[HN Gopher] "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" - Executi...
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"Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" - Executive Order
Author : martialg
Score : 439 points
Date : 2025-02-19 04:49 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.whitehouse.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.whitehouse.gov)
| nine_zeros wrote:
| I am duly elected and I set the laws, and interpret the rules as
| I please - as a duly elected representative with spineless
| Congress.
|
| Signed
|
| Your neighborhood dictator
| deadbabe wrote:
| Executive Orders aren't law.
| Terr_ wrote:
| This Executive Order says they _are_ law, checkmate, sane
| people.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Where exactly does it say that?
| thiht wrote:
| It doesn't need to be said everywhere when the president
| takes full power for himself and all institutions let him
| do so without saying anything.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Perhaps not. But that wasn't Terr_'s claim. Where does it
| say that?
| Balgair wrote:
| The way I read it, Terr was being sarcastic
| deadbabe wrote:
| Judge can say no it isn't and you'll have to fight it out in
| court.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| The judge doesn't have control of law enforcement and the
| military.
| deadbabe wrote:
| The states can say no.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| Well half of them outright won't for obvious reasons. And
| so what if a state says no? That doesn't change
| _anything_. He is now saying his word is above the
| legislative and judicial branch and all enforcement and
| regulatory powers of the federal government answer
| exclusively to his will.
|
| This is America's Gleichschaltung. The president is now
| the absolute authority of the entire administrative
| state.
| deadbabe wrote:
| The president has no such authority, no matter how much
| he claims to. The power is with the states.
| sph wrote:
| What happens when they decide to ignore the court? The
| water is at 80C and the frogs are still saying it won't get
| to boiling yet.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Court reiterates they cannot.
| bobongo wrote:
| " Sec. 7. Rules of Conduct Guiding Federal Employees'
| Interpretation of the Law. The President and the Attorney
| General, subject to the President's supervision and control,
| shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the
| executive branch. The President and the Attorney General's
| opinions on questions of law are controlling on all employees in
| the conduct of their official duties. No employee of the
| executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an
| interpretation of the law as the position of the United States
| that contravenes the President or the Attorney General's opinion
| on a matter of law, including but not limited to the issuance of
| regulations, guidance, and positions advanced in litigation,
| unless authorized to do so by the President or in writing by the
| Attorney General."
|
| This does not bode well for that country's democracy.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| This has nothing to do with "democracy" in any way. This is the
| equivalent of a CEO publishing a memo telling employees how to
| interpret things that happen outside of the company (e.g., new
| laws, social trends, etc.) It's the CEO's job to align their
| workforce to have the same interpretation of information.
| Federal judges can still rule on issues brought before them but
| the judges have to provide Constitutional- or precedent-related
| rulings.
|
| Why are Americans acting so surprised that the President has
| this authority? That is his job, as it was for all presidents
| before him. This executive order is saying that the "employees
| under the CEO" do not have the authority to usurp the "CEO's"
| interpretations of law. Checks and balances still apply, of
| course; Congress can intervene if the President is acting in
| ways that Congress doesn't like. That's what impeachment is for
| --and impeachment is a process regardless of whether the
| President is issuing "illegal" executive orders or doing
| something else like what Nixon did.
|
| The process works; blame Congress for not holding the President
| accountable in the ways outlined by the Constitution.
| zzleeper wrote:
| Because people in _independent_ agencies are by act protected
| from exactly these things. Think for a bit, why were they not
| just called "agencies"?
|
| And for all the stupidity of congress, if the fail to protect
| against a self-coup, that doesn't make it any less likely.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| If you ignore all context, their support of the unitary
| executive (anti-american) theory, and the recent comments
| that "if a president does it, it isn't breaking the law" and
| "going against the will of the president is going against the
| will of the people"...
|
| If you ignore _ALL_ of that then you have a talking point
| worth debating.
| kmos17 wrote:
| [flagged]
| timacles wrote:
| I've been seeing posts like this all over hacker news. They
| appear to be structured like rational arguments but really
| make no logical sense.
|
| I have no doubt that these people know exactly what they
| are doing, and are intentionally lying and spreading these
| "very reasonable" arguments as a blueprint for others to
| copy.
|
| Their goal is to fluster and confuse the situation.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| It may be the case. I also genuinely think some people
| are not paying attention and think in a vacuum. They fail
| to see the malice and the _words and writings from these
| people_ wanting to destroy the function of the
| government.
|
| But hey, the president is like a CEO, right?
| hayst4ck wrote:
| The problem with the CEO as president metaphor is that
| the CEO of a company is functionally a dictator. If the
| company is private, then there are no checks on the CEO
| at all.
|
| Calling someone a dictator is an accusation, something
| every American was taught was wrong in school. Calling
| someone a CEO is a compliment, something our collective
| media has taught us to aspire to.
|
| CEO is just a softer word that makes submission easier,
| or even logical, while it hides the truth of that power
| structure which is functionally the same for both.
|
| "The CEO metaphor re-frames political rule as a business
| operation, which makes executive overreach appear logical
| rather than dangerous."
|
| This is a very effective manipulation technique.
|
| https://commonslibrary.org/frame-the-debate-insights-
| from-do...
| saalweachter wrote:
| A large component of the right-wing media campaign for
| the last, well, all of my life has also been to normalize
| their actions by accusing The Other Side of doing it
| first. "Activist judges" was the most notable one.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Absolutely. So many are okay with Trump being openly
| corrupt and weaponizing the Justice department because
| "so did Biden".
| hayst4ck wrote:
| I have a puzzle for you:
|
| Let's say we have a democracy where the only rule is highest
| vote wins. Let's say 51% of the people vote to
| enslave/oppress the other 49%.
|
| Maybe they vote for literal chattel slavery. Maybe they vote
| for healthcare for themselves but not the others. Maybe they
| vote to tax the others at the maximum possible or implement
| tax policies that dis-proportionally affect the 49%. Maybe
| they vote the 49% cannot own homes and therefore must pay
| rent to a landlord. Maybe they vote that the 49% must
| register for the draft, but not them. Maybe they vote that
| the 49% aren't eligible for public school while they are.
| Maybe they vote that the 49% is not able to own stock or
| register for a company. Let's pretend those are legal, it is
| definitely possible. Slavery at one point was
| constitutionally allowed.
|
| Is that a Democracy? A Liberal Democracy? A Democratic
| Republic? A Constitutional Democratic Republic if the law
| were enshrined on paper?
|
| Would you want to live in that country? Would you want to
| live in that country if you were in the 49%?
|
| What is the key ingredient that makes something a "Democracy"
| rather than tyranny of the majority, "mob rule," or "might
| makes right"?
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Well, it is a democracy, the key being that the majority of
| people voted for some law. Whether you'd want to live in
| the country is a different story. Sometimes, democracies
| are not always the best form of government, they are as
| susceptible to systemic issues as any other form of
| government.
| Juliate wrote:
| So you do not understand what a democracy is and how it
| works.
|
| Balance of the three branches of government and the rule
| of law and protection of minorities are the complementary
| requirements to the majority vote, to qualify for a
| democracy.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| In the simplest sense of the word, none of that is
| needed. Athens had such a democracy, where a majority of
| people made a decision so. You are putting more
| stipulations on the word than are strictly necessary,
| hence why I said the democracy examples you gave would
| not be great places to live in.
| Juliate wrote:
| You referring back to only Athens when we have had
| several centuries of political history and progress, is
| embarrassing.
|
| The Constitution of the USA was especially a model of its
| kind. Until we realized its implementation went lacking
| from true believers, for what we can witness since
| January 20th.
|
| Check also the constitutions of modern democracies
| throughout the world.
|
| Something that depends only on the rule of the majority,
| without constitutional guarantees of the respect of the
| law, without a self-defense system against abuse of power
| is a relic of the past prototype democracies.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| You asked whether something is a democracy, not a modern
| democracy, hence why I gave the examples I did. And even
| in a modern one, I am unconvinced that just because there
| are features like you mention for modern democracies does
| not make them not actual democracies. They very well can
| be, by the dictionary definition of the word, just not
| free ones.
|
| Also, no need for the ad hominems, there is no reason to
| accuse me of not understanding something or it being
| "embarrassing," that is not helpful to any sort of
| conversation.
| Juliate wrote:
| I get your point. But calling your argument embarrassing
| is not an ad hominem.
|
| I'm not saying you do not understand. I am implying that
| in a discussion in the XXIth century about the concept of
| democracy as it has evolved in both the litterature and
| the history, and has been demonstrably stable and
| efficient, "democracy" is understood in the modern
| acception, and especially here, in the context of the USA
| Constitution - and there it has the requirements I laid
| out.
|
| Turning any country today into an antique democracy rule
| would make no sense, unless you accept a peculiar
| instability. We have experienced, in many nations, how to
| adjust and balance how a democracy can work and self-
| sustain. However, we also still experience how fragile
| they stay.
|
| And the disappointment is abysmal. Hence, perhaps, me
| being a tad tense in my words, for that I present my
| apologies.
| aerhardt wrote:
| That sounds like Ancient Greek democracy except the gap was
| much larger than 51-49.
| IFeelPaine wrote:
| These are the times that try men's souls; the summer soldier and
| the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the
| service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the
| love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not
| easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the
| harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
|
| -- Thomas Paine
|
| We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
| equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
| unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
| pursuit of Happiness.-- _That to secure these rights, Governments
| are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
| consent of the governed_. That whenever any Form of Government
| becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People
| to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
| laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its
| powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
| _their Safety and Happiness._
|
| - Declaration of independence.
|
| I do not feel safe when men are robbed of the exercising of their
| own conscience, reasoning, and autonomy. I do not feel safe when
| there are no checks and balances. I do not feel safe when nuclear
| safety professionals are fired on a whim. I do not feel safe when
| every government employee must pass a loyalty test _not to the
| constitution, an idea, but to a man and his whims._
|
| It would be a good time to read the declaration of independence
| and reflect:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_I...
|
| "He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and
| necessary for the public good."
|
| "He has made Judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of
| their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries."
|
| "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world."
|
| If you're a republican and happy with your strongman, I
| understand your feelings, but wish you could see that you're
| being deceived by those who frequently speak the truth but act
| with self interest, for the rest of us I think America's founding
| document is horribly apt at this time.
|
| When it is scary to quote our founding documents, we have fallen
| far.
| zeven7 wrote:
| Thank you for your comment. Overall, this lifted me up and
| helped me learn some more about what was in the Declaration. (I
| went and read it for the first time after seeing your comment.)
|
| > deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
|
| Unfortunately, unlike 1776, today's king was given power by the
| governed, and the majority (of those who care enough to vote)
| still support him. So I don't know where those of us who are
| horrified go from here.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| With absolutely no malice intended: you step back a bit, lick
| your wounds, and try to figure out why your message and
| candidate failed - just like the GOP did for the past four
| years.
|
| Four years feels like a long time when it has just started;
| it isn't so long at all in hindsight. Moreover, you have
| _two_ years before the next opportunity you have to
| disempower Trump (midterm elections). The campaigns for those
| start in a year or so, so if you're going to cripple Trump by
| taking back Congress now is the time to be introspective.
|
| The electorate is not irreconcilable, but change doesn't
| happen when you double down on the same course.
| zeven7 wrote:
| Thank you for a non-malicious response, but (also
| respectfully) I am not a Democrat, and your response seemed
| to me more geared toward answering "How can I deal with
| policy changes that I disagree with?" I am more concerned
| about the potential for the complete capitulation of
| American democracy to totalitarianism than any particular
| platform issues. What's happening right now is only a small
| part standard disagreements between parties (the GOP
| banning trans athletes, rebalancing the budget, approaching
| foreign relations differently) and much more about half the
| country being entranced by a cult of personality while the
| leaders in a position to stop a president from becoming a
| king instead are bowing down to him.
|
| > try to figure out why your message and candidate failed
|
| I don't like Harris' message. I probably disagree with her
| on a majority of political debate topics. I am a centrist
| and would agree with her on some things, but I would have
| considered myself a right leaning centrist more than a left
| leaning centrist. Her message failed for me too. I am just
| dismayed that the country elected _this_ man. A convicted
| felon who has provably lied more than any other person on
| record in the history of humanity, who already tried to
| overthrow an election, is only self interested, a bully, a
| sexual assaulter, a conman, a swindler: _this_ man? And now
| he's doing what you knew he would do, and there doesn't
| seem to be any way to stop it.
|
| I don't want to know how to get Kamala 2.0 to win an
| election. I want to know how to get back to Bush v. Gore.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > I am not a Democrat, and your response seemed to me
| more geared toward answering "How can I deal with policy
| changes that I disagree with?"
|
| Yep, 100%. My biases are showing :)
|
| > I am more concerned about the potential for the
| complete capitulation of American democracy to
| totalitarianism than any particular platform issues.
| What's happening right now is only a small part standard
| disagreements between parties (the GOP banning trans
| athletes, rebalancing the budget, approaching foreign
| relations differently) and much more about half the
| country being entranced by a cult of personality while
| the leaders in a position to stop a president from
| becoming a king instead are bowing down to him.
|
| Yes, I'm concerned about the risks I'm seeing too. Where
| I'm really struggling is in trying to connect that
| emotion to facts. So far, every headline, article, and
| statement I've seen has turned out to be somewhere
| between "misleading" and "outright malicious falsehood"
| upon closer inspection.
|
| Still, I read and give each one a fair chance to change
| my mind. The accusations being made are so extreme it
| would be wrong for me not to.
|
| What _really_ concerns me is that this extreme partisan
| rhetoric would make it much easier for Trump or someone
| near him to actually take control. When people have seen
| months and months of these sorts of assertions being
| made, only to investigate them and discover that isn't
| what was happening at all... at some point, people are
| going to stop listening. That's when things get really
| dangerous IMO.
|
| My biggest fear with this administration is that they'll
| actually do the things they're being accused of, I'll see
| it for what it is, and I won't be able to get anyone to
| listen to me because of "outrage fatigue".
|
| ETA: a second response is coming for the last section :)
| zeven7 wrote:
| I get it. I think your fears are warranted. I appreciate
| your response.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I agree in the principle that extraordinary claims must
| be backed by fact and evidence.
|
| I disagree that there is an excess of hyperbole going on.
|
| I truly believe that Trump/Musk/Vance and the unitary-
| executive/techbro-cult, if they are not soon stopped in
| their tracks, will have subverted American political and
| economic power for generations.
