire in decline or not... What seems indisputable by any honest person is: the Trump admin and its sponsors and cronies are destroying the US economy at large in order to enlarge their relative share.

[dchill]

2. Greed. Such a VILE disease.

[FHRRK]

3. Here is the crazy part, this isn't for the upper 1%

It is for the .01 percent.

Tax plan, policy decisions, Trump and the Repukes dont give two turds about a person making 1 million.

[MadameButterfly]

10. And of the .o1 percent, some will start falling out of high windows.

The 3 leaders of the French Revolution lost their heads to their own guillotine.
This is why Putin sits along at the end of a long table.

This won't go well for any of them.
Unfortunately, these guys don't understand history.

[walkingman]

4. The most crazy part is that under our present system of justice it is legal.

[FakeNoose]

5. Yes they are, but Chump didn't start this

It started back in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was elected. I'm pretty sure Reagan was just as comically stupid as Chump is, but he was better at acting like a "smart" guy. He fooled a lot of people into thinking he knew what he was doing. All Reagan did was take orders and do whatever the one-per-centers told him to do. That's when the lying and stealing started in earnest. It's been going on for 45 years and we're powerless to stop them.

[rubbersole]

9. Reagan's chief of staff, Don Regan, was the CEO of Merrill Lynch.

"We're open for business!" Was St Ronnie's catch phrase. Michael Moore's documentary "Capitalism, A Love Story" has a great segment showing Regan bossing actor St Ronnie around. Just like tsf.

[Clouds Passing]

15. Poppy was Ronnie's boss.

[Hornedfrog2000]

6. 1% not hardly. More like

0.25% not sure if its even that much of the population. There are probably more like 1000 people who are destroying the world for greed.

[MadameButterfly]

11. For them this is sport

For us it's survival.
In the end, they will never have enough because more money isn't what they are missing.
And they will destroy everything for whatever it is they are chasing.

[LT Barclay]

7. And I don't know if they see the US crashing or the entire world, but they are in the looting phase and the world burns

down.
They are trying to eliminate as many of us as possible as it goes down.
Reality imitating art, see Fisk as Trump in Daredevil or Thanos as Trump in Avengers: Endgame.
Either way there is hell in the future. I think at this point, how bad it is depends on how many right wingers wake up. Not in the ballot box, but how many will stand together in the streets, or will they take their stand on the other side?

[orangecrush]

12. Good analogy and good question.

[Cha]

8. And they're UnAmerican in League with

Mump's boss, Putin. Traitors to the USA.

[Autumn]

13. It's been going on for decades. Politicians do not seem to be inclined to stop it.

Other than a couple of them.

[elocs]

14. Were there those here who saw/anticipated the decline & fall of the American empire

before it was upon us such as now?

Because what Trump has done in the past 4 months didn't just happen but has been planned for years and during that time too many of us have not been vigilant, but have been dismissive of the right and the magas who we looked down upon as morons and no threat to us. Republicans know how to play the long game in getting what they want such as with Roe which so many on the Left considered to be all but a constitutional right and so were complacent about it being overturned until it was.