I legit think that the way that Europe can absolutely tank Trump's approval rating is make American tourist VISAs dramatically harder to get. The absolute meltdown in the karen-faction when they can't go on their Paris vacation will annihilate a presidency
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 20, 2025 at 6:55 PM
People don't really get how much of our interaction with the world is based on the fact that everyone is our pal and their borders are basically always open to Americans.
You change that to literally any other slightly ostracized, icky country? Oh boy.— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 20, 2025 at 6:57 PM
I hadn’t thought about this, but yeah: Our little Trey worked his heart out getting that overseas fellowship — just ask the tutor we paid $300 an hour to ‘supervise’ his application! or Kailleigh’s acceptance at the best Ol Miss sorority is centered on her upcoming immersion summer in Paris! could definitely influence some of those cherished suburban swing voters…
You think a lot of MAGA vacation in Paris?? Lol
— the tallest stone (@talleststone.bsky.social) March 20, 2025 at 7:08 PM
I understand people think this is a clever point, but idgaf about the rurals (who yes, absolutely vacation in Paris. Who do you think MAGA is? It's car dealers and dentists.)
I care about upper middle class suburban counties flipping another 10-15 points away from the GOP and breaking it for good— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 20, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Donald J Trump just won an election by arresting suburban flight in places like Waukesha county through uniform swing.
SURPRISE, ALL YOUR TOYS GET TAKEN AWAY. Yes, this will make me popular and get re-elected.— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 20, 2025 at 7:12 PM
What they saw was "egg expensive" and "grocery price high" and "why interest rates not 3%?" and so pulled a lever for the not in power party without even paying the slightest bit of attention to what that meant.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 20, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Related: How are summer bookings in Branson going, right now? And where are the resort owners finding people to clean the rooms and serve the pool drinks?…
There are going to be, I believe, a cascade of economic issues this summer related to the tourist industry. Fewer people will come here to travel. Fewer people will come here to work within the industry.
— Magdi Jacobs (@magdi.bsky.social) March 20, 2025 at 12:23 PM
I think about my home state, AK, which is heavily reliant on 1) tourism & 2) temporary workers, including in the fishing industry. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B6v…
— Magdi Jacobs (@magdi.bsky.social) March 20, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Especially in the South, already reeling from the marketing hit of calling it the 'Gulf of America' which nobody wants to vacation in when Yucatan's right there
Baud
Europe isn’t going to hurt their own tourism economy to help us out.
prostratedragon
Let ‘er rip.
Baud
A Ghost to Most
Great. Even more Texans will come to Colorado, and shit the joint up even more.
Suzanne
MAGA is a metric fuckton of construction dudes.
Almost Retired
Funny you should mention Branson. We were there last weekend on our way to St. Louis. We stopped over for shits and giggles. Turned out to be mostly shits. It was absurdly expensive (and I’m from Los Angeles).
We had to take in a show, of course, and I eliminated any theater with the words “Jamboree,” or “hoedown.” Ended up seeing The Haygoods, a family of six musical (now adult) children, including a pyrotechnician.
Kind of like the Von Trapps, only with lasers and a more laissez faire attitude towards nazis.
The finale was a syrupy rendition of God Bless America with visual depictions of the lyrics on a giant screen (“look! Oceans white with foam”). Which segued into the final stanza of the National Anthem – at which point (almost) the entire audience leapt to their feet, removed their hats, put their hands over their hearts and sang along with tears in their eyes.
I didn’t know whether I should be moved by their patriotism, or request “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” as an encore.
Jay
@Baud: 747 million Foreign tourists visited Europe in 2024. Only 13 million were Americans.
Predictions are that 2025 numbers of American tourists to Europe will be about 11 million or less.
Baud
@Jay:
It’s up to them. I don’t think they’ll do it to hurt Trump. Only in retaliation if Trump does something.
zhena gogolia
@Almost Retired: I can’t believe you went there. And I’m from Missouri.
Flanders Other Neighbor
Two college kids studying abroad and I’m hoping that at least the flights back home for summer will be cheap now. I’m telling them both do not invite any school friends for a California visit unless they are citizens, regardless of skin color. Damn shame. Had a Scot for a month who I’m not sure ever got outside of the UK or Ireland prior to his visit.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
I am sure there were some morons who did just that, but I don’t accept that as an excuse to vote for the person who tried to overthrow the government.