|
| Europe and Canada and the world can no longer trust the
| United States as a long-term partner. This isn't about
| subtle pivots and diplomacy. This is betrayal of values
| on our closest political, military and economic allies.
|
| He is actively destroying the apolitical civil service
| and trying to gut the pipeline of young, skilled workers
| into federal government. The only motive for the actions
| they are taking are to destroy our government. I would
| not be shocked to hear reports in the coming months of
| military officers being asked who they voted for in 2024.
|
| He is claiming (and trying to exert!) levels of executive
| power that generations of Americans were taught by Nixon
| were forbidden.
|
| "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."
|
| "If the will of the president is not implemented and the
| president is representative of the people, that means the
| will of the people is not being implemented and that
| means we don't live in a democracy, we live in a
| bureaucracy."
|
| These quotes should frighten every American.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| I'm always happy to engage in friendly political
| discussion!
|
| > I truly believe that Trump/Musk/Vance and the unitary-
| executive/techbro-cult, if they are not soon stopped in
| their tracks, will have subverted American political and
| economic power for generations.
|
| I actually agree with this statement. The difference is
| that I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. From my
| perspective those power structures have been in the
| control of the left[+] for my entire life; they've had
| near-complete control since at least FDR, and substantial
| influence back to ~1900.
|
| [+]: "the left" isn't a great descriptor here, but I
| don't really have an objective way to name the group I'm
| referencing. I think you know what I mean, if not feel
| free to ask and I'll expound on it.
|
| --
|
| Note: I wrote this section by doing my best to empathize
| with Trump and put myself mentally in his position. I'm
| assigning my own perceptions of his motivations and
| perceptions. Please don't take statements made here as my
| attesting to them being fact. When I make an assertion
| here, it's because I believe Trump himself would make it,
| not because I necessarily agree with it or believe it to
| be true.
|
| Trump intended to "play ball" and steer the federal
| government through the normal mechanisms in his first
| term. He was met with far more substantial resistance
| than he expected and had little success. Then he lost a
| hotly contested election for a second term, hurting his
| ego - and I think we all agree that ego is a powerful
| motivator for Trump.
|
| ... but then the Biden administration took control of
| those same levers of power that Trump had difficultly
| moving, and turned them on Trump. He was smeared by the
| media, continued to be mocked even after serving as
| President, spied upon, and ultimately was the target of
| multiple political prosecutions. His wealth and his very
| freedom were directly threatened. This was an extreme
| escalation. His options in 2024 were binary: he could win
| the Presidency or have his life destroyed. He won, and
| now his actions are being driven almost exclusively by
| righteous indignation.
|
| He's going scorched earth. He's using every available
| lever of power and pulling them as hard as he can. He's
| doing things he knows are going to get shot down in the
| courts and taking actions he knows are "gray" at best,
| and he's doing as many things at once as possible in an
| attempt to saturate both the other branches of government
| and the attention of the electorate.
|
| His goal isn't to leave a legacy in the traditional
| sense, or to implement a typical policy agenda - he's
| trying to dismantle century-old entrenched systems of
| power that have cloaked themselves in the mantle of
| democracy in an attempt to take control of the same.
|
| --
|
| All of that said, I believe the American people elected
| him for the same reason I voted for him: because the
| status quo is unjustifiable, and no other path toward
| reform is apparent.
|
| I _want_ Trump to destroy the majority of government
| power and authority. My reasons for that are different
| than Trump 's, and different from most Republicans I've
| met. Trump voters by and large are framing this as a
| fight against the "deep state", while I want to see a
| continuous, gradual reduction in government through
| redundancy. I'm an anarchist, but not "that kind" of
| anarchist - I don't want to murder the government, I want
| it to die of neglect because it's no longer necessary.
|
| The methods he's using scare me. He's pushing the
| boundaries of Presidential power without question, and
| almost certainly exceeding them already in some ways. I
| fully expect that he will continue to do so in larger and
| more impactful ways.
|
| Even if I'm 100% correct in inferring Trump's intentions,
| it's still a very dangerous approach. Those power
| structures are so entrenched because they have inordinate
| (and inappropriate) influence on the process in place to
| change them. They'll fight for their continued existence.
| However you want to phrase it, Trump is subverting,
| suspending, relaxing, ignoring, or destroying the
| protections built into our system of government.
|
| The bet that we are making as a country right now is that
| Trump intends to use as little of that seized power as
| possible, that his intentions are what we believe them to
| be, that he has the honor necessary to release those
| levers of power, and that those he allies himself with
| along the way either don't attempt to or are unable to
| take over the movement.
|
| Trump's actions are making us vulnerable to the
| destruction of the American system of government - but
| things have gotten to the point where a majority of
| voters feel that risk is justified when considering where
| we are today and where we're heading otherwise.
|
| > Europe and Canada and the world can no longer trust the
| United States as a long-term partner. This isn't about
| subtle pivots and diplomacy. This is betrayal of values
| on our closest political, military and economic allies.
|
| I think Trump believes this is larger than domestic
| corruption - that the US is so powerful economically,
| militarily, and culturally that the cancer in our
| government has spread to other Western governments.
|
| As for the US as a long-term partner, that ship sailed
| long ago. Our system is structured so that the party with
| the power to set our foreign relations agenda changes
| every four years. A promise made by the US is only
| guaranteed for the current Presidential term. It may be
| honored by the next, or it may not.
|
| > He is actively destroying the apolitical civil service
| and trying to gut the pipeline of young, skilled workers
| into federal government. The only motive for the actions
| they are taking are to destroy our government.
|
| Agreed. That is his explicit stated intent. I believe
| him, and it looks like most voters agree with him, too.
|
| Let's all just hope we're correct in inferring his
| motivations for doing so.
|
| > I would not be shocked to hear reports in the coming
| months of military officers being asked who they voted
| for in 2024.
|
| I'd be shocked if there aren't reports. I'd be more
| shocked if those reports turned out to be both true and
| directed by the administration rather than overzealous
| individuals or not explicitly intended to generate those
| headlines in an attempt to sway opinion - but as I've
| said elsewhere, the accusation is of a magnitude that
| I'll investigate them with an open mind.
|
| > He is claiming (and trying to exert!) levels of
| executive power that generations of Americans were taught
| by Nixon were forbidden.
|
| Yep.
|
| > "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."
|
| > "If the will of the president is not implemented and
| the president is representative of the people, that means
| the will of the people is not being implemented and that
| means we don't live in a democracy, we live in a
| bureaucracy."
|
| > These quotes should frighten every American.
|
| I agree - but I think the disconnect is in whether we
| believe the risk is justified.
|
| Our Founders did things that were illegal. They even did
| things that were objectively vile - they deprived
| loyalists of their property. In some cases they tortured
| or even killed them. They didn't do so without
| justification, or without trying every other option
| available to them. They weren't enthusiastic for those
| things; they saw them as a duty. Their actions led to the
| overthrow of a tyrannical monarch, the creation of a
| truly revolutionary system of government, two centuries
| of relative prosperity, and ultimately the creation and
| maintenance of the longest period of relative peace the
| modern world has ever seen.
|
| Some other quotes that would be just as frightening as
| the above in a contemporary lens:
|
| "I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of
| freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments
| by those in power than by violent and sudden
| usurpations." ~ James Madison
|
| "If this be treason, make the most of it!" ~ Patrick
| Henry
|
| "But a Constitution of Government once changed from
| Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is
| lost forever." ~ John Adams
|
| "If ever this vast country is brought under a single
| government, it will be one of the most extensive
| corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care
| over so wide a spread of surface. This will not be borne,
| and you will have to choose between reform and
| revolution. If I know the spirit of this country, the one
| or the other is inevitable." ~ Thomas Jefferson
|
| "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on
| certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept
| alive." ~ Thomas Jefferson
|
| "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time
| with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~ Thomas
| Jefferson
|
| Jefferson in particular is a treasure trove of quotes
| that illustrate this idea. Let's just hope that Trump is
| a better man than many believe he is. Personally, I think
| it will be a near thing, and am hoping he clears that bar
| - because if I'm wrong, we're in for a rough ride indeed.
| zelias wrote:
| I admire (though do not agree with) the spirit of your
| argument. What I don't understand is how, given
| everything we know and have seen about Trump and the
| content of his character, you could possibly expect him
| to do the "honorable thing" when push comes to shove.
|
| The Founders fought and bled and sacrificed together for
| the free principles that this country was founded on.
| Trump has done none of these things. In fact, he goes out
| of his way to show contempt for large swathes of the
| citizenry on a regular basis. The man is famous for
| refusing to pay his bills. Why would one expect this
| nakedly self-interested man to show a shred of honor at
| the eleventh hour when he has the chance to become a
| powerful tyrant for the remainder of his life?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Canada
|
| I live in Canada and let me tell you we're not covering
| ourselves in glory when it comes to democracy either.
| Between laws like bill C-63[1], which would effectively
| criminalize "bad" online speech and the prime minister
| suspending parliament[2] for political expediency we're
| not looking too good.
|
| [1] https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2024/06/viranis-failed-
| human-rig...
|
| [2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/court-challenge-
| prorogue-pa...
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > I don't like Harris' message. I probably disagree with
| her on a majority of political debate topics. I am a
| centrist and would agree with her on some things, but I
| would have considered myself a right leaning centrist
| more than a left leaning centrist. Her message failed for
| me too.
|
| I'm an extremist without question, just not the popular
| type. Think less "Donald Trump" and more "Ron Paul" :)
|
| > I am just dismayed that the country elected _this_ man.
| A convicted felon who has provably lied more than any
| other person on record in the history of humanity, who
| already tried to overthrow an election, is only self
| interested, a bully, a sexual assaulter, a conman, a
| swindler: _this_ man?
|
| The alternative was someone with no obvious positions
| other than her predecessor's, who was not elected by her
| party, and who was honestly just unlikeable as an
| individual for most people.
|
| Of all the things you listed about Trump, I'd only really
| take issue with two: I'm not convinced he sexually
| assaulted anyone (though I also don't have sufficient
| evidence to believe he definitely didn't), and I don't
| think "only self interested" is quite right. I think his
| motivations are a bit more complex than that, and are
| more rooted in personal pride and revenge than anything
| else. I _don't_ think he intended to win the first time,
| and I don't think personal financial enrichment was
| really a goal of his either time.
|
| I think his initial run was mostly on a whim, but
| (Hillary) Clinton offended him and he doubled down in
| response. His second run was personal - he felt
| personally attacked on both socially and legally, and has
| basically made it his mission in life at this point to
| destroy everything those who did that to him care about.
|
| I don't believe for a moment that he's being selfless or
| altruistic. He's acting out of self-interest, but not in
| the way most people would mean that statement.
|
| > And now he's doing what you knew he would do, and there
| doesn't seem to be any way to stop it.
|
| As best I can tell, he's mostly doing what the people who
| elected him expected him to do.
|
| > I don't want to know how to get Kamala 2.0 to win an
| election. I want to know how to get back to Bush v. Gore.
|
| I'd be happy with Obama v. McCain at this point.
| zeven7 wrote:
| Thank you, for both responses. There are little things we
| could quibble about further, but it's late, so I'm going
| to keep it short [edit: I failed] and then go to bed
| happy that you and I were able to have a discourse that
| felt respectful, well reasoned, and beneficial -
| something I've felt so lacking for recently. Despite
| being able to quibble about details, I understand a lot
| of what you are saying and agree with many of your
| points.
|
| > As best I can tell, he's mostly doing what the people
| who elected him expected him to do.
|
| The one thing I'd like to pick at tonight is this. I
| don't think many of the people who voted for him would
| have agreed with all of this a year ago, but they get
| stuck agreeing with it now out of confirmation bias and
| because he's on their team, and they want their team to
| win. It seems more like everything Trump does is approved
| by the vast majority of his base, no matter what that
| ends up being.
|
| Before the election I enjoyed the debate between Ben
| Shapiro and Sam Harris[1]. Shapiro's main point was that
| though he didn't like a lot of what Trump said, he liked
| a lot of what Trump did in his first term. Shapiro was of
| the opinion that Trump wouldn't do all the things he said
| and that his second term would look a lot like his first.
|
| It is my opinion that, a month into it, Trump's second
| term now looks nothing like his first, and Trump is
| making good on all the things he said he would do during
| his campaign. Everyone isn't Shapiro, but a lot of people
| listen to him and think like him. Taking Shapiro as an
| example, I would say he was clearly wrong. But if you
| watch Shapiro today, he accepts what Trump is doing full
| stop. He's not out there saying, "I didn't think Trump
| would actually do all of this." He's acting like this is
| what he wanted. And, thanks to Shapiro's confirmation
| bias and a good healthy dose of audience capture, it is
| what he wanted - at least the part about Trump being
| right, now that "right" has changed.
|
| Anyway, I typed way longer than I intended to. Thank you
| for a good civil discussion.
|
| > I'd be happy with Obama v. McCain at this point.
|
| Fully agreed.
|
| Good night.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTnV5RfhIjk&t=3s&pp=y
| gUWYmVu...
