They’ll pass any loss on to the American people, whether that’s jacking up prices or the government bailing them out with our tax dollars. What remains to be seen is just how much his average supporters will tolerate and justify until the cost to them becomes unbearable. I hope more nations follow this lead; cut us off or get him to cut your nation off, strangle us economically and make us a pariah on the global stage. His loyalists and bots and foreign bad actors may be a loud minority on the internet, but they’re still a minority and getting a free pass to be a western male chauvinist isn’t going to keep party-line voters content when their businesses fail, their mortgages default, and their kids start dying in Iran.

My evangelical parents got wrapped up in this line of thinking in the 90s right around the time teenage me was becoming disillusioned with the indoctrination I’d been raised in. Classic “end of the Millennium” fears and the hope they could jumpstart Armageddon convinced them to send money to Christian charities who supposedly then paid to move poor Jewish people in former Soviet states to Israel. Sure God was going to destroy the Earth in 10000 years, but oops, guess y’all forced his hand!

Ready enough. Plan and prep for self-reliance but never forget we are social creatures and history has shown that in hard times most of us unite for survival rather than turn into post-apocalyptic war bands and cannibal biker gangs. Most people aren’t going to care that they had opposing views on Facebook a year prior when they’re sheltering from drones under the same husk of Walmart. And for the minority that are so truly, deeply, totally immersed in their bigotry that co-survival in the face of annihilation is not an option? That’s why I’m glad I stockpile in a state with incredibly lax gun laws.

There’s enough distrust and conspiracy theorist in me to question if the whole thing isn’t a good cop/bad cop publicity stunt to attract “conscientious” consumers.

“Hey all you anti-authoritarian, anti-AI, anti-surveillance types, we’re your friend; we’re the un-AI. Now be good idiots and plot your dissent on our service.”