SpaceUnit
MAGA folks will just become more belligerent and hateful to the outside world. It’s part of the plan to utterly isolate the US.
Almost Retired
@zhena gogolia: What’s the opposite of a bucket list?
Jay
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/point-roberts-trade-war-tariffs-worry-1.7481556
dnfree
Last spring we took a tour in Italy through a university alumni association. (Biden was still the Democratic candidate and our fellow tourists did not discuss US politics with each other.). Our guide didn’t discuss US politics with the group either, of course, but at one point he asked me if I thought any members of the group were Trump supporters. I replied that I didn’t know, but I doubted it. He went on to tell me that on Jan 6, 2021, he and his friends thought the American dream was over, because the US had always had peaceful transfer of power.
That was about the extent of the conversation, but I have thought of it often since the election. First, I think a lot of Trump supporters don’t do international travel, unless maybe to a beach somewhere. They as a group probably aren’t interested in the history and culture of other countries.
And second, I can’t imagine what that guide and his friends think of the United States now.
Flanders Other Neighbor
@A Ghost to Most:
Personally, I’m planning to avoid motorcycle touring in red states. I can head north from CA to OR/WA and get in a lot of miles. I wanted to visit BC, but not sure they’ll want me and I don’t blame them.
Jay
@Baud:
The drop is basically, DTJdiot’s results of his actions so far, the impact on Americans. And it’s only been 2 months and a few days.
West of the Rockies
I believe Trumpism will decline rapidly in dribs and drabs as thousands get fired, their partners and children suffer (and those who have some modicum of empathy for them). Needed services will disappear and/or get more difficult to acquire. Prices will go up. Parks will be closed. Kids who need IEP’s will suffer and their Trumpling parents will be pissed.
It will be sad, strange, grand theater.
Timill
@Almost Retired: Or maybe Springtime for Elon …
Jay
@Flanders Other Neighbor:
As long as you are not a MAGgot or meeting the Mexican Cartels that run Canada to make fentanyl smuggling deals, you are welcome to visit BC.
Suzanne
@West of the Rockies:
I suspect that in five years or so, it’ll be difficult to find anyone, outside the hardcore, who will admit to having voted for FFOTUS. It’ll be like a Christmas miracle in reverse.
CaseyL
One problem with waiting for Trumpers to realize their error by seeing them lose what makes life enjoyable is, they already live in desolate wastelands. The GOP has spent the last two generations degrading education, healthcare, and infrastructure in red states. They may not notice disappearing vital services when they never had them, vanishing healthy, fresh foods when they never had those, and so on.
I wager that, instead of lamenting the loss of what they never had in the first place, the denizens of red states will celebrate taking those things away from the rest of us.
West of the Rockies
@Suzanne:
God, wouldn’t that be f#*@ing lovely!!!
Suzanne
@West of the Rockies: No, it’ll be frustrating. I want the people who voted for this to fucken admit it, and feel badly about themselves for being dumb and delulu. I also like to know so I know who to stay away from.
opiejeanne
@Almost Retired: Did the place smell like they’d just come from the pig sty? We went to an Opry there in 1981 because my aunt Crabby and uncle Dummy dragged us there, and I swear there was a definite odor of the barnyard, and not just honest horse poop.
We also went to the amusement park in Branson, and being from SoCal and knowing how well Disneyland is run, we should not have expected much. I didn’t go on the mine ride because I was pretty sure I was pregnant (and I was right), and my aunt Crabby had told us about the rattlesnakes in the mine cars (Urban Legend).
Wslc
Hawai’i is seeing a significant drop in their Canadian tourism market and Canadians are writing to say why.
Matt McIrvin
The big news in the theme-park enthusiast community over the past few days was European conglomerate Parques Reunidos selling its US properties (mostly theme parks and water parks in the Northeast, and a few elsewhere–Lake Compounce and Kennywood are among them) to Herschend Family Entertainment, the operator of Dollywood and Branson’s Silver Dollar City.
Herschend has done well with some of the parks it runs so the reaction was more positive than negative. But I recall one person pointing out that the looming economic Trumpocalypse makes it not a great time for any tourism operator to be expanding.
I’m not sure about this, though. The smaller theme parks they bought don’t do a lot of international business anyway–they get local and regional visitors, and they’re cheaper alternatives to higher-end places like Disney World. A recession with an international tourism slump might actually help them in a counter-cyclic way. I guess we’ll see.