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| Chiming in, this point is a important one. Many people
| who voted Trump didn't actually believe he would do all
| the things he said. His whole thing is that he talks big.
| Its and incredible power really. If he says "I'm going to
| do <objectively bad thing>", and his critics call him out
| on it. His supporters say: its just talk to get a
| reaction, you're taking it out of context, etc. This
| happened a lot during the first term (big talk, not
| follow-through) and then lots of big talk during the
| campaigning for this term with the expectation it would
| likewise have little follow-through. But then he starts
| doing it, and his supporters immediately switch to "he
| said he would do this and he's doing it and he has our
| support".
|
| Example during the first term was the "Lock her up" talk
| about Hillary. He didn't do anything about her at all.
| And people just accepted it as big talk. Hi supporters
| (mostly) didn't really expected him to go after her with
| the DOJ or whatever. It was just campaigning bluster. But
| today he says he's going to start unnecessary trade wars
| with allies and people said "its just bluster, he's not
| really going to do it", immediately to "of course he's
| going that, he said he would".
|
| When he said that people would not need to vote again if
| he's elected a second time, was that bluster? Taken out
| of context? Not to be taken seriously? That's what his
| supporters said then. But what he starts making moves to
| actually make that happen? Then its "he said he would do
| that and was voted in, so that's what america wants".
| It's a wild to say its what people want when they didn't
| believe he would do it.
| krapp wrote:
| >Then its "he said he would do that and was voted in, so
| that's what america wants". It's a wild to say its what
| people want when they didn't believe he would do it.
|
| It is what people want. Just look at how many people on
| HN are aggressively carrying water for Trump and DOGE in
| these threads. They aren't the minority, they're the
| mainstream. You can't simply pretend the majority of
| Trump voters who absolutely do _want_ him to do the
| things he says either don 't exist or didn't vote.
| Filligree wrote:
| It's wild watching America skydive into anocracy this
| quickly, but that's where we are, I guess.
|
| A few days ago I was worried they might pull all their
| troops out of Europe. Today... I think I'm more worried
| they won't.
| krapp wrote:
| The inflection point has been quick - and I think a lot
| of that is due to Musk injecting himself into the
| process, and Trumpists spending the last four years
| organizing. They know they wasted the potential of their
| last term and don't intend to make the same mistake
| again.
|
| But people have been warning about this all the way back
| during the alt-right/Tea Party days of Obama, which Trump
| was a direct response to.
|
| It's been like watching the slowest train crash in
| progress, all while half the country accuses the other
| half of derangement for believing trains are even real.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Had the same thought.
| NickC25 wrote:
| >The alternative was someone with no obvious positions
| other than her predecessor's, who was not elected by her
| party, and who was honestly just unlikeable as an
| individual for most people.
|
| We used to live in a democracy, not a dimocracy. There
| were more options than the 2 major parties. Always have
| been.
|
| > I'm not convinced he sexually assaulted anyone
|
| Yeah, and his name totally didn't show up in Maxwell's
| black book, and he totally wasn't a pal of Jeffrey
| Epstein. /s
|
| You're fucking kidding me.
|
| > I don't think personal financial enrichment was really
| a goal of his either time.
|
| My brother in Christ, financial enrichment has been the
| _only_ goal of Donald Trump, ever. He ran in 2016
| expecting to lose so he could use the base as viewers of
| the new Fox-alt media platform he was trying to raise
| money for.
|
| This is a guy whose life mission is to convince everyone
| else he's a billionaire, while simultaneously threatening
| to sue anyone who claims he isn't, while also
| simultaneously avoiding lawsuits that would open his
| finances up to discovery. He tried to sue his own
| biographer when said biographer claimed he wasn't a
| billionaire. Trump dropped the case when it went to
| discovery.
|
| >I think his initial run was mostly on a whim, but
| (Hillary) Clinton offended him and he doubled down in
| response. His second run was personal - he felt
| personally attacked on both socially and legally, and has
| basically made it his mission in life at this point to
| destroy everything those who did that to him care about.
|
| His first run was in 2000. His second run was 2012. Third
| run got him elected. His fourth run saw him defeated. His
| fifth run got him re-elected. Get your facts straight.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| As someone who currently studies public policy I find the
| centrist declaration interesting because I used to
| consider myself a centrist until I started reading more
| on the actual positions of many politicians.
|
| In my limited view Obama was very centrist, as was
| Hillary, and with some notable exceptions it looked like
| Kamala would continue the trend (while expediently
| skewing left and sometimes even slightly right when
| necessary).
|
| I think if you were to pie chart policy even into Trumps
| first term you'd see presidential action being both
| majority in volume and majority in impact as centrist.
|
| So while I agree that Kamala's messaging failed to point
| this out during the election, and DEI rhetoric and action
| being a notable exception to my argument, Kamala was at
| the end of the day the centrist candidate IMO and thus
| the 2.0 correction would be more transparency to that
| reality.
| intended wrote:
| It's not a candidate issue, when the media and messaging
| doesn't get to the other voters.
|
| If a scientist going up against a fraud, and the fraud wins
| the debate, then it's not a debate.
|
| This is what happened back when experts went to Fox and
| talked about climate change in the 90s.
|
| They were simply obliterated. Even if a point was made, it
| would be killed and something else floated during the
| evening shows.
|
| Because it's not a debate. It's not about truth, or
| democracy.
|
| Trump dodged every debate after Harris came on the scene.
| He was not humiliated for this.
|
| One team wants to win. The other team wants a functioning
| nation.
|
| The electorate is functionally irreconcilable if the
| message never gets to them, and their party punishes
| bipartisan behavior.
|
| And this is not what america was set up to survive. It was
| assumed that people would reach across the aisle.
|
| Even if you win the next election. The ground work for
| Trump 3.0 and beyond remains.
|
| People need to look at Fox News, and develop ways to get
| past their censorship and message curation.
| jaybrendansmith wrote:
| As Americans that believe in the Republic, what exactly are we
| supposed to do about this? Should we continue to implore congress
| to take action against this lawless behavior?
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Trump is bringing up the point that this Republic's
| constitution only provides for three branches of a government,
| not 4.
|
| This reminds me of a supreme Court ruling a few years ago where
| the rights of native Indians had been trampled on in Oklahoma
| for 100 years. The court said something like "well, now that
| you bring it up--stop it!"
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Trump is bringing up the point that all employees of the
| executive branch owe fealty to him, and must act directly in
| accordance with is directives above Congress.
| Terr_ wrote:
| And also above rulings from the Judicial Branch.
| HaZeust wrote:
| Yeah, way to go Trump! Nothing better than securing the
| Lockean virtue of the unspoken 4th branch of government by...
|
| _checks notes_
|
| Castrating the other 2 in an effort to consolidate the third!
| Yeah!!
| unethical_ban wrote:
| In my personal life, I have resolved not to be silent if
| confronted with a pro-Trump opinion being voiced. To state
| unequivocally and without needing to elaborate that what is
| occurring is something un-American and goes beyond partisan
| differences, that Trump and his lieutenants are destroying our
| Federal government for a generation or more while permanently
| damaging our place among democracies in the world. That the
| people who voted for him are making America a worse and weaker
| country for their children.
|
| I'm going to write essays to those I care about and also
| coordinate action plans with like minded individuals to be
| ready for scenarios of neo-nazi rallies or certain extreme
| behaviors, should they occur in my city.
|
| I'm debating protesting solo with signs along our roads;
| someone did that recently in my city and said they had to flee
| because Trump supporters surrounded him and threatened him. But
| it needs done.
| CPLX wrote:
| The actual answer here is to exercise actual power.
|
| Oligarchs are always greatly outnumbered.
|
| The only thing that is genuinely effective is mass movement. A
| coalition of labor unions could shut down all of Elon and
| Trumps businesses in hours. Block the entrances to the
| factories. General strikes, boycotts, that kind of thing. It's
| not actually that complicated.
|
| Instead the modern Democratic Party is in love with appeals to
| the referees. They think that if they can just convince some
| court or The NY Times editorial board or a 75 year old former
| republican special prosecutor they'll win.
|
| As we have seen that approach is a total and complete failure.
|
| If someone in opposition was able to generate mass collective
| action however the change would be swift. Nobody is really
| trying that though.
| intended wrote:
| The modern Dem party, is sadly boring and correct.
|
| I think they need to split their approach into two.
|
| One for to keep Their base energized.
|
| One to use the system and protect itself. The courts, the
| local elections.
|
| What is being taken out are the systems that run the country.
| The dems have to be the one to defend it.
|
| But frankly, I think the battleground is a media
| battleground.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| What the modern Democratic Party knows, but understandably
| doesn't go around trumpeting, is that they cannot organize
| mass collective action because there's not enough people on
| their side. You talk about "a coalition of labor unions", but
| even union members barely lean Democratic these days. There's
| very few groups outside of the Democratic Party
| infrastructure which are polarized enough to take a side.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Dems put all their energy into trying to win over the 1% of
| people who make up 75% of internet drama.
| CPLX wrote:
| There are absolutely enough people on "their side" in the
| sense that there are plenty of people on the side of
| working people, way more than enough.
|
| The problem is the actual leadership of the Democratic
| Party isn't on the side of working people at all, and is
| actually actively hostile to those in favor of classic
| labor policies.
|
| Don't get me wrong the other side is absolutely not on the
| side of working people either, that's more than apparent.
|
| The entire dynamic we're seeing right now is a battle
| between two competing groups of elites. More on that
| concept here: https://www.compactmag.com/article/doge-as-
| class-war/
|
| But with those caveats out of the way, a bona-fide labor
| movement could make short work of all this bullshit.
| Unfortunately the purpose of the modern Democratic Party
| appears to be to occupy the place in our system where a
| labor party is supposed to reside.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I agree with a lot of what this article has to say, and
| it's true that the politics of the US would be quite
| different if one of the major parties were a bona fide
| labor movement. But they're not, and I worry that the
| label of "elites" makes it harder to see why they're not.
| It's genuinely challenging - although I agree sometimes
| necessary! - to explain to someone who's really fired up
| about racial justice or climate change that they're not
| representative of the public and their concerns need to
| take a back seat to kitchen table issues.
|
| It's also not obvious to me that a bona fide labor
| movement would take a particularly strong stance on an
| executive order curtailing independent agencies. Being
| invested in the details of how paper-pushing agencies are
| structured is a very elite concern.
| CPLX wrote:
| > to explain to someone who's really fired up about
| racial justice or climate change that they're not
| representative of the public
|
| To some extent yes. But also those issues have big
| implications for working people. It's possible to talk
| about them in a way that inspires and builds a movement,
| or in a way that makes people feel stupid and excluded
| from the conversation. Often they choose the latter.
|
| > It's also not obvious to me that a bona fide labor
| movement would take a particularly strong stance on an
| executive order curtailing independent agencies
|
| It should be absolutely obvious why the labor movement
| might be opposed to what is _literally the largest layoff
| in American history._
| squigz wrote:
| I'm confused. 75 million people voted Democrat in the last
| election. That's quite a few people on their side?
|
| And I'm not sure it's a fair assessment to say union
| members 'barely' lean Democrat
| https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/17/key-
| facts...
|
| > There's very few groups outside of the Democratic Party
| infrastructure which are polarized enough to take a side.
|
| The last 2 presidential elections saw the highest turnouts
| since 1968. It seems like people aren't having a problem
| picking sides.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I'm not saying that nobody supports the Democrats over
| the Republicans. There's two interrelated points:
|
| * Supporting the Democratic Party against its main
| opponent is very different from supporting it in its own
| right. There's a lot of people in the US who would prefer
| for Chuck Schumer to be the majority leader, but very few
| who look to him for cues on what they ought to believe or
| fight for.
|
| * There's very few spaces where the Democrats are
| dominant _enough_ to form a nucleus of mass resistance.
| 50-43 among union members is a nonzero lead, but if you
| go to your union local to organize an anti-Trump protest,
| that 43% represents quite a lot of voices who won 't
| agree with the premise that there's anything to protest.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _As Americans that believe in the Republic, what exactly are
| we supposed to do about this?_
|
| If you are in a red state/district, first step would be to
| contact your elected federal rep(s) and tell them that you're
| displeased.
|
| Use language like " _Trump was elected to correct Biden 's
| overreach, but he's now overreaching in a much worse way._" Put
| it in language where you frame things like a
| 'Constitutionalist' and 'limited government'. The stereotypical
| small-government, Originalist GOPer.
|
| If you come off sounding like a Democrat they'll probably
| ignore you, but if the (so-called) 'grass roots' MAGA folks are
| thought to be upset then you'll probably get more traction.
|
| Or you'll just be ignored regardless.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| I called both my senators' offices yesterday, because I still
| haven't gotten a response to my emails from a few weeks ago.
| Still waiting to hear back.
|
| I also told them that working on legislation for protecting
| George C Marshall's house, and protecting bourbon, are not
| valuable uses of their time given the destruction currently
| being waged on the US Government.
| xyzal wrote:
| Where are the mass protests? Are there even any people in the
| streets?
| Balgair wrote:
| I'll assume you weren't there on Monday then? It was even a
| day off for a lot of people.
| Arubis wrote:
| They're happening. And they're not getting much media
| coverage. It may be that we're at the point where this isn't
| an effective tactic.
| lm28469 wrote:
| There is no social cohesion or solidarity in the US, that's
| the biggest problem
|
| In France if they'd raise the price of baguettes by 10% you'd
| have strikes from teachers, public transportation drivers,
| dock workers, train drivers, doctors, trash truck drivers,
| &c. all at once, after a week it would be complete chaos and
| the government would have no choice but to negotiate
|
| In the US everyone is playing their little game on their
| side, decades of free for all capitalism at work
| curt15 wrote:
| First, don't listen to the "we're so f*cked" posts on reddit.
| Only actions lead to results.
|
| If you are a Republican but don't approve of how the GOP
| majority has basically rolled over and abdicated its duty as a
| check on the president, remind your congresspeople that they
| owe loyalty to their constituents, not to other politicians.
| Taxpayers pay their salaries.
|
| The Democratic party is also in desperate need of repairs if
| you are interested in direct political action. They have been
| self-destructing over the past couple of years, plagued by
| infighting, deer-in-the-headlights paralysis, political tone-
| deafness, and incompetence in messaging.
|
| In addition, the increasingly authoritarian shift by the
| Federalist society ought to make room for a new counterpart
| promoting the rule of law. IANAL but have always wondered why
| the Federalist society had no similarly prominent opposing
| organization.
| dimal wrote:
| I am furious at the Democratic Party for bringing this about.
| They are the only organization capable of losing to this guy
| TWICE. With everything at stake, they actually thought it was
| a good idea to put up an unpopular president who had
| dementia, and tried to sneak him past the electorate like
| this is Weekend at Bernie's 3. Then when that idea collapses,
| they just give it to the default next person in line. This
| should have been an easy win.
|
| They got us here. The party needs to be gutted.
| drawkward wrote:
| I will join your party.
| outworlder wrote:
| The current guy in power has just as many cognitive issues,
| but it is a few years younger, is louder and doesn't have a
| stutter. That is, apparently, enough.
|
| Democrats did screw up by not allowing the people to choose
| the candidate. They also screwed up again by not
| preemptively creating safeguards in case Trump won, and by
| not strengthening the elections. Too many ballots were
| thrown out.
|
| Now they are further enabling this by basically displaying
| no opposition.
| trilobyte wrote:
| Honestly, I donate enough money to politicians to make them
| stand up and take notice when I email or call them and share my
| thoughts, which leads me to the conclusion that people in the
| middle and lower class are going to need to find ways to pool
| money in such a way that they can change their party politics.
| It's not that all politicians are completely motivated by
| money, but IMO you unfortunately have to aim at the lowest
| common denominator.
| bluGill wrote:
| You can only donate $3500 to any politician. (legally, if you
| do something illegal and are not caught...). There are
| complex limits notice when you say something. (for a small
| city that limit will make them listen, but nothing national
| or even a large city)
|
| What you can do is get out votes. People knocking on doors is
| still one of the largest drivers of votes so if you organize
| those systems they will listen to you.
