Comment by ben_w
20 hours ago
> But we also have recent history demonstrating that this will not be allowed to happen, no matter how much starvation there is in poorer countries, we WILL have our steaks. Not negotiable.
Indeed, though given Trump's behaviour I have wondered what will happen when it's poorer *US states*.
Fortunately, the farmers had a word and seem to have stopped the deportation of the undocumented (illegal) immigrants who do so much farm work.
Also fortunately, the reservoirs (that weren't even connected to where the fires in SoCal were) were not actually emptied, so my worst-case scenario at the time didn't come up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_water_release_from_Lake_K...
Long may it continue that people who can say no to bad decisions, remain able to say no. Last thing anyone in the world needs with the Eurasian breadbaskets of Ukraine and Russia destroying each other's grain export capacity is the US shooting itself in both legs with an M134.
Anyone who is actually wondering hasn’t been paying attention.
There are many ways this can play out, assuming it happens at all.
He may do a Mugabe and reward the faithful at the expense of the nation. He may do a Pol Pot, and punish the opposition until there are none left and then turn on the faithful and only get stopped when their internal crimes against humanity cross an international border and a foreign army steps in. He may do a Stalin and deny (or be ignorant of due to all the sycophants) the existence of a problem. He may say the equivalent of "Let them eat cake" and bring a repeat of all that entails.
Based on precedent, in such a hypothetical, I suspect he will put a 1000% tariff on all food imports to raise enough money to feed everyone, which obviously won't work but he won't know that, and then complain about how unfair everyone is being.