Ohio Mom
If that AI crap that pops up every time I try to google something is to be believed, about half of Americans have passports; according to a Pew study, 27% of us have never traveled abroad (now, where have I seen that number, 27% , before?).
My point being, I suspect it’s mostly Democrats doing a lot of traveling abroad. Foreign cold shoulders aren’t going to affect MAGAs.
Almost Retired
@opiejeanne: Branson did not smell especially porcine. Smell was the only one of the five senses not assaulted by Branson.
Eolirin
@Ohio Mom: Keep in mind that the pew numbers aren’t transcontinental, they’re just travel to other countries. So Canada and Mexico count.
Ksmiami
@A Ghost to Most: I’m ok with building a wall at the southern nm border
MagdaInBlack
@Jay: The other day somewhere on the intertubes, I stumbled upon a map that was from some group elno’s grandfather was involved with in Canada. It showed their intent that the U.S should extend from the Arctic Circle to the tip of South America ( as I recall.) I have not gone looking again, altho I think it may have been on Hal Sparks show.
The point of all that is that it struck me as something you would know of and so I’m askin’ what you might know, please.
Snarki, child of Loki
IIRC, back in the 80’s? 90’s? The US put a ‘tourist visa’ requirement on France, who (of course) reciprocated.
So, of course I had to travel a few hours to a French consulate to get a visa, twice as I recall. The consulate staff were nice, and not hard-ass at all, they knew it was all just “stupid politics”.
But it has happened before. And can again. Brazil did something similar more recently, and THEY were more hard-ass.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne:
I fear the opposite: anyone who will admit to NOT having voted for him will be dead or imprisoned, and he’ll be doing Kim Jong Un numbers in elections.
Quiltingfool
@Almost Retired: I read that you went to Branson last weekend, but I was too late to suggest that you attend the APQS quilt show that was going on. APQS puts on a very good quilt show, lots of art quilts, etc.
Way better than the music shows. Several years ago my mother asked me to take her and her best friend to Branson. Of course I did, because Mom asked me to! Anyway, she bought tickets to “Noah’s Ark” and so we went. At the end of the show, they did a “call to the altar,” which in Fundie-speak is an invitation to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
My mother’s friend is Catholic. When she saw that, she turned to me with a horrified look on her face. I just patted her hand and said this is just what these folks do, just ignore it!
Branson in the early 80’s was pretty cool, especially downtown. Now it is a horrible tourist trap.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: All I know is that this is stressing me out to a ludicrous degree, so I am really pushing my flexibility to release stress. Which means I did the splits today.
I suppose there’s worse ways to cope.
Matt McIrvin
Anyway, I do think Schnorkles in the OP has a point here. There are different types of MAGA folk, and while international travelers probably do lean Democratic-voting and Republican families are probably more likely to take every vacation in Orlando or Branson, there are lots of exceptions. And the marginal voters in this case were comfortable suburbanites who do sometimes take European vacations.
I’ve done a lot of international travel just over the past several years–it’s our one real indulgence. Had a lot of fun doing it. If I can’t do it any more for a while… eh, I’ll live. The prospect of a less-broken political situation in the US is more important.
Jay
@MagdaInBlack:
https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/joshua-haldeman-elon-musk-saskatchewan-tech-utopian-conspiracist
NotMax
@Almost Retired
At least the duck boats are no more. Long-ish watch about that tragedy.
MagdaInBlack
@Jay: Wow. Thank you !
eta: yes, that’s the map, and i was a wee bit off on the extent.
Old School
@Almost Retired:
That’s hilarious.
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: They’re still running those in Boston and I still don’t ride them.
West of the Rockies
@Suzanne:
I meant it would be lovely if five years from now, Trumpism is basically a cultural and political toxic superfund site. Yeah, I’d love to watch all Trumpers suffer.
Soprano2
@Almost Retired: Sounds like a standard Branson show. It’s too bad Shoji isn’t still performing, I never saw his show but heard it was amazing. If you like outdoors stuff like camping, boating, skiing and fishing you’d enjoy it in Branson in the summer. Now you’ve seen what I live around.
You could have stopped at the original Bass Pro in Springfield.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I admit I have this deep “the median American is a bloodthirsty fascist who is itching to kill you” intuition that probably just comes from my experience in junior high school.