| pindab0ter wrote:
| I am not at all familiar with the US system. How come there
| is a $3500 donation limit to politicians, but the tech
| billionaires have donated hundreds of millions to the
| inauguration fund?
| bluGill wrote:
| The inauguration fund is not used to get someone elected.
| Different accounts with different rules.
| trilobyte wrote:
| I donate to the party, and I donate at the individual
| limit. At that level they still care because people who
| donate at that level are connected with other people who
| donate at that level, and those people tend to reach out
| and coordinate. Periodically I get emails from other donors
| who ask me to reach out to such and such a person, a
| candidate or a party rep, and encourage that they take a
| look at X issue through a particular perspective.
|
| I think more people would benefit from forming Super PACs
| and using that as leverage in pushing political change with
| parties.
| cess11 wrote:
| I've heard rumours about well-regulated militias
| constitutionally instituted for this particular purpose. Maybe
| they just need some time to convene and decide on tactics.
| bluGill wrote:
| I hope it doesn't go that far, but it is always an option. It
| only has a chance of working if the army either goes with, or
| at least is so divided they won't stand against you.
| ergonaught wrote:
| Americans have clear guidance on how they are supposed to
| handle tyrants. Don't be silly.
|
| People out here debating the right rules of a game Republicans
| are no longer playing.
| zzleeper wrote:
| This will probably get flagged, but if you read this, spent a few
| minutes trying to understand the gravity of this specific EO.
| Every federal employee even in independent agents must and will
| jump when Trump says so. Even if he asks them to do something
| illegal (close the congress! Jail a democrat!), they must follow
| his orders. Because HIS interpretation of the law cannot be
| superseded.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| If he wanted to fire anyone who disagreed with him, this EO
| wouldn't have been necessary. With very few exceptions,
| executive branch employees serve at the pleasure of the
| President.
|
| This is how it is, how it has been, and is entirely consistent
| with the Constitution.
|
| So, if not that, then why issue this EO?
|
| First of all, it's a statement: "Resistance to this agenda from
| within the executive branch will not be effective"
|
| Secondly, it helps ensure that when the President issues a
| statement, it's not immediately met with bureaucrats making
| statements to the contrary.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > If he wanted to fire anyone who disagreed with him, this EO
| wouldn't have been necessary.
|
| Nonsense! This is the _exact opposite_! This is EO shows
| Trump _trying even harder_ to fire all the people who refuse
| to go along with his crimes.
|
| He is asserting that when the Judicial branch concludes his
| firings are illegal, _he 's going to ignore it_, and then
| fire anyone _else_ who refuses to help him illegally fire
| people.
|
| It's the democracy-destroying version of a Monty Python
| sketch: The people who followed the law have been sacked. The
| people who didn't sack the people who followed the law have
| also been sacked.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > He is asserting that when the Judicial concludes his
| firings are illegal, he's going to ignore it, and fire
| anyone else who refuses to help him illegally fire people.
|
| Where?
| sangnoir wrote:
| "No employee of the executive branch acting in their
| official capacity may advance an interpretation of the
| law as the position of the United States that contravenes
| the President or the Attorney General's opinion on a
| matter of law"
| grandempire wrote:
| What is an "independent agency"? Which branch of the government
| is that a part of? Which electoral representative do they
| report to?
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I dunno, it makes sense that the federal branch that manages
| interest rates is independent of the president. Didn't we
| have a whole thing where Trump couldn't force rate increases
| or decreases back in 2020? Do we really want Trump to declare
| interest rate changes via tweeting or whatever?
|
| What about things like drug approvals? I don't want Trump to
| ban certain drugs just because they didn't donate to his
| campaign. I don't want Trump to approve Elon Musk's brain
| chips just because Musk told him to.
| grandempire wrote:
| It makes sense that we don't elect a fed chairmen, but if
| the fed chairmen doesn't report to any elected official
| then where do they get their authority?
|
| Supreme Court Judges are appointed by elected officials,
| but then don't report to anyone. Maybe a fed chairmen is
| like that? But there is no constitutional office like that.
| Surely congress can't make up offices which are then
| untouchable?
|
| I don't want trump playing transactional games with the FDA
| either, but I don't see how that can be balanced with the
| powers. He is the chief executive.
|
| I mentioned in another comment that one angle that would
| make more sense than arguing that agencies are
| "independent" is to argue that trump is not enforcing the
| law already written by congress, so taking away the power
| of the legislature. That seems like a more fruitful take.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| > It makes sense that we don't elect a fed chairmen, but
| if the fed chairmen doesn't report to any elected
| official then where do they get their authority?
|
| Congress put in a process for a fed chairman to be
| appointed in a way that jointly incorporates president,
| house and senate. Similarly firing them also needs joint
| cooperation, then the people have some say by
| electing/unelecting a congress or president that fucks it
| up. Same for FDA, USPS, etc etc. I definitely want a
| formalized process to hire and fire these guys and not
| just up to whims of individual executives.
| Zamaamiro wrote:
| The chairman of the Federal Reserve is accountable to
| Congress. The chairman must regularly report to and
| testify before Congress.
|
| This is established in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
| jpadkins wrote:
| > it makes sense that the federal branch that manages
| interest rates is independent of the president.
|
| You left out who the federal reserve is controlled by. It's
| not completely independent right? In its current form, it
| is owned and controlled by regional federal reserves which
| are controlled by the banks.
|
| You are advocating for the corporate bank control of the
| money supply (and interest rates). One definition of
| fascism is the merger of corporate and government power.
| One sign of oligarchy is when corporations control the
| regulation of their industry.
|
| "Independent government agencies" is just a code word for
| industry controlled government agencies (which are a form
| of fascism or oligarchy).
| drawkward wrote:
| >One definition of fascism is the merger of corporate and
| government power.
|
| Literally DOGE
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Enjoy the Kool-Aid...
| mindslight wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it's called Xitter punch. As in, "enjoy
| bobbing for turds in the Xitter punch".
| timacles wrote:
| Historic times we are living in.
|
| When the history books are written, this executive order, along
| with the past few weeks of actions, will be seen as the seeds of
| the 2nd American revolution.
|
| The USA had a solid 250 year run but technology, money, and greed
| have unfortunately undone the very core of what America stood
| for.
|
| We cannot know at this point where this is going, but it seems
| like fascism is the inevitable course. My fear is that if you
| combine that path with the power of the US military, the world is
| in for a very scary time.
| Freedom2 wrote:
| Wonder how long it'll take for the media outlets to start blaming
| Biden again, "well he should have put protections in!"
| grandempire wrote:
| The only rebuttal I see in the media is that congress set these
| up to be "independent". But our government doesn't have
| independent branches. In fact that sounds a lot like "unelected
| and unaccountable".
|
| So which branches are these agencies under? Is it in the
| judicial, legislative, or executive - and if it's in the
| executive why can't the chief executive manage business?
|
| On the other hand, one of the issues brought up in the Obama
| years was whether a president can choose not to enforce a law
| like immigration. If congres's laws can be ignored than what
| power do they have?
|
| Genuine question. Does anyone have a constitutional framing for
| the duties of the executive branch in prioritizing enforcement or
| implementation of law?
| error_logic wrote:
| Not unaccountable, just requiring the cooperation of multiple
| branches to remove.
|
| Cooperation which has been deemed too transparent, too
| vulnerable to actually caring about what is being destroyed.
| grandempire wrote:
| What other constitutional procedures require cooperation
| between branches to make a decision?
| sdenton4 wrote:
| The president signs laws, for example...... This isn't
| hard.
| grandempire wrote:
| Im not being facetious. That's a good example. So in that
| case the president has a final yes/no, but no authority
| to rewrite.
|
| So maybe congress has a kind of veto power here?
| cowfriend wrote:
| yes.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Congress has lots of power, it's a question of whether
| they do anything. Currently the Republicans are
| uniformity falling in line with the authoritarian
| executive orders, even those that abrogate well
| established congressional powers.
| bluGill wrote:
| Remember we are still in the first 100 days. Congress
| typically falls in line for the first few months (not
| always 100 days, but it is a good round number). As the
| term goes on though congress tends to start looking to
| the next election and they start to opposed unpopular
| things because they will lose in 2 years. Trump is
| risking a democrat super majority in the house in 2 years
| if he is too unpopular, and 20 republicans are up for
| election in the senate, if even half of them turn that
| would be a majority for the democrats and a shot that the
| other republican senators (who want to win election in
| 2-4 more years) will pay attention to.
|
| But we need to get through the first few months before
| any of this will play out. And after that there is still
| a long time before the 2026 elections.
| 9dev wrote:
| What on earth gave you the idea this administration will
| be anything like a previous one? I don't think we can
| assume the rules will just stay the same.
| bluGill wrote:
| So long as there are elections in 2026 the looming
| election will have an effect. I doubt Trump can get away
| with trying to stop elections or even manipulating them
| (much - there is always manipulation). As such congress
| will soon start behaving like elections matter and they
| might not be elected if they are unpopular.
| masfuerte wrote:
| It's not a final yes/no. A two-thirds majority in both
| chambers can overrule the presidential veto. For example:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55510151
| snowwrestler wrote:
| If your question is whether the "independent" agencies are
| Constitutional, the answer is yes. Congress makes the laws and
| the laws can constrain the behavior of the President. If the
| law says the President cannot fire someone, or interfere in an
| agency's work, then the President cannot.
|
| So who are such agencies accountable to? Congress. Just like
| the president is accountable to Congress.
| grandempire wrote:
| So your understanding is that these agencies are part of the
| legislative branch and the senate/house would have the power
| to do this?
|
| If it's that clear will it be easy to take this to the
| Supreme Court?
| pas wrote:
| They don't have to be part of any branch. The usual
| branches are descriptive concepts. (Or they can be part of
| the executive branch yet still not be part of the "unitary
| executive" part. The law allows for any kind of exemptions
| and special-casing.)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory
| grandempire wrote:
| congress themselves must call to elections, but they can
| make up permanent offices accountable to nobody?
|
| We should be able to identify which elected official
| could fire any person.
|
| I just don't think the independence argument is a good
| one. We should focus on politically selective law
| enforcement.
| cowfriend wrote:
| Friend, I think I see your concern, and I may have an
| answer. Most of the bureaucracy is apolitical. However,
| the heads and higher-ups of each agency are appointed by
| the currently in-office politicians.
|
| So the upper management is composed of political
| appointments. And like any other organization, the upper
| management has considerable discretion in setting
| priorities.
|
| re: "politically selective law enforcement" is not a good
| thing, because laws are one of the things that are
| supposed to constrain politicians.
| ARandumGuy wrote:
| They're not "accountable to nobody". Assuming they have
| the votes, congress can revoke any law, at any time, for
| any reason. And typically laws specifying the appointment
| of specific people also have provisions for removing that
| person.
|
| The reason for this is stability. Congress, businesses,
| international allies, and most US citizens typically
| don't want things to dramatically change every new
| presidential administration. And the primary way to
| ensure that stability is to make it so the same people
| are working in various government offices from
| administration to administration. And I think people are
| quickly learning why that stability is desirable, as the
| current administration attempts to dismantle it with no
| consideration for the consequences.
| kelipso wrote:
| I guess we are at the "deep state is good actually" stage
| of the process now.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| They are part of the executive branch, but the law governs
| and constrains the behavior of the executive in managing
| them.
|
| You can't even say that Congress is solely the source of
| those constraints since the laws creating and governing
| these agencies were signed by... the president!
|
| Most of these agencies have already been challenged in
| court and the Constitutionality of their structure and
| governance affirmed.
| grandempire wrote:
| I agree. Taking trump to court for not carrying out
| existing law is a winning case. Saying he can't replace X
| person because they are in an independent branch is not
| going to hold up. And I suspect they know that and want
| the court to rule on it.
|
| Unless someone can make an argument that they actually
| report to congress.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Part of the executive power in the US is that the
| president influences the judicial branch, and ultimately
| the judicial branch is going to determine who gets to do
| what. They do this in many ways, a big one being they can
| prioritize any case they want, and simply decline to even
| hear certain ones. So if the president wants to do
| something, congress pushes back and challenges it and it
| goes to court, the president can effectively "get away
| with it" as long as the judiciary is fine with it
| kelipso wrote:
| > Part of the executive power in the US is that the
| president influences the judicial branch
|
| How? Judicial branch is independent.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Influence is not control?
| kelipso wrote:
| There is no influence. You are just making things up now.
| Once selected by the President, the judges are
| independent.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Sure, in an ideal world. These folks all attend the same
| parties, and by many accounts seemingly _think the same
| thoughts_ , which is pretty wild!
|
| All three branches are now run by ideologues. There is no
| independent thought. There may be independence _on paper_
| , and on that we would agree. But the situation here in
| _reality_ isn't really related to what's on paper. In
| fact these folks mean to _ignore all the current laws_
| and just do _whatever the fuck they want_ and I'm not
| making that up. I'm reporting what I _see_.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| That's my point. The influence done through the
| appointments. Influence in the branch, not in the
| individuals
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Congress can only make laws if they don't infringe on the
| constitution. If they want laws that aren't constitutional,
| they have to make constitutional amendments, which is
| probably never going to happen ever again because of how
| dysfunctional they are and have been for decades.
|
| The president has a lot of constitutional protection to run
| the executive branch, though obviously congress has ways to
| pass laws and influence that, too.
|
| The president isn't accountable to congress but there are
| checks and balances both ways
| twoodfin wrote:
| This is just flatly incorrect. _Humphrey 's Executor_ (which
| may not be long for this world as precedent, anyway) lays out
| specific cases where "for cause" requirements on termination
| are Constitutional, but otherwise the President's power to
| dismiss subordinate officers of the executive branch is
| absolute.
| ModernMech wrote:
| The Court distinguished between executive officers and
| quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial officers. The Court
| held that the latter may be removed only with procedures
| consistent with statutory conditions enacted by Congress,
| but the former serve at the pleasure of the President and
| may be removed at his discretion. The Court ruled that the
| Federal Trade Commission was a quasi-legislative body
| because it adjudicated cases and promulgated rules. Thus,
| the President could not fire a member solely for political
| reasons. Therefore, Humphrey's firing was improper.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey%27s_Executor_v._Unit
| e...
|
| Sounds like what the parent was saying, so not flatly
| incorrect.
| Maxatar wrote:
| Your comment is way too vague to be declaring anything as
| flat out wrong. At any rate, federal employees have
| numerous protections from being fired arbitrarily as laid
| out by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, a law passed
| precisely to limit arbitrary firing of federal employees,
| especially for politically motivated reasons.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| They aren't 'independent' they are 'a mix between executive and
| legislative'. The Supreme Court decisions are Meyers v US and
| Hunters Executor v US. And I'm not a constitutional scholar but
| my reading of it is that the protections in question come from
| the legislative delegating some of their power to the
| executive, think legislative actions (researching laws, etc)
| but retaining their constitutional prerogative to protect them
| from executive control.
|
| This is something that has existed for a very long time but has
| been changing lately and will almost certainly show up in the
| Supreme Court again.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| It's a false narrative that Obama was soft on immigration and
| even earned the nickname "deporter in chief".
|
| In some ways he was even harder than Bush during the post 9/11
| response.
|
| www.migrationpolicy.org/article/obama-record-deportations-
| deporter-chief-or-not
|
| It's astounding the regularity over the last 100 years that
| conservatives have used immigration narratives to fire up their
| base regardless of what statistical data shows.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It's complex.
|
| Obama may have deported lots of people, but Trump famously
| used the same institutions to detain and torture minors
| indefinitely... Which of those is "harder" against
| immigration?
|
| It's the same issue that is happening now. Biden deported a
| lot more people, but he focused on people entering the US or
| caught doing something. Trump is deporting a low fewer
| people, but he randomly taking people from their homes,
| workplaces and schools. Which one do you think appears
| "harder" on TV?
| Nasrudith wrote:
| So in other words his supporters are a bunch of sadistic
| idiots who would rather see kindergartners tortured than a
| cartel member deported into custody because it means a hard
| tough man is in charge!
