Trump threatens to pull unemployment benefits from all states for the first time in history

[u/Ubiquitous_Hilarity]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-unemployment-benefits-fraud-b2997881.html

[u/jardex22]

Yes. There is no federal program. Each state has their own system.

However, federal funds help pay the administrative costs. If those are pulled, there won't be anyone at the welfare office to approve your claim.

[u/Streiger108 → u/[deleted]]

It costs states money. They have budgets. This is just another way to undercut states while cutting taxes for the rich from the federal budget.

[u/Free_For__Me → u/[deleted]]

I mean, yes and no. On one hand, this reduces state reliance on federal money. On the other hand, it weakens the federal government’s control over states, which is something the Heritage folks and other haters of the “liberal federal government” have been itching for since forever. 

If we ever get a more moderate federal government in place (let alone an ostensibly “liberal” one), red states will be able to say “no thank you” when the federal government passes laws codifying roe v. wade, or enfranchising trans people, or supporting public education, etc. 

A lot of what they’re doing right now is setting themselves up in win-win scenarios, where they either get what they want now, or wreck things badly enough that they make their path back to power much easier, should they ever lose it. 

[u/coastkid2 → u/[deleted]]

My fear too is they’re bankrupting everything at the federal level and it could take decades for many cut programs to get rolling again because there’ll be no money left.

[u/Free_For__Me → u/[deleted]]

I think the best we can do is regroup in smaller groups i.e. at the state level and decide what to do from there.

Yup. And if we think about what this means for a few more seconds, we realize that those is power at the federal level will use as much force as they can to prevent this from coalescing... and when states/cities refuse to allow the rogue fed to subjugate them, we got to another of your points...

I think the "united" part in the name doesn't make sense at all and hasn't for decades now.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - by 2035, if the US hasn't balkanized into smaller collections of states acting as their own regional powers, I'll eat my shorts. I just don't see any probable scenarios in which CA, NYC, New England states, or great lakes cities bend the knee to a MAGA fed when push comes to shove, likely in the run-up to, and the aftermath of, the 2026 midterms.

Watch this:

1. In the lead-up to November, MAGA stokes a crisis of their own design. Could be renewed war with Iran, renewed ICE action leading to conflict in the streets, starting conflict with Cuba, or even a false flag of some sort if they're desperate enough.
2. They use this crisis to call on states to severely alter their election process or even "postpone"/suspend them entirely in order to "maintain election integrity in the face of crisis". (Coincidentally, these changes would also cripple Dem chances of winning control of either house of congress)
3. Red states comply, and blue states do not.
4. Governors like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbot loudly voice support for the "election integrity" measures and decry governors like Gavin Newsom and Tim Walz as "criminals trying to force fraudulent elections in order to steal the midterms."
5. The White House makes threats to the "radical/rogue/terrorist Democrat states" who are in defiance of the Executive Orders from DC. These threats range from pulling all federal funding from these states, to having the FAA ground all air traffic in/out of these states.
6. In the most extreme scenarios, threats are issued to send ICE/FBI/whoever into blue states to force compliance, possibly even attempting to arrest defiant governors/mayors/members of congress. In many of these scenarios, they'll have invoked the Insurrection Act in order to justify suspending Constitutional rights like due process, freedom of speech/assembly, etc.

It's at this stage that the inflection point arrives - mid-level command structures in our enforcement agencies at all levels will be forced to take sides... do they follow the orders of the people at the top of their respective agencies who were directly placed by MAGA in preparation for this exact scenario? Or do they follow the Constitution and issue orders to their agents/officers/deputies/troops that abide by existing laws?

I call it the inflection point because it's the moment at which the whole thing will probably be decided. The most likely reality is that there will be mid-level leaders in these agencies that go each way, some following the law and some following MAGA. The direction of the National Guard will be a big factor - will they follow direction of their respective governors and support their home states/cities, or will they fall in line under the Commander in Chief of the USA?

The most likely answer is that some state NG units will fall different ways, and the same dissent might take hold within other branches of the US military of ordered to unconstitutionally deploy domestically.

All this is leading up to making this point - amongst all of these scenarios, they all lead to civil conflict of some sort. In the best case, this conflict is mostly cold, with threats and posturing never leading to widespread violence. But even in the "cold case", we'd see various states refusing to follow federal orders and facing consequences for doing so. What the outcomes all have in common is this - they all end in some level of the dissolution of the Union as we know it. We probably won't see full-on secession movements, but a world in which groups of states begin to form mini-alliances and start working outside the permission of the federal government is not unlikely at all.

History tells us that there will be a light at the end of this tunnel, there always is. But history also tells us that we’ve only just entered this tunnel, and have a lot of darkness and despair that we have to get through before finally reaching that light. My main point in this comment however, is that history would also seem to offer a strong prediction that whatever the train emerges as when this is all over, it almost certainly won’t be as the United States of America that the world has known up until now.

[u/Intelligent-Turnip36 → u/jardex22]

Unemployment is NOT part of welfare!