Quinerly
@Almost Retired:
Dipping in to say that sounds like pure Hell.
My parents came from NC to visit me in St. Louis one Christmas. Pretty sure this trip was around 1994. My dad hung out at my house with the dogs. No way was he going on a roadtrip to Branson. My mom and I took a couple of days ….did an overnighter to Branson and stayed in the Holiday Inn. We saw Andy Williams at his Moon River Theatre. He had permanently moved to Branson at some point. Nice Christmas show. The highlight of that trip for me was seeing and actually meeting Tony Orlando. Fun show. “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree.”
u
@SpaceUnit: The plan seems to be to transform the United States into a larger version of North Korea. A pariah state that nobody travels to, and nobody travels from.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
Wise move.
Soprano2
@opiejeanne: You wouldn’t recognize Steal Your Dollar City, it’s huge now compared to 1981. They recently replaced the roller coaster I think you’re talking about, Fire in the Hole. It’s a more adult amusement park than most because of all the crafts. I always like to watch the glass blowers.
Jay
In one month, Canadian travel to the US, is back to Covid 19 levels when travel was banned.
$20.5 billion USD gone and 140,000 jobs gone.
RSA
Hah, I remember that! I just checked my very first passport to find a Republique Francaise visa pasted in, dated 1988.
For what it’s worth, this past Christmas/New Year break I skipped the usual family get-togethers to spend a few days in Frankfurt and Cologne, then Bruges, then Paris. I didn’t notice any anti-American sentiment. I wonder if things may have changed in the past couple of months.
Jay
@Soprano2:
Stripper poles everywhere?
RevRick
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t think it will get that bad. Orban has mapped out the way to an illiberal democracy through gerrymandering, subverting the press and universities, and manipulating the courts. The danger for Democrats is our voters retreating to liberal bastions, which will permanently shut us out of the Presidency, the Senate and the courts, thus doing the work for Trump and his eventual successors.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: Hmmm, surprised I hadn’t heard about this.
Steve LaBonne
The point about who the MAGAs are is very important. Even in the rural shitholes the (white) down and out mostly don’t vote, it’s those car dealers (and their employees), dentists, insurance agents, the managers (not the peons) at the Walmart, who are the backbone of the Republican vote. In the actual suburbs, voting Republican is directly related to income (we have had those Trump trains of expensive fancy trucks where I live, they hail from the McMansion developments). That’s why so many of us get so tired of the “economic anxiety” bullshit. Yes, these are all people who might well vacation in Europe.
Soprano2
@Quiltingfool: Oh man, I think I went to high school with the man who played the lead in “Noah’s Ark”.
SpaceUnit
@u:
Yeah. It will soon become conventional wisdom in the the MAGA world that all other countries are socialist hellholes who leech off the US but hate hate hate us for our “freedoms”.
Russia and Hungary might be the exceptions.
Jay
@Steve LaBonne:
Remember all the “Black Lives Matter” boat parades?
Soprano2
@Quiltingfool: All I remember from going there when I was young was waiting in traffic and how much I hated driving back to Springfield on then 2-lane Hwy 65.
YY_Sima Qian
Since this is an FP Open Thread, I would like to repost the following from a previous dead Open Thread on the topic.
Steve LaBonne
@Ohio Mom: When my wife and I were in Paris in 2018 we heard stories about Trumpy Americans behaving badly.
Soprano2
@NotMax: I remember that night, that was a bad storm that blew up pretty fast. My first thought when I heard about the deaths was “how awful”, my second thought was “there are black people who visit Branson?” I think 8 members of one family died in that accident.
Susan of Texas
Republicans might care if politics interferes with their cruises.
opiejeanne
@Soprano2: Fire in the Hole was the name of the ride. I was approximately one week pregnant, and suffering from about 40 chigger bites because my darling cousin and her husband had walked us through a field in Bonner Springs the day before, and those damned things ignored everyone except me.
Citizen Alan
Jay
@SpaceUnit:
It already is MAGgot CW. Vatnick Soup is on it, but facts don’t matter to MAGgot infested brains.
https://nitter.poast.org/P_Kallioniemi/status/1902351709495513307#m
That Canadian Couple, who sold their farm, and moved with their 7 kids, 3 with disabilities, to ruZZia, because of “traditional values”, just because their small Sask town put up one LBGTQA2S+ crosswalk,
Got robbed in ruZZia, and is now begging Foreign Affairs and GoFundMe to save their asses.