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Hum...
|
| Maybe it's more a case of rampant mathematical illiteracy
| all over the press and people paying more attention to
| extraordinary events. I really don't know.
| timewizard wrote:
| Obama left office more than a decade ago.
|
| Perhaps you should view this through the lens of the Biden
| administration.
|
| It's astounding the regularity that people bring Obama when
| they want to avoid discussing reality.
| cowfriend wrote:
| > But our government doesn't have independent branches.
|
| In theory it does, that is the whole idea and genius of the
| constitution.
|
| In fact at the moment it does not, because Trump has so
| captured the Republican party that the legislature has almost
| no power to stand up to him. The Supreme Court has a long
| history of judges aligning with the political party that seated
| them, and Trump put 3 of them into their seat.
| cjfd wrote:
| In a democracy the three branches are independent. Democracy is
| not just 'you get to elect the guy on top', it also attempts to
| preserve the rights of the population. If the population does
| not have rights, democracy soon becomes very fake. E.g., I
| don't like this or that party so I throw anyone in jail during
| election day if I know that they would vote for the wrong
| party. The general principle is that if a person/organization
| has too much power they will generally find a way to abuse it.
| The famous split-up in three branches is employed to a greater
| or lesser extend in all countries where the rights of the
| population are respected.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| >But our government doesn't have independent branches.
|
| Yes, it does, by the nature of them existing and Congress
| establishing them. Show me where in the Constitution that they
| can't do that.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Congress makes lots of rules about how the executive can wield
| power:
|
| * FOIA tells the executive branch when/how to share documents.
|
| * APA tells executive agencies what they have to do to make a
| rule.
|
| * Congress gives line item budgets, and the executive doesn't
| get to reassign funds.
|
| * Executive agencies must submit to audits from GAO (within
| congress)
|
| It's perfectly reasonable for congress to limit how executive
| agency heads can be hired/fired too. After all, it's agencies
| that congress enacted and gave power too, and for legitimiate
| reasons that congress has.
| NickC25 wrote:
| There's no more FOIA - Musk had their entire office fired and
| disbanded.
| advisedwang wrote:
| There is no central FOIA office. Each agency has is
| responsible for their own FOIA requests. IF you are
| referring to this news story [1] That was just the FOIA
| office at OPM.
|
| [1] https://www.commondreams.org/news/cnn-foia-office-of-
| personn...
| timewizard wrote:
| The Constitution has the "Due Care Clause."
|
| The Administration is required to follow the law and to
| implement it with due care as the legislation intended.
|
| The Legislature can impeach the Administration, it can hold
| it's officers in contempt, and it can pass laws constraining
| the Administration.
|
| It's a simple problem: NO ONE IS DOING THEIR JOB. This is
| because they can get away with it and you don't actually have
| the power to vote them out. The media is part of the problem
| and is no longer serving the interests of the citizens. The
| monopolized corporations ensure you cannot use the Internet to
| meaningfully solve this problem. Look at this garbage thread.
| Look at all these garbage threads on here every time some
| political problem comes up. It's all compromised claptrap
| designed to appeal to corporate American but in no way to
| connect and govern in a modern fashion with each other.
|
| Look at turn out on voting day when a presidential election is
| not slated. It's typically less than 25% of the voting age
| population that turns out. If you sit and think about this for
| one minute you will see why we are where we are.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| There's prosecutorial discretion. If Congress doesn't like it,
| impeachment is the remedy.
| h335ian wrote:
| So disappointed by the irrational and hyperbolic comments from my
| fellow nerds. Why are folks reading into this so much!? Clearly
| folks aren't actually reading the content and just reacting based
| on a headline. Read, contemplate, compose. This really shouldn't
| be an inflammatory exec order - from what I can tell this is
| precisely within the purview of a POTUS and precisely in line
| with historical exec orders. Why the cray cray reactions? Just
| cause Trump I guess. For shame. Be nerds. Look stuff up. Stop
| with the hyperbolic "fascist" "coup" business. If you disagree
| with strategy, fine!! But at least recognize that these ideas
| aren't new - nor fascistic - they're inherently American and
| we're in the midst of an adjustment cycle where these old ideals
| will be expressed in new modalities that we don't all agree with.
| Doesn't make it "fascist". Ugh. So juvenile.
| thiht wrote:
| This is not hyperbolic. In one month Trump has taken full
| unchecked power on almost anything. In 4 years, you won't vote,
| that's a given.
| blased wrote:
| So when 4 years pass and we're still voting, are you going to
| admit you are hyperbolic and divorced from reality?
| intended wrote:
| Would you be around if he does what he says ?
|
| At what point are your personal thresholds crossed?
|
| I dont understand personally, how any conservative could
| tolerate this man.
|
| Nor any techie lose their minds when someone without a
| security clearance gets access to sensitive national
| networks.
|
| I've seen more complex plans used by spies to break into
| state secrets.
|
| Yet, people are surprisingly chill.
|
| So perhaps I am wrong. And perhaps there are other signs I
| should be looking for.
|
| At what point should I or anyone say "major redlines have
| been crossed."
| blased wrote:
| > Nor any techie lose their minds when someone without a
| security clearance gets access to sensitive national
| networks.
|
| There's something peculiar about how liberals are now so
| offended by "security" when the federal government has
| showed complete incompetence over the past decade or even
| more.
|
| All the security clearance data was leaked from federal
| servers. What else do we have to lose. Never mind that
| countless federal employees see your social security
| info. It's regularly fraudulently submitted by illegal
| foreigners too.
|
| None of the criticisms I've seen from you or others are
| alarming.
|
| What was alarming was watching Biden for 4 years
| completely non compos mentis and a media filled with
| liberals who would censor and ridicule ANY mention of
| this obvious fact. That's the GRAVEST national security
| threat, everything else PALES in comparison, and not a
| peep from the people who lit their entire political
| capital on fire over the ridiculous patently-false
| charades to never admit fault.
| intended wrote:
| Why are you dodging the question. I'm no longer playing
| ball with this idea that I will run after the next shiny
| object or gambit.
|
| What are your personal red lines? I am serious. Sure.
| Biden may have been whatever, But you will still have
| some personal lines you wouldn't cross.
|
| You have values, you have things you would like to know
| you stood up for.
|
| What are they? This isn't a gotcha. If you think the line
| is not crossed, no problem.
|
| But tell me what your lines are.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| The red line for Trump's people unfortunately isn't doing
| anything bad. He could shoot a man on fifth avenue and
| not lose them. It would take him doing something which
| shows actual human decency and actually helps people. If
| he attempted to create "Trump-care" providing
| unconditional healthcare for all he would be impeached
| and out on his ass. God forbid if he were to recognize
| LGBTQ rights and acknowledge their legitimacy, that
| action would literally kill people from shock.
| thiht wrote:
| Sure. As long as:
|
| - there are non Republican candidates to vote for
|
| - the right to vote hasn't been crippled somehow
|
| - elections are fair
| blased wrote:
| I guarantee this will be the case, as it's been the case
| every election since forever including 2020 when liberals
| were fear-mongering (like they always do) when they were
| out of power.
| thiht wrote:
| Was the Capitol incident fear-mongering too?
| thiht wrote:
| Funny that just a few hours after this post, Trump starts
| referring to himself as "the King" on social media. I
| wonder if it's a hint of something, like the time he said
| people won't need to vote in 4 years.
| piva00 wrote:
| What's your personal threshold for gatekeeping when people are
| supposed to call it fascist?
|
| Have you done your nerd research on how Nazis dismantled the
| democratic state? If so, at what step would you have gatekept
| calling it fascist?
|
| Blanket calling worried people as "juvenile" as a dismissal is
| in itself pretty fucking juvenile, hope you can see that.
| scarab92 wrote:
| Progressives are using words like Nazi and fascist, purely as
| a slur against a political rival, without really
| understanding what those words mean nor the attrocities they
| represent.
|
| What the Nazi's did was horrifici, and it's incredibly
| insensitive, inappropriate, and, yes, juvenile, to water that
| down by using it for political point scoring.
| Gigachad wrote:
| What's the threshold before you can say it? Doing nazi
| salutes and mass deleting the public research / books /
| info pages isn't far enough yet?
| scarab92 wrote:
| Musk didn't really do a Nazi salute, even the
| hypersensitive ADL can acknowledge that.
|
| I'm not aware of any mass deletion of books, or
| information broadly, except for a few about pages for
| government programs that no longer exist (DEI etc)
| lazide wrote:
| I guarantee you'll still be seeing people doing this long
| after Trump is dead. The point isn't that there is an
| actual line. The point is that there IS NO actual line.
| The goalposts will shift forever.
| piva00 wrote:
| Not only progressives are calling it fascism or proto-
| fascism, do you understand the steps fascism takes to fully
| take hold? Don't you see any parallels? Have you read any
| books on the subject?
|
| It seems like you get butthurt from reading people calling
| moves very similar to fascism done by politicians you
| support, fascism takes many flavours, Italian fascism was
| different from German fascism. The way it's going the past
| month looks like to be shaping an American flavour of
| fascism.
|
| There's no watering down, you are seeing with your own eyes
| a movement happening where the leader of the executive is
| attempting to snatch power, it never happens at once, it's
| always through salami slicing. What will be the breaking
| point for you, specifically? What signs do you expect so it
| can be called fascism?
|
| You are all around this forum whining about "progressives"
| trying to heed a call about a dark path being traced. You
| never seem to acknowledge there are very worrying moves
| happening, for some reason you do not want to hear it, you
| want to shut off the discussion at every turn by using
| progressives as a slur, and anything said by that out-group
| as wrong or hysterical a priori. Can't you see how stupid
| it is? You are always attempting to throw a wrench into
| these discussions with vitriol, as a non-American I really
| ask you to inform and educate yourself better, to learn
| about the process of fascism before coming with knee-jerk
| reactions because you don't like "progressives".
|
| Go read "Hitler's Beneficiaries", read any book on
| historical recounts of the process of fascism unravelling
| from the 1920s to the 1930s, you are behaving exactly as
| the citizens enabling Mussolini and Hitler. American
| Fascism will not be Nazi or Italia Fascista, it has its own
| shape and form (such as not being anti-semitic, completely
| different to Nazis) but even though the topography differs,
| the core principles are pretty much the same.
|
| Don't be an enabler, you won't like to be on the wrong side
| of history.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| Few days ago, in Poland died a journalist, historian and
| former Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner. He was
| known for speaking every year there. His last speech was
| - remain vigilant.
|
| I think that speaks for itself and I need not to comment
| on this.
|
| Americans, why? Why are you so keen on dabbling with a
| homegrown fascism of yours? Why are you so keen on
| setting the world aflame?
| etchalon wrote:
| Eggs cost too much.
| computerthings wrote:
| > What signs do you expect so it can be called fascism?
|
| I think some people just know a few images from the Nazis
| at the height of their power. Or the death camps, that
| were only discovered because the Nazis lost the war (the
| plan was to erase all traces, after all). No concept of
| the 1920s, not even "Mein Kampf", nothing.
| piva00 wrote:
| That's been my impression too, seems like people (even
| more Americans) are extremely uneducated about the whole
| process of fascism. Instead they end up with this
| cartoonesque picture of what it looks like: SS officers
| standing guard over concentration camps, Hitler's
| speeches to huge crowds wearing swastika armbands, war.
|
| No, that's the fucking end point of it, after all is done
| and the wheels have been far gone from the wagon, the
| process itself is much more nuanced and step-wise but the
| uneducated ones never ever heard of it. Feels like they
| live in a world where someone turned on a switch and
| everything changed at once...
|
| Worst: it's coming from people who have lived through a
| pandemic, watched the social strife and divisions
| unfolding right in front of their faces, how can those
| same people not see that massive social movements aren't
| ever clear-cut? It's all just so stupid and ignorant.
| conartist6 wrote:
| Kushner said it best. "Noone goes as low as Trump." So you also
| get to deal with what politics looks like when it reaches its
| lowest, nastiest form.
|
| Trump's a hero to the right, but on the left there's a pretty
| reasonable sense that Trump's actions have already amounted to
| literal treason if you consider him to have an obligation to
| uphold the oaths he has taken.
|
| He attempted to get Zelensky to go on US TV and execute a
| political attack on Democrats as a condition of the US helping
| Ukraine.
|
| He attempted to get the 2020 election flipped by making mafia-
| don style calls to Georgia asking them to "find" precisely the
| number of votes which would have made him win that election. He
| next asked Pence to change the result for him. All of these
| were acts of open treason against the People of the United
| States, so long as you count the People of the United States as
| including people who didn't vote for him.
| conartist6 wrote:
| To make it crystal f**ing clear: him changing the policy of
| the US isn't treason. Cozying up to Russia or trying to
| reduce the size of the government are his prerogative as
| elected leader in a way that trying to change the result of
| an election is not. Ohh yeah and I forgot that he tried to
| get everyone to stop counting the votes while he was ahead!
| That also goes in the treason most foul bucket.
| Zamaamiro wrote:
| Rather than gesturing generally at all of these "irrational"
| and "hyperbolic" comments, why not take the time to
| thoughtfully rebut any specific comment that you believe is
| engaging in irrationality and hyperbole?
|
| I would also cool it with the dismissive tone and avoid saying
| things like "cray cray" before accusing anyone else of being
| juvenile.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| We have a government that has been completely capture by the
| elite. Democrats are the oligarchs good cops offering
| performative resistance while ultimately consenting to anything
| that boosts their brokerage accounts and re-election budgets,
| while republicans are the oligarchs bad cops, directly weakening
| regulation of those with power, protections for those without,
| and systematically destroying any force that can stand up to the
| insanely wealthy. Republicans are setting the wealthy up for the
| mass privatization of public property and services as well as the
| purchase of all the assets firesold to sustain life during a
| disaster, like your parent's house when social security/medicare
| doesn't cover the cost of living, or like farmland that isn't
| profitable to farm because it's too expensive to import
| fertilizer.
|
| The elite capture is multiplicitively damaging because the elite
| own nearly all major media outlets. WaPo, NYT, Facebook, Twitter,
| etc.
|
| Neutrality is implicit support for power over justice. Justice
| requires challenging those with power, because those with power
| are the default victors in conflict. Evil wins when good men do
| nothing.
|
| The Hacker News algorithm is easily gamed. Downvoting and
| flagging will sink any post, but resigned consent to a fait
| accompli is the win condition for this coup. The less they are
| publicly challenged, the easier it is to seize power without
| resistance. The easier it is to keep exercises of power
| unchecked.
|
| State AGs and members of the house of representatives are making
| public official statements with the power of their office that
| _we are experiencing a coup_. This is historic.
|
| I really wish dang would privilege more of these discussions
| about the end of constitutional rule from the automatic downward
| moderation of controversy and flagging.
|
| The number of largely independent media platforms which allow for
| open and public discussion without major algorithmic influence is
| few. Failing to challenge power, submitting to it, or protecting
| yourself from attention is the easy thing to do, and right now we
| all have the privilege of doing so, but this slow moving disaster
| will seep into every area of our lives as the scaffolding of
| trust is eroded and the lack of consequences for those who
| exercise arbitrary power will make it a winning strategy to take
| advantage of people.
|
| I understand hacker news is a place for curiosity, but curiosity
| is not allowed when obedience is demanded, and that is what
| _authoritarians_ do, demand obedience. Maintaining one day 's
| curiosity at the cost of tomorrow's defeats the goal of being a
| place for curiosity. The right to question authority... the right
| to be curious must be defended.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I still don't buy the bothsidesism. You say at first they are
| part of the coup, quietly approving of what is happening, then
| pointing out the commentary by state AGs that this is a a power
| grab.
|
| We agree this is a catastrophe, but I don't think that media
| and the liberal political parties are willful codefendants.
| mnky9800n wrote:
| I think there is a need to distinguish between AGs who write
| such letters and party organizations (i.e., democrats) that
| have allowed corruption such as insider trading within their
| ranks. A non-complicit to oligarchy democrat party would
| never have allowed nancy pelosi to be a completely unchecked
| insider trader.
| asdff wrote:
| One would think then I saw an NYT article that basically went
| up for bat for RFK jr. and danced entirely around his
| rhetoric on research cuts. So that ship is certainly lost at
| this point.
| greyface- wrote:
| This is obviously alarming, and if used to disregard the
| Judiciary's interpretation of law, unconstitutional. But I'm
| puzzled by the exemption of the Federal Reserve and FOMC. He's
| previously beefed with them, and would presumably find the
| additional leverage useful. Why explicitly exclude them?
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Inflation is an extreme handout to the wealthy.
|
| _Money is by definition zero sum,_ otherwise the word
| "inflation" would have no meaning. There are good questions
| around what an over leveraged loan is, but fundamentally, the
| supply of money is to some degree fixed at any given moment.
|
| The wealthy and powerful keep their money in tax benefited,
| inflation tracking assets. Many of those assets are stocks, and
| a major business cost is labor. Wages are generally not
| inflation tracking. That amplifies the benefit of inflation to
| the wealthy. So the buying power lost by suppressed wages and
| devalued savings, as well as the devaluing of all money
| currently in flight such as paychecks, is exactly gained by
| those with wealth/ownership. Inflation also makes loan's
| cheaper to pay off, further benefiting those with enough assets
| to get a loan.
|
| When the market stagnates or companies freeze hiring or do mass
| layoffs, it puts employees in an even worse negotiating
| position resulting in even more suppressed wages past the first
| order effect of inflation.
|
| So what's even better for the rich than tax breaks is
| inflation.
|
| The fed is the beating heart of the economy, it pumps money
| through its sluices.
|
| The fed is in many ways the Balrog deep in Moria.
|
| Oligarchs _do_ answer to other oligarchs, even if they don 't
| answer to law, and there's a good chance that many of them see
| the impending potential disaster of either stagflation --
| people won't have enough money to buy goods and the economy
| stalls and maybe doesn't restart, or hyperinflation -- the
| definitive end of American hegemony as countries move to a
| different reserve currency and America is no longer able to
| fund its military. The economy is also directly tied, if not
| most directly tied, to the legitimacy of the ruling regime, so
| a policy of choosing loyalists over qualifications or letting
| it be corrupted by someone selling out tomorrow for today is
| likely to lead to actual civil unrest instead of performative
| civil unrest.
|
| My guess is that the finance business oligarchs see it as a red
| line because the moment the fed is corrupted, it's no longer
| their fed, but Trump's fed, and that will be equivalent to the
| moment Putin gathered all of Russia's oligarchs, with one of
| them in a diminutive cage in a court room, and then said "half"
| and held out his ring with the implication of the power
| relationship being clear (part of the greater story of the
| Magnitsky act).
|
| It's also worth noting that normally you would get capital
| flight once the wealthy get scared, but the US has told every
| foreign country that American citizens in that country are
| under American jurisdiction and therefore all wealth must be
| reported to the US government, so while in the past an oligarch
| might have been happy to cause civil unrest with their
| unchecked greed, America's deep financial reach means that many
| will pay a hefty price, if they are even allowed exfiltrate the
| majority of their fortunes at all, binding them to the outcome
| of fed decisions as well.
|
| But I'm very far from an expert, so probably wrong about some
| of that.
| vslira wrote:
| But capital gains - and business income taxes in a way, given
| how profit is calculated - do pay an inflationary tax since
| they're calculated on nominal gains, so I'm not at all
| convinced that the wealthy don't care about inflation since
| it erodes their wealth.
|
| This effect can be minimized or neutered if their assets grow
| in real terms, but that only works in a growing-pie world,
| too
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| The money supply is not zero sum. Private lenders create
| money when they lend and are paid back the loan with
| interest.
|
| It's also why there'a always some level of inflation: Modest
| inflation is a sign of a healthy economy.
| ziml77 wrote:
| This video starts with a good explanation of how lending
| creates new money https://youtu.be/8xzINLykprA
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _Inflation is an extreme handout to the wealthy._
|
| Debatable.
|
| But the opposite, deflation, hits the poor much harder.
|
| It was deflation, the gold standard, and the insistence of
| balanced budgets that caused revolutions all over the world:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austerity:_The_History_of_a_D
| a...
|
| It was dropping prices that caused ferment in the US:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Gold_speech
|
| It was FDR getting off the gold standard and balance budgets
| that helped the US recover:
|
| * https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-money-makers-how-
| roosevelt-...
|
| * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24945314-the-money-
| maker...
|
| > Money is by definition zero sum, _otherwise the word
| "inflation" would have no meaning._
|
| I have no idea what this even means.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| > Inflation is an extreme handout to the wealthy.
|
| > Debatable
|
| Wait how is this debatable. We saw wealth inequality
| explode in '20 '21 '22 and '23 as the wealthiest Americans
| navigated rapid inflation and then rate cuts by
| strategically buying everything they could and then turning
| into activist investors and forcing RTO and mass layoffs
| despite record profits.
|
| Wealthy people can take advantage of economic turmoil by
| selling high and buying low, the greatest example being
| Buffets mass sell off and subsequent repurchasing.
|
| What am I missing?
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _What am I missing?_
|
| Wealth inequality was previously at its highest point in
| the US during the Gilded Age, when the US was still on
| the gold standard and inflation was not as much of a
| thing (and deflation often reined):
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Deflation
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression
|
| During the 1970s, US inflation was quite high:
|
| * https://www.investopedia.com/inflation-rate-by-
| year-7253832
|
| and yet during the same time period the wealth ownership
| of the top 0.1% went _down_ :
|
| * https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/13/us-
| wealth-i...
|
| US wealth inequality only really started rising in the
| 1980s--as inflation went down. Further, as _The Guardian_
| graph shows, concentration has gone up from the 1990s up
| until now, even though the last few decades have had the
| lowest, and most stable, inflation numbers in history:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moderation
|
| So the link between inflation and wealth concentration
| does not appear to have any correlation according to the
| historical data.
|
| I would hazard to guess that a more promising link to
| wealth concentration/inequality would be the cutting of
| tax rates (both corporate and personal) starting during
| the Reagan administration, and how it reduced
| redistribution of money to the lower- and middle-class.
| cyberax wrote:
| > Wait how is this debatable. We saw wealth inequality
| explode in '20 '21 '22 and '23 as the wealthiest
| Americans navigated rapid inflation
|
| What "rapid inflation"? Inflation was right around the
| historical average for 2020, 2021, 2023, and 2024. The
| only outlier was 2022 with 8% inflation, but that's still
| far from "rapid" historically speaking:
| https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-
| policy/infl...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I wonder who you saw debating that. It looks really settled
| down and unanimous to me. Inflation is extremely harmful to
| poor people.
|
| The only debate I see is about whether the Austrian school
| has a point and merely printing money is already harmful or
| if harm comes only when prices increase.
|
| Also,
|
| > But the opposite, deflation, hits the poor much harder.
|
| Yes. Two different things can be true.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _I wonder who you saw debating that. It looks really
| settled down and unanimous to me. Inflation is extremely
| harmful to poor people._
|
| The debate is about the alternatives / counter-factuals:
| would <0% inflation (read: deflation) be better or worse
| for poor people than >>0% inflation? How do those two
| compare to ~0% (e.g., 2%, the Fed target) inflation?
|
| There's a reason why I linked to articles on the topic of
| the 'cross of gold' and austerity. We've had other ways
| of doing things in the past and are on the current system
| for a reason.
|
| A lot of folks seem to want to get rid of the Fed, get
| back to gold, mercantilism (which is basically what
| Trump's tariffs are attempting), and generally go back to
| the 1800s way of doing money/finance:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression
|
| Try reading Project 2025's chapter on the Federal
| Reserve:
|
| > _Free Banking. In free banking, neither interest rates
| nor the supply of money is controlled by the government.
| The Federal Reserve is effectively abolished, and the
| Department of the Treasury largely limits itself to
| handling the government's money. Regions of the U.S.
| actually had a similar system, known as the "Suffolk
| System," from 1824 until the 1850s, and it minimized both
| inflation and economic disruption while allowing lending
| to flourish.[23]_
|
| [...]
|
| > _As in the Suffolk System, competition keeps banks from
| overprinting or lending irresponsibly. This is because
| any bank that issues more paper than it has assets
| available would be subject to competitor banks'
| presenting its notes for redemption. In the extreme, an
| overissuing bank could be liable to a bank run.[!]
| Reckless banks' competitors have good incentives to
| police risk closely lest their own holdings of competitor
| dollars become worthless.[24]_
|
| * https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadershi
| p_CHA...*
|
| Yay! Bank runs!
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > Money is by definition zero sum, otherwise the word
| "inflation" would have no meaning.
|
| Not sure that I agree, nor that the one follows from the
| other.
|
| Without having the advantage of an Economics degree, I have
| witnessed when rising tides have lifted all boats and a
| majority of U.S. society benefited. Perhaps "wealth" is not a
| zero sum.
|
| And if that is case, talking about "money" is orthogonal. We
| should talk instead about disposable income, standard of
| living, etc.
| mrexroad wrote:
| Currency is zero sum, prosperity shouldn't be.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Inflation is a tax on the value of money. Those who can get a
| return on their money best can avoid some of the tax. Those
| people are the wealthy.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| He's scared of them.
|
| If he were to mess with the Fed it would impact Wall Street,
| particularly by making the market indices go down.
|
| For whatever reason he cares about that in ways he doesn't care
| about his approval ratings or the historical norms of the
| office. See how fast he reached a deal on tariffs earlier in
| the month when the markets reacted to them? Since then they've
| been slowly leading tariffs to get the message out so when the
| tariffs come the market will have priced it in.
|
| He'll get to the Fed. But it won't be overnight. The
| administration will start messaging it and choreographing the
| change long enough before so it won't spook Wall Street.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| This is the key, there is a reason why the Fed Chairman
| doesn't ad-lib any of their public speeches. They read a
| carefully prepared statement and that's it.
|
| Just a small wink, nod or a pause somewhere might cause panic
| on Wall Street.
| dartos wrote:
| Elon Musk's entire net worth is tied up in stocks.
|
| If Tesla crashed, so would Elon's power.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| You've got me hoping for a massive market correction now.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I know it sucks, but ELon also has SpaceX, Twitter, xAI and
| oddballs like neurolink and boring company that would still
| keep him outrageously wealthy if Tesla collapses.
|
| Also Tesla won't collapse because it's investors are the
| most brain damaged investors, and frankly their self-
| fulfilling prophecy has kept them repeatedly buying any dip
| back up. It's been extremely profitable to be a mindless
| Tesla investor.
| scarab92 wrote:
| Why does it suck that he has given humanity all those
| things?
| Powdering7082 wrote:
| Because his current actions appear consistent with
| attempting to perform a coup
| unethical_ban wrote:
| He hasn't "given" society anything, we pay these
| companies for their services (often with taxpayer
| dollars!)
|
| It doesn't suck that SpaceX or Tesla exists. It sucks
| that the person who has profited most from those entities
| is using their power to destroy government agencies that
| oversee his companies, and more broadly, to constantly
| lie and try to destroy the federal government.
| scarab92 wrote:
| > He hasn't "given" society anything, we pay these
| companies for their services
|
| He's given society new products and services that didn't
| exist before, the option to purchase from those
| companies, and the tax revenue from those companies (to
| the tune of hundreds of billions)
| dartos wrote:
| Why do you attribute all those things to Elon? Didn't he
| buy into all of his companies?