Foreign Affairs response is basically, you renounced your citizenship and tore up your passports, so you aren’t Canadians anymore. Flee to Finland on your own dime and seek asylum.
cain
@A Ghost to Most: Oregon is getting Texas refugees.
SpaceUnit
@Jay:
So sad!
Jay
@SpaceUnit:
FAFO
rikyrah
Multiply this couple by THOUSANDS😭😭😭
THIS is what Apartheid Clyde and his band of minions have done to our veterans
All so that he can have tax cuts.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP82QKH97/
YY_Sima Qian
So, Vance just gave a speech extolling the virtue (actually a fetish) of manufacturing, to reestablish the industrial base in the US, that also serves as foundation to support innovation, but w/ National Socialist overtones. At a conceptual level, the the linkages are valid. The US needs to regain more of its former industrial base, it needs smart & consistent industrial policy (including temporary & selective protectionist measures as part of the overall program). Much of innovation is downstream of learning by doing, & manufacturing is the doing.
However, IMHO most Americans (not just MAGA) have yet to come to terms to the new reality, which the below thread lay out elements of:
As someone working for a US MNC, struggling to defend a part of our formerly dominant position in the PRC market, facing increasingly crowded & capable local competitors, & yes the playing field is not always level, I feel the above quite keenly.
Furthermore, the fat margins that help to justify the stratospheric stock valuations of the Magnificent 7, & push US equities market to be 70% of the global total, is really just rent seeking. Much reduced profit margins shift the surplus from the producers (w/ the capital owners taking the vast majority) to the consumers (which is everyone).
The below also rings true:
Peter Thiel’s influence on Vance is evident here. & yes, that is why there is such strong “involution” among people & companies in the PRC, & why Chinese entrepreneurs & corporate titans strongly prefer to seize market share rather than maintain high margins. (Your margin is someone else’s opportunity for disruption.) & some do decide to exit the rat race by “lying flat”.
Citizen Alan
I’m amazed I got in before Nukular Bizkits to make this correction.
It’s Ole Miss. The “e” is important because the name probably wouldn’t be quite so racist without it.
Cheryl from Maryland
I’m a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Colonial Williamsburg. Both run fancy tours in the US and Europe with guides, lecturers, etc. I’m now getting emails describing those tours at 25% discount.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@A Ghost to Most:
That’s been a persistent bitch here since, well, forever.
I was hearing it in the mid-70s and my wife, a Denver native, indicates it was a common bitch in the 60s.
Nothing “Texans” did in the 70s and 80s compares to what the tsunami of entitled white professionals from lily-white burbs nationally carpetbagging in here have wreaked over the last decade.
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: If you want innovation to fuel a country’s industrial base the last thing you want to do is torpedo scientific and academic research by eliminating scientific grants and attacking universities and NGOs.
Unfortunately America has for a long time had its share of crackpots who believe that science is completely corrupt and engineers can do all the sciencing all by themselves without grants or laboratories, but usually it’s because they’re mad that scientists won’t spend their time researching creationism or Velikovsky or telekinesis or ivermectin or whatever their personal insane hobbyhorse is.
Steve LaBonne
@YY_Sima Qian: The US still manufactures plenty. It’s manufacturing jobs that will continue to disappear as it becomes more and more automated. My daughter who is a product manager for a leading factory automation company will do fine, white guys with only high school diplomas (at best) not so much.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@YY_Sima Qian:
Entitled, white, urban professionals who’ve carpetbagged into urban areas from lily-white burbs and gentrified them spout a lot of Theil-funded, libertarian, economic bullshit but never admit to it because they voted for Obama and support abortion rights.
It’s baked into both sides, alas.
Matt McIrvin
@RevRick:
Things actually seem to be moving in the opposite direction now–people are moving out of the liberal bastions simply because it’s too damned expensive to live there. But the people moving out may be preferentially conservative, I’m not sure.
I keep hearing that that is bad for liberalism because it decreases the blue states’ Congressional and electoral representation as censuses happen. That’s predicated on the process not flipping any more purple states to blue, which I suppose can be prevented through various antidemocratic processes to some degree.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
I noticed in watching old TV shows from the 60s through the early 80s that people seemed to take the existence of things precognition, PK, parapsychology etc seriously, like it was a real thing deserving of serious scientific research.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud: They don’t need us. Indians and Chinese have been vacationing like crazy in Europe.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Steve LaBonne:
I wouldn’t be so sure of that. The owners of these companies will try to replace everyone they can with “AI”, not just the grunts who work on the production floor.