|
| What a weird way to say that. He "gave" us spacex or
| Tesla.
| scarab92 wrote:
| > Didn't he buy into all of his companies?
|
| No, he founded them.
|
| Tesla technically existed on paper before Musk, but they
| didn't even have a working prototype, and their facility
| was a home garage. In all practical terms he founded
| Tesla as well.
|
| Twitter he bought obviously, which is why I didn't
| mention it.
| dartos wrote:
| He didn't found Tesla, The Boring Company or Twitter and
| got ousted from PayPal.
|
| ... also I was looking at your comments, your rate of
| Elon glaze per min is really impressive.
| scarab92 wrote:
| He did found Tesla, like I mentioned, and I didn't
| mention the other two companies.
|
| You seem to be acting in bad faith here.
| Powdering7082 wrote:
| I'd really expect that he is actually at a loss on all of
| those except for SpaceX which has a clear path towards
| being cash flow positive if it isn't already
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| You don't have to make money to be worth an astronomical
| amount. HN should know this better than anywhere.
|
| I hate "fictitious" valuations as much as the next guy,
| but at the end of the day it's what people are willing to
| pay for equity that determines value, not what it's books
| look like.
| noah_buddy wrote:
| His approval rating is quite high considering the
| circumstances. Will take months to really understand, but at
| least half of America abhors the federal government.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| The only president with approval ratings lower than his
| current rating, this early in their presidency, was his own
| first term:
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/116677/presidential-approval-
| ra...
|
| And its dropping from the low point it started at https://p
| rojects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/dona...
|
| I don't know what "considering the circumstances" are but
| his approval ratings are historically abysmal, not quite
| high.
| bagels wrote:
| Can you imagine if the media were actually reporting on
| what's happening honestly, especially Fox News?
| beefnugs wrote:
| His project2025 handlers (lets be clear hes not that smart)
| have calculated exactly how much opposition each outrageous
| thing can stand, beyond which there would be too much
| coordinated pushback. So its all about divide everybody
| against their own little thing to try and get as much fuckery
| through as possible
| 827a wrote:
| It seems to me that the operative line:
|
| > The President and the Attorney General, subject to the
| President's supervision and control, shall provide
| authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch.
|
| conveys respect to the judiciary branch, and states that this
| only applies to situations where the executive branch is
| interpreting laws in isolation during their enforcement of them
| (which happens quite often).
|
| However, following that line:
|
| > No employee of the executive branch acting in their official
| capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the
| position of the United States that contravenes the President or
| the Attorney General's opinion on a matter of law, including
| but not limited to the issuance of regulations, guidance, and
| positions advanced in litigation, unless authorized to do so by
| the President or in writing by the Attorney General.
|
| Feels weirder, because it implies that when executive branch
| employees find themselves between a rock and a hard place on
| when a law is interpreted differently between the President and
| Judicial branches they must follow the Presidential
| interpretation; or they'll presumably be fired.
|
| The way I see it: This isn't a broad departure from the
| behavior of the system two weeks ago. The office of the
| President, especially under Trump, has regularly taken the
| action of replacing employees who are unaligned with the
| President's agenda. When the rubber hits the road and we get to
| a material matter that the President and the Judicial branch
| disagree on, what it might come down to is: the Judicial branch
| can bring a suit against the employees to follow their
| interpretation, but the President could fire them if they do,
| and the President could pardon them if they instead follow the
| Presidential way. That's, essentially, the same situation the
| American system has been in for hundreds of years; the only
| difference right now is that we have a President who might
| actually do that.
|
| Which draws back to something I've said a few times: Presidents
| from both parties, over the past 50 years, but especially Bush
| and Obama, have been relentless in interpreting the law in a
| direction which centralizes power into the Executive. The
| "normalcy" of the office until Trump was never enforced through
| legality; it was only decorum. It was only a matter of time
| before someone rejected this decorum, born out of congressional
| deadlock and the dire state of many Americans' wellbeing, to
| make the government and executive branch actually do something
| about it.
|
| This isn't the first time America has had to face this
| question; not even close. Trump isn't exposing new weaknesses
| in our system; the weaknesses have always been there. Worcester
| v. Georgia (1832) is a great example. It ended with the
| President saying F.U. to the Supreme Court, refusing to enforce
| one of their interpretations, and, well, the Trail of Tears
| happened.
|
| "Weakness", however, is an interesting term to deploy for this;
| it implies that the default state of the American system is
| that you need supermajority alignment for the government to
| accomplish anything, and if actors in the system find a legal
| way around that requirement, its a "weakness". Phrased more
| simply: Strength is inaction, Weakness is action. Of course,
| many Americans would disagree with any assertion that this is
| desirable, especially in the unstable geopolitical and economic
| situation we're in. Trump was elected, by majority electoral
| and popular vote, to take action; most Americans would not call
| the cracks he is cleaving open to accomplish his agenda a
| "weakness" of the system.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| The only reason supermajority is required in the current
| Senate is because a Senator can hold a "pocket filibuster"
| which in practice gives any single Senator the power to veto
| any legislation at any time for any reason for as long as
| they are in the senate. Were they to change their procedure
| and require Senators to actually speak in order to exercise a
| filibuster you would see this change pretty quickly. Strom
| Thurmond spoke for days to filibuster the civil rights laws,
| and he eventually had to stop because he got tired. He had
| aides holding buckets under the podium for him to relieve
| himself at times.
| diputsmonro wrote:
| I mean, yes, technically it's "not new" for the President and
| Judiciary to disagree at this level. But doing so results in
| events like the Trail of Tears, which _is pretty bad_.
|
| People are alarmed and concerned because they _know_ it 's
| not new. It's not difficult to find horrors in American
| history. Decorum and norms exist for the purpose of
| attempting to smooth over these stress points and make a
| safer power structure that hopefully prevents tragedies like
| this. The relative peace and safety we've enjoyed for the
| half century or so has been largely based on a modern era of
| good feelings and respectful norms.
|
| When those norms go away and the authoritarian president
| dares the court to enforce the laws he breaks, people,
| rightly, get scared. The courts don't control the army, he
| does. I hope the generals remeber their oath, but oh yeah,
| he's been replacing them with loyalists too.
|
| We know it isn't new. We've seen the horrors of history.
| That's _why_ it 's scary.
|
| Yeah yeah, America lived on and stuff after all of that. But
| a lot of oppressed minorities _didn't_. And if you 're any
| minority group that the ruling party doesn't like right now,
| you are totally justified in being deathly afraid.
|
| (For the record, I was against centralization of executive
| power under Obama and Bush too. But open and blatant
| disrespect like this is as especially alarming and should be
| treated as such, not normalized or justified)
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > Trump isn't exposing new weaknesses in our system; the
| weaknesses have always been there.
|
| exactly there; the system relies on everyone following the
| rules and doesn't have much in the way of remediation, other
| than impeachment, if the president just decides to ignore the
| other two branches. possibly SCOTUS, but they've hamstrung
| themselves with their recent decisions
| somenameforme wrote:
| The way the US political system works is that the legislative
| passes laws, the executive enforces laws, and the judicial
| interprets laws and ensures the constitutionality/legality of
| it all. This is relevant because in this scenario each body
| plays a critical role, but they 'beat' each other in different
| ways, almost like a game of rock, paper, scissors. The
| executive beats the legislative by vetoing laws, the judicial
| beats the executive by blocking/halting orders/enforcements of
| laws, and the legislative can beat the judiciary by passing new
| laws or even changing the constitution (though there you'd also
| need the states' approval).
|
| This simplifies some things (like the fact that congress can
| beat the executive by overriding a veto), but I think generally
| captures the essence of the system. And a key point here is
| that judicial beats executive. The executive can interpret a
| law however they want, but if the judiciary disagrees then the
| judiciary wins. So nothing needs to be "used" to disregard the
| judiciary's interpretation of laws - it simply doesn't matter
| what the executive's interpretation of a law - that's the role
| of the judiciary.
|
| The reason for this law is simply to bring the various agencies
| under executive authority in line. Instead of each individual
| organization interpreting the law (generally around the limits
| of their powers) at their own discretion, those interpretations
| will now need to pass through the attorney general.
| tptacek wrote:
| The Fed is statutorily independent, and organized in a manner
| that the current Court has validated (unlike the CFPB). Just
| like Trump can't assert legislative superiority over Congress,
| he cannot unilaterally compromise the independence of the Fed.
|
| I agree with Kasey, too, but I think the exception here is
| mostly legalese.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Because including them would cause an immediate worldwide
| economic crisis as everyone pulls their money from US bonds.
| calebm wrote:
| The "Federal Reserve" is not a government entity is it? I
| thought it was a private banking cartel?
| bluGill wrote:
| NO and yes. The federal reserve is complex, technically a
| private banking cartel, but there is a lot of government
| control over it.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| [flagged]
| brian_herman wrote:
| Trump with Elon has found real graft and corruption from us aid.
| Just because they are stopping the slush fund from happening
| doesn't mean we are in a dictatorship.
| aetch wrote:
| What corruption? Firing the inspector generals and making up
| claims don't count as receipts.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| It's the equivalent of the cops pulling you over and using a
| slightly dim tail light to search your entire car, make you
| get out, spread your legs, and get a pat-down.
|
| Every large government department in every country in the
| world has _some_ waste. All of them. All of the time.
|
| This is why it's so disingenuous for Trump/Musk supporters to
| point at tiny bits of waste or whatever and scream "See! See!
| We found it! They _deserve_ what they got! "
|
| It's not coincidentally one of the justifications used by
| Russia to invade Ukraine. They claimed they were after Nazis.
| _So what if Ukraine has Nazis!?_ So does every other damned
| European country! American has Nazis! Russia has Nazis!
|
| It's the drill sergeant making you do 100 push ups because
| there was a barely visible scratch on your boots. His boots
| have scratches too. That's not the point. It's _an excuse_ to
| make you jump.
|
| My advice is: Any time anyone uses such a claim, or anything
| like it, always ask yourself: _Okay, but what is the base
| rate for this thing they 've suddenly decided is
| objectionable? Is it higher or lower elsewhere?_
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| Elon Musk's people have been remarkably bad at finding real
| examples of waste. Their hit rate is extremely low - almost
| everything they publicize turns out to be wrong.
|
| You'd think they'd be able to scour the Federal budget and
| find a few real examples of waste to crow about, but
| instead they give us things like: $50 million in condoms
| sent to Gaza so that Hamas can make bombs??? And of course,
| that instantly turned out to be fake news.
| defrost wrote:
| If you want some referenced substance with that:
|
| _DOGE Claimed It Saved $8 Billion in One Contract. It
| Was Actually $8 Million_
|
| _The biggest single line item on the website of Elon
| Musk's cost-cutting team appears to include an error._
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/upshot/doge-contracts-
| mus...
|
| All the same, try not being distracted by the smoke and
| noise of the circus, it's all just a massive dead cat on
| the table to distract while other quieter changes are
| made.
| operationcwal wrote:
| it's amazing how coherently you can type with your head buried
| so deep in the sand
| Jean-Papoulos wrote:
| Direct link to the order :
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/ensu...
|
| In short, Trump is claiming full and direct authority and control
| over any and all federal agencies, with the express directive of
| "The President and the Attorney General, subject to the
| President's supervision and control, shall provide authoritative
| interpretations of law for the executive branch. "
|
| Basically : _L 'Etat, c'est moi_.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| Nuclear-armed dictatorship, and the strongest military power on
| the planet, run by Donald Trump.
|
| All bets now off.
| michaeljhg wrote:
| Well he is talking about disarming US nukes
| fransje26 wrote:
| Well he already started firing the employees in charge of
| the nuclear arsenal..
|
| https://archive.is/qOYI2
| nielsbot wrote:
| And attempting to re-hire them immediately afterwards.
| NickC25 wrote:
| Horrifying, and it plays right into Putin's desires.
|
| God help us all.
| fransje26 wrote:
| > Section 1. Policy and Purpose. [..] Since it would be
| impossible for the President to single-handedly perform all the
| executive business of the Federal Government [..]
|
| Yup. You gotta have some time left to golf with your cronies..
| apexalpha wrote:
| >A White House Liaison is to be installed in every independent
| regulatory agency to enforce direct presidential control
|
| Wow. Literally installing political officers in agencies.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| Political commissars
| jmull wrote:
| It works for red China, why not the USA too?
|
| BTW, it's not Trump we're going to have to worry about. It's
| the next guy, who will have Trump imprisoned or executed for
| treason. This one won't be a blunderer, though, and will seize
| these levers of control much more firmly and competently.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Stephen Miller worked the DHS and HHS the way you described
| in the first Trump administration. Presumably Biden had ample
| time to "seize these levers" no?
| jmull wrote:
| Don't fall for the "us vs. them" distraction. This is about
| seizing power, not Democrats and Republicans.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Biden chose not to use the power available to him to its
| full extent. He could have done something really extreme
| with the immunity he was granted by SCOTUS, but instead, he
| disavowed it.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| That's because people who are not power-hungry see the
| dangers in becoming too powerful (and therefore often
| best suited to be in power). Not saying Biden was the
| best president ever or anything, but power-hungry leaders
| for the most part do not work out well for citizens --
| history is full of examples.
| sangnoir wrote:
| How very Soviet; installing political commissars to spy on
| renegades and ensure everyone on the right side of the
| Politburo^w President.
| nailer wrote:
| My understanding is that politicians are elected whereas
| bureaucrats are not.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| I don't see the point you are making? It isn't politicians
| that are getting elected to be White House Liaisons, they
| will almost certainly be appointed.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| > The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the
| United States of America.
|
| Seems fine that the bureaucrats to whom executive power is
| delegated should be answerable to the executive.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| Yeah this is a key tenant of the MAGA 2016 and 2024
| campaigns: draining the swamp, fighting the deep state, etc.
|
| How else is the executive supposed to align fed bureaucrats
| to his goals?