It’s why we need things like strict regulations on “AI” and UBI
Steve LaBonne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): AI is nowhere near ready for prime time for tasks like running a factory. It would have as many accidents as self-driving Teslas.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Matt McIrvin:
Um, no. They move out because Gentrification Stops At The School House Door. The entitled white, professionals that have flocked to urban cores and gentrified them looking for their Exclusively White, Urban Theme Park Living experience flee once little Liam and Emma hit school age unless they can afford private schools or to “choice” them into all-white schools.
We see this play out on a daily basis here, they don’t want to support public schools by sticking around and making a real difference. And I know from my networking with housing justice people nationally it replicates itself in other “hot” urban areas.
The so-called “New Economy” crumbles when these parents from lily-white burbs are faced with sending their kids to public schools with black/brown children. They leave, plain and simple.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Ohio Mom: The MAGA’s I know love cruises. Going to the Caribbean requires a passport.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
China’s government has committed genocide against the uyghurs and Modi’s India is hardly a democratic paragon. They’ve committed their share human rights violations against minorities as I recall too
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): There was a fashion for parapsychology as “real” “science” in the mid-20th century, and a vogue in the 60s and 70s for thinking psychic woo might have something to do with the role of the observer in quantum physics (as a person with an actual Ph.D. in the subject I can say with some authority that I think this was a load of bollocks).
The pop-science books that tried to connect all this to appropriated bits of Hindu or Buddhist philosophy were big in those days too.
In the early days of the organized skeptic movement they were largely preoccupied with debunking this stuff.
YY_Sima Qian
Why not just send the package directly to Zhongnanhai? (Gift link to NYT article below):
In normal times, I would expect DOD to feed Mush misinformation to feed to the PRC MSS. In the age of DOGE & Hegseth…
Soprano2
@Jay: Oh God no, it’s an 1880’s theme park. The actual name is Silver Dollar City.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
OT: BTW, is it a concern that Connor McGregor wants to run for president of Ireland?
It’s largely a ceremonial office, but does have reserve powers, such as convening extraordinary meetings of the Oireachtas and could also dissolve the Dail, the lower house of the Irish parliament, if the Taoiseach requests it. The Taoiseach is required to resign if they lose majority support of the Dail
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
So, their tourists are far more in number than Americans, by close to 500,000,000 and they pay.
Mike S
We vacation in Cabo every year and it is at least 10 magas for every one of us. They’re all world travelers too.
It breaks our hearts because we’ve known many of them for 25 years or more and they’re good people. FOX just indoctrinated them with lie after lie.
prostratedragon
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
You mean, this guy? Nah, not a problem.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@YY_Sima Qian: OpenAI truly innovated. DeepSeek mostly reverse engineered. Theft of US intellectual property is still a serious problem. It enabled the Chinese to catch up with much less investment. Thanks to Trump destroying our scientific institutions, they won’t be able to ride our coat tails any more.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Nope. The guy is a roided out convicted sex offender with no popularity in Ireland.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: They’re still reeling from last year’s mega-merger of Six Flags and Cedar Fair, the two chains that together run the majority of the big kind of cheesy mid-tier regional amusement parks in the United States. It’s frankly a merger that ought to have gotten antitrust attention in my opinion, though I understand that if it hadn’t happened, Six Flags may well have gone under (the combined company is called “Six Flags” but it sounds like the former Cedar Fair is really in the driver’s seat).
Meanwhile, Universal is about to open their most ginormous, most extremely fancy theme park in Orlando, Eat Disney’s Lunch Completely Universe. Bad time for them if the tourism market collapses, though I think they’ve already pre-booked a huge number of reservations.
YY_Sima Qian
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The CPC regime has likely committed crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs & other Turkic minorities of Xinjiang, through mass detentions of 1 – 2M people in the late 10s, & continued mass imprisonment of tens (if not low hundreds) of thousands since, & coercive enforcement of birth limit policies, suppression of certain expressions of Turkic culture, & massive violations of privacy. There are strong circumstantial evidence for all of that.
There is no evidence for physical genocide, & such allegations merely serve to undermine the credibility of those making them.
Whether there is ongoing cultural genocide is debatable, because there is no common agreed definition.
Of course, none of this (or the Indian government’s oppression of minorities) has anything to do w/ Chinese & Indian tourists flocking to Europe, or European willingness to take their money.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
I’ve always loved roller coasters and theme parks in general. Cedar Point has some of the best ones in the world. Luckily I live within a 3 hour drive : )
You ever heard of the Youtube channel Defunctland?
Old School
@YY_Sima Qian:
The plans involved the CFPB, the Department of Education, and USAID….
Matt McIrvin
@Matt McIrvin: (oh, and by the way, I don’t think Parques Reunidos unloading their US parks was particularly a reaction to Trump–they seemed not too interested in investing in these parks and had been looking for a buyer for some time. Aside from Herschend, the other obvious possible buyer was the company formerly known as SeaWorld, which also owns the Busch Gardens parks–I think they’re currently going by “United Parks and Resorts”.)
prostratedragon
Oh.
YY_Sima Qian
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: No one working on AI, who has read DeepSeek‘s published papers & run or modified their open source models, believe DeepSeek is copied or distilled from OpenAI‘s models. Only OpenAI has made this accusation, w/o evidence.
Continuing to believe that Chinese players can only copy is why the West has become so complacent & continually surprised to find their Chinese competitors vaulting ahead in so many (& still increasing) fields.
How does one copy one’s way into the lead, anyway?
I am sorry, the detachment from reality of your statements is on par w/ what MAGAs are spewing on this subject.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
That was what I thought, plus I figured Trump’s endorsement would be the kiss of death too lol
YY_Sima Qian
@Steve LaBonne: There are major gaps in the US’ industrial base (& I am not talking about apparels, toys & furniture). That is why product development takes so long & so expensive, & it would take a lot longer & be a lot more expensive w/o access to the supply chain in the PRC & E/SE Asia in general.
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Oh yes. He’s been less active of late, but whenever he does drop a video it’s a masterpiece.
My family are not as fond of roller coasters as I am, so spending a lot of time going to theme parks on vacations can be a hard sell. The only big coaster park in New England is our Six Flags, near Springfield, which is decidedly mid-tier though the two best coasters there are top-notch.
But that also means that a bunch of charming smaller parks have survived here, whereas in some other parts of the country, amusement parks like that are basically extinct, driven out of existence by the big chains. Some of them are still family-owned, others (like the ones Herschend bought from Parques Reunidos) are actually chain parks but don’t feel like it.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@prostratedragon:
So Paul Weiss, the white-shoe lawfirm, folded like a cheap fucking suit and is now pledging $40 million fucking dollars towards pro bono legal services in support of the administration’s goals, to not pursue DEI policies, and issued a public statement that former partner Mark F. Pomerantz, who played a leading role in the investigation that lead to Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York had committed wrongdoing in exchange for the order against them being lifted.
I can’t believe this. This is the same law firm who did this back during Trump 1:
More of their work:
Not that they were perfect, they also do a lot of legal representation for fossil fuel companies, but Jesus Christ, what a fucking betrayal. Haven’t these people ever heard of not obeying in advance?!
YY_Sima Qian
@Matt McIrvin: I would say another blind spot (& not just MAGA) is the lack of STEM human capital, & misallocation of what STEM human capital there is (to finance & software/AI Big Tech), to support the industrial renaissance being dreamed,
Colette South
@Almost Retired: Thank you for asking! The opposite of a bucket list is a fuck it list.
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: Yeah, well, I am some of that human capital–trained in science but software was where the jobs were. The US did have a truly dominant software industry for a long time but now the people controlling the money just seem hellbent on rent-seeking behavior and shedding headcount, with some idea that they can turn an AI crank to keep the party going, and I have a hard time believing that dominance will last much longer.
prostratedragon
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Been shaking my head at that one all evening. It’s as if they’ve had no grade school experience with bullies.
Jay
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/halifax-musicians-pulled-over-asked-canada-or-us-1.7488950
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@prostratedragon:
I hope they lose a lot of lawyers and clients because of this capitulation. Who, aside from Team Trump, could ever trust them again because of this, especially clients? They’ve completely torched their reputation
prostratedragon
Emptywheel:
It’s an aside that fraudulent exposure to personal data in federal dovuments violates the U.S. code. The documentcloud link goes to a pdf bookmarked to the relevant passage.
Matt McIrvin
@prostratedragon: I suspect that in most of these cases, some of the people in charge were MAGA fans itching for this all along and any threats Trump raised just gave them the upper hand.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
Christ. That’s disturbing. It sounds like they were followed and pulled over for suspected distracted driving, with the BS about narcotics only happening after they turned over their license information, which showed they were Canadian.
What the fuck does “testing positive” for narcotics even mean? If they found evidence of it, they should’ve been arrested on the spot, not separated and then questioned what their “allegiance” was. They’re Canadians, of course they’ll have allegiance to their own country.
Can’t imagine they’ll tour here in the future, despite what they said. And in Ohio too. Shameful and disturbing
prostratedragon
@Matt McIrvin: That is certainly possible, though it suggests that the power ratings between the two factions is baised toward immediate rather than long term viability. Maybe that’s a partnership effect, and they plan to restructure.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
“Testing positive” is KKKopganda for pretending they smelled something or tested for something. It is a means of coercing people to consent to a search of their vehicle with out a warrant or probable cause.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
Could they have legally objected to or prevented them from searching the vehicle if they hadn’t consented?NVM: I looked it up, you can, so they’d need probable cause. If they can determine that, they can do a search. Not consenting is useful because if you’re arrested, your lawyer can contest the probable cause in court
YY_Sima Qian
@Old School: That would actually be funny.
RaflW
I’ll roll with whatever, but this all is giving me pause from planning my 60th birthday pre-party, which I really want to do in Sweden as a family reunion in early autumn.
I’ll book fully refundable flights (something I started doing for some long trips already – often only a few hundred bucks more than the regular econ ticket, cuts out the main reason I was buying travel ins. Medical only travel plans are much cheaper).
And, thankfully, my partner’s mom took off for her long-dreamed-of European cruise today, an early 80th bday present to herself (with a present of my partner hanging out with his dad so she can travel worry-free). So, fingers crossed!
And just seeing news that London Heathrow is totally closed due to a structure fire, so glad she isn’t transiting there!! Most flights from the US are returning, maybe a few might divert to other UK airports?
Martin
When we were in France last summer there were multiple church tour groups from Alabama and Mississippi we ran into. And yeah, they started/finished their tour in Paris.
cain
@Jay:
Looks like some cops trying to intimidate Canadians for kicks.
Asking about their allegiance. Fucking moronic. They are a citizen of another country. These people are assholes.
cain
@YY_Sima Qian:
It’s all going to be done by AI.
The libertarian dream where they just prompt engineer their way to glory and riches. Plus with all regulations gone they can go fast and break things as the Lord intended.
Of course there won’t be a market because everyone is out of work
WaterGirl
@Wslc: Welcome!
Spc
@Jay: Look at % of visits from outside the continent where length of stay and money spent are going to be higher. This 700M figure has to be counting intra Europe trips – most of which are quite short, relatively inexpensive jaunts/weekend trips. For major tourist destinations, Americans are ubiquitous and spend a lot.
otmar
One of the main headlines in Austria’s public broadcasting org is: “Detention instead of vacation”. See https://orf.at/stories/3388202/
We certainly have struck the US from the options for a summer vacation this year.
Barney
“Schnorkles O’Bork”‘s idea that Europe would restrict US tourist visas as part of a trade war is ignorant. Europe wants Americans to go to Europe to spend their money (on vacation, or as students) – without Trump taking any of it as tariffs.
And as for those getting fellowships – welcomed with open arms, as refugees from the destruction of American universities. It’s a brain drain.
Matt McIrvin
@Barney: Europe was already in the process of making it more difficult to get in–in late 2026, ETIAS is going to come into effect and tourists from the US are going to have to visit a website and pay a fee to get an entry authorization. But that’s not specific to the US
The concern to me right now is more that if I leave the United States, when I return, I’m going to suddenly find out that Trump decreed me not a citizen and I’m going to a concrete cell.
Booger
@CaseyL: I suspect the impact will make them cling even harder to a nostalgic view of how much better things used to be (waves hands)…
Sloane Ranger
@SpaceUnit:
It already is on Quora, with extra added Sharia law.
Denali5
@prostratedragon: Couldn’t pull up the story you referenced, but Law Enforcement seems like a biased source of news.