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Incidentally, this is still how it works in China today.
| dev-jayson wrote:
| Wait DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) is real?? I live
| an ocean apart from the U.S and all this time I thought it was a
| meme.
| Zealotux wrote:
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/esta...
| sharpshadow wrote:
| In Germany the legal executive branch is "Weisungsgebunden" which
| mean it follows the lead of the politicians instead of acting on
| own behalf. Because of this international warrants which come
| from Germany do not get followed since they can't be trusted.
|
| It would be better to have independent judges but hey it doesn't
| lead to a dictatorship and the end of the world directly as
| propagated everywhere.
| 2-3-7-43-1807 wrote:
| maybe not dictatorship but blatant abuse of power by the
| government.
| trizuz wrote:
| Judges in Germany are independent and most of the time
| appointed for life. German state attorneys are not independent.
| Their warrants are not recognized internationally, not even in
| the EU in fact.
| red_trumpet wrote:
| > independent judges
|
| Judges are independent in Germany. Prosecutors are not.
|
| > Because of this international warrants which come from
| Germany do not get followed since they can't be trusted.
|
| I think you mean the European Arrest Warrant[1], and you are
| right that it is not accepted when issued by German
| prosecuters, because they are not indepepndent[2]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Arrest_Warrant [2]
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europ%C3%A4ischer_Haftbefehl#D...
| [2]
| spacechild1 wrote:
| > Judges are independent in Germany. Prosecutors are not.
|
| Exactly! It's the same in Austria btw. See https://de.wikiped
| ia.org/wiki/Richter_(Deutschland)#Dienstau... and https://de.
| wikipedia.org/wiki/Staatsanwaltschaft_(Deutschlan...
| sixothree wrote:
| You say these things as if the very frameworks of our country
| were not under attack. I think it's hard to describe how far
| beyond our constitution we really are here. Our constitution
| and especially our institutions are no match for what the right
| wing is doing.
| fsniper wrote:
| From a person who watched a single man taking over a whole
| country over, US is going down the same path.
| greatgib wrote:
| If people think that we are safe because it is a democracy, and
| Trump was somehow elected, let's not forget that Russia is also a
| democracy and Poutine was also elected and re-elected.
|
| Now we can be scared because it shows that "votation" doesn't
| prevent dictators to grab the power to abuse if it for their own
| good.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Well no, the Putin's party wasn't. The fraud was widespread and
| decently documented, but not prosecuted, which is not the case
| here.
| dkobia wrote:
| This new administration lays bare what we've known all along -
| the legislative gridlock and dysfunction in the house of
| representatives and senate has made them completely incapable of
| governing -- the least productive in a generation.
|
| This is opened up an opportunity for a well funded strongman, and
| the checks and balances that were intended to protect our
| democracy are now mere suggestions.
| yapyap wrote:
| [flagged]
| black6 wrote:
| Always have been.
| zusammen wrote:
| This is the sad reality of oligarchy. Red/blue culture wars
| appeal to some people because they would prefer an
| authoritarianism that at least pretends to have their back 50
| percent of the time over rich people (their employers) who have
| their back 0 percent of the time.
|
| No one wants (and I don't think anyone should want)
| bipartisanship, not really. Bipartisanship means the rich get
| everything they want--efficiently. It means the meetings of the
| club we aren't in happen on time and no one ends up with a
| black eye. That's also an unacceptable outcome. Of course, it
| can be argued that the outcome we are getting is basically the
| same thing, but with cheap depressing entertainment and
| widespread governmental dysfunction.
|
| Of course, anyone who thinks voting for any of these right-wing
| figures will end oligarchy is delusional. Their charisma comes
| from the fact that, because they hate basically everyone, they
| also incidentally hate many of the other oligarchs. But nothing
| good happens when people vote for hate, and none of these
| pricks will ever end oligarchy since they are all part of it.
| The Nazis truly did present themselves as somewhat socialist
| (it was in the name) in the early 1920s to gain their first
| followers, but as soon as they were in power, they realized
| they had more to gain by siding with the industrialists and
| against labor, which is of course what they did.
| intended wrote:
| Bipartisan efforts are what makes Congress work.
|
| It's this loss that plagues Congress.
|
| Bipartisanship is what was jettisoned by the republicans to
| ensure that they would always be able to blame democrats for
| the failure of the government.
|
| Even during Obamacare, when they adopted a Republican plan,
| Romney had to distance himself from it. Despite all the
| efforts for Bipartisan outreach - for all the concessions,
| the republicans _couldn't_ stand with the dems.
|
| The Dems must _always_ be wrong.
|
| Bipartisanship means you have to spend more effort to get
| more people on your team.
|
| Partisanship means you just have to get on board with one
| party.
|
| So how is bipartisanship the problem?
| hammock wrote:
| Why so two-party system?
| drivers99 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
|
| > political systems with single-member districts and the
| plurality voting system, as in, for example, the United
| States, two main parties tend to emerge. In this case,
| votes for minor parties can potentially be regarded as
| splitting votes away from the most similar major party
|
| If a third party grows it will either shrink again as
| voters realize they are splitting their vote against
| their biggest common opponent, or the third party
| replaces one of the two existing parties. Either way, you
| get two main parties.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I don't normally "this" a comment, but "this"!
|
| The most effective single thing to promote a multiparty
| system is to switch to ranked-choice or approval voting
| (if staying with single-member districts) or to switch to
| multi-member districts with some kind of proportional
| representation. That would be where, say, everyone in
| Texas votes for their preferred party, and the 34 seats
| get allocated proportionally to party results.
|
| Honestly, implementing Ranked Choice is the best
| compromise. * Meaningfully improves the
| ability of minor parties to succeed * Removes the
| concept of "wasted vote" so that citizens can vote their
| conscience * Electoral results are more informative
| of the positions of the electorate * Candidates
| have to compete more on ideas and policies than attacking
| opponents * Conceptually easier to understand than
| other systems * Maintains single-member districts
| (I don't like this, but I think trying to change the
| House to multi-member districts is too radical for us)
| sph wrote:
| The big issue, fatal even, is that the parties that can
| enact this change, those currently in power, are those
| that stand to lose the most from it.
|
| So we're stuck with this joke we call democratic
| elections. Also seen in the UK with its abysmal first-
| past-the-post system.
| mike_hearn wrote:
| The UK isn't a two party system though. It has at least 5
| parties in play right now (Lab, Con, Reform, LibDem,
| SNP). Reform is only small but is currently polling
| higher than any other parties, so their number of MPs
| would go up a lot if an election was held today.
|
| FPTP isn't sufficient to get a two party system. The US
| has such a system because it combines FPTP with open
| primaries. In the UK the right is trying to rebuild a new
| party from scratch, because the Conservative party has no
| working mechanisms that would allow it to have its
| direction changed by its members. Whereas in the US open
| primaries give members a great deal of control, and that
| kills the incentive to create new parties. The current
| Republican administration is run by a group of former
| Democrats who came into the GOP from the outside - this
| isn't possible in the UK system.
| mindslight wrote:
| Ranked Choice (ballots) meaning Ranked Pairs (decision
| process), of course. Instant Runoff Voting is still
| thoroughly an artifact of the two party system.
| Aloisius wrote:
| Where has the adoption of ranked choice with single
| member districts resulted in a switch from a two-party
| system to a multiparty one?
|
| It hasn't happened anywhere in the US as far as I know,
| despite being adopted by various local governments.
|
| Ranked choice's major benefit is that it reduces the
| effect of spoilers. Third parties _are_ the spoilers.
| bluGill wrote:
| When the national elections are still two party local,
| and the two big parties have any interest in the local
| election, those two parties will win local as well
| because they have some much more mind share. Many people
| decide who to vote for in the national election and then
| vote the same party all down the ballot without knowing
| what any of the other players stand for, thus giving the
| major parties a big advantage when one of those down
| ballot races is a different system. If you are not the
| big party in those other systems you still have a harder
| time because people don't understand how the local system
| is different.
| Aloisius wrote:
| Again, I ask, where has this two-party to multiparty
| switch happened with single member elections?
|
| Because I can't find an example in any country, yet it is
| appears to be taken as an article of faith that it will
| happen by proponents of ranked choice voting.
|
| The evidence for switching from single member to multi-
| member elections is far more clear. Of course, you
| obviously can't have multi-member elections for
| President, the Senate because the Constitution staggered
| elections and courts have ruled against multi-member
| districts for the House in the past for violating the
| VRA.
| bluGill wrote:
| I'm not aware of enough world politics to tell you if it
| has happened. I would not expect such a change to happen
| overnight, instead it would take 50-100 years for people
| to get used to the change and then change how they act.
| Thus a lack of any examples doesn't mean it won't happen.
| (it also doesn't mean it will - politics are always
| changing)
| dgb23 wrote:
| Looking at this mess from far away in Switzerland.
|
| I'm so glad we have a consensus democracy. We're a small
| country but I don't see any reason why a more moderate,
| consensus based system couldn't be adopted by larger ones.
| In fact I think this centralization of power around one
| person doesn't scale.
|
| I'm also glad that we have the direct vote in order to
| reign in our government whenever they overreach or turn too
| far away from our interests. That seems much harder to
| implement in larger countries, but it's an excellent tool
| to course correct a government.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| I want bipartisanship. Consensus and a willingness to concede
| are the only way to govern fairly. Anything else is just
| naked fiat, which is another word for authoritarianism.
| nimbius wrote:
| this is quite similar to anyone familiar with prussia, berlin
| and the constituent national assembly of 1845 in the context of
| the historical power struggle between vichy merchant classes
| and their royal monarchs during the advent of the steam era.
|
| it seems the same play is being made in 2025 at the advent of
| AI and Tech supremacy as it comes to a headroads with the death
| of traditional US neoliberalism. Tech is more interested in the
| monarchy, as was the feudal lords of old, and seeks a
| neofeudalism while the parliament of our time, the house and
| senate, prattle on like the Diets and assembly promulgating
| edicts and regulations that are either wholesale ignored, or
| gridlocked bike-shedding; fiddling whilst Rome burns.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Can we drop the "tech" prefix from our neo-feudalism?
|
| Technology is necessarily a progressive force, and feudalism
| is necessarily a stagnatory conservative structure. The "Tech
| Supremacy" group is visibly opposed to technology, and it's
| reflecting more and more on society as they gain power.
| vacuity wrote:
| > Technology is necessarily a progressive force
|
| Technology is a tool. It is not a culture or a system. In
| fact, I think state and corporate use of technology for
| things like surveillance, censorship, frankly pointless
| jobs that somehow attract VC money, mass propaganda and
| social media access, data tracking and advertising and
| behavior modelling to a T, hypothetical pointless-job-
| destroying-AGI, etc. that are currently in vogue are part
| of the conservative structure. Technology means moving, but
| is this outwards or inwards movement?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Conservative people just can't create technology.
| Technology is always progressive.
|
| It can be progressive towards any amount of things, good
| or bad. But conservatism requires not developing it.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I think this is conflating conservatism as a political
| position and conservatism as an anti-development
| position. Conservatism as a political position has very
| little to do with actual developmental changes and way
| more to do with retaining existing political hierarchies.
| If a new tool came into existence to enforce a existing
| caste systems (race, class, whatever) then political
| conservatism would be for this tool.
|
| Consider reading Rabbit Test by Samantha Mills as a great
| display of this difference in the context of reproductive
| rights[0].
|
| https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/rabbit-test/
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > I think this is conflating conservatism as a political
| position and conservatism as an anti-development
| position.
|
| In absolutely no place in either comment I mentioned
| political movements, parties, or anything like that.
| zytron3 wrote:
| Your own introduction of the term was alongside
| feudalism, which most would say is "something like" a
| political movement
| KittenInABox wrote:
| Well yes, the term conservatism is ambiguous as it means
| different things in different contexts. I'm suggesting
| you're conflating this.
| alsoforgotmypwd wrote:
| No, because it's enabled by the tech industry and tech
| figures. It's not big pharma or big oil that has anywhere
| near as much lobbying power or money.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| So... "tech industry" is the name we give to the
| companies investing heavily on stopping technological
| improvements?
|
| And yes, I know that it is. It's just, can we drop the
| Orwellianism and change the name?
| steveBK123 wrote:
| This is the problem with people being OK with executive
| overreach when "their team" is in power. Eventually, and in
| fact about 50% of the time - the OTHER team is in power.. and
| may just push the overreach further.
|
| We should desire that the legislative side actually legislates
| and each branch of the government holds the other two in check,
| regardless of partisan control.
|
| Further having our judicial branch become openly partisan while
| remaining lifetime appointments despite younger appointees with
| longer lifetimes, is really the finishing touch on this slow
| rolling disaster.
| lazide wrote:
| That's why the current administration is going to make sure
| the other side doesn't get in power again.
| exe34 wrote:
| I'm debating on whether they will manage to stir up enough
| chaos to suspend the constitution, or whether there will be
| enough independent thought left in the military to oust
| them when the time comes for new elections - although I
| can't rule out Russian-style elections, one-man one-vote,
| and his vote is what counts.
| ike2792 wrote:
| This is the crux of the issue. Executive power has been
| gradually expanded since at least the end of WWII, but things
| have accelerated since the early 00's. Think GWB's "signing
| statements" or Obama's "phone and pen." Trump I, Biden, and
| now Trump II have continued to push the limits, in part
| because of a desire for more power but also because Congress
| hasn't functioned as an institution in decades. Congress has
| passed a budget on time only 4 times since 1977, the last
| time being in 1997.
|
| Presidents are elected based on promises made to various
| parts of the electorate, and if/when Congress won't act
| (often even when Congress is controlled by the president's
| party, nearly always when controlled by the opposition), no
| one generally makes a fuss if the president pushes through a
| popular-ish thing by executive authority. Republicans may be
| happy now but they won't be when a Democratic president ups
| the ante in a few years, just like Democrats were perfectly
| happy with Obama and Biden's overreaches but are furious at
| Trump's.
| fjjjrjj wrote:
| Trump lies through his teeth with every word and is easily
| manipulated by sycophants. He is a bully and a sociopath.
| Everything he does is to benefit himself.
|
| He is making himself complicit in the deaths of hundreds of
| thousands in Ukraine because he believes Putin more than
| his own country's intelligence.
|
| I am independent and not a Democrat or a Republican because
| they are two sides of the same coin.
| tredre3 wrote:
| > He is making himself complicit in the deaths of
| hundreds of thousands in Ukraine
|
| There's no need for hyperbole. Trump is bad but there's
| been less than 100,000 Ukrainian deaths (troops and
| civilians combined) since the beginning of the war in
| 2022, let alone under his reign.
| inetknght wrote:
| While that _might_ be true (there 's a whole ball of wax
| about whether or not that's true), it's probably not true
| for combined deaths. No doubt well more than hundred
| thousand, and I wouldn't be surprised if more than two
| hundred thousand.
|
| The deaths are tragic. And no matter how many there are,
| Trump's actions will certainly make the number go up
| before it stops.
|
| It's not hyperbole.
| layer8 wrote:
| It might be 100,000 by now: "A confidential Ukrainian
| estimate from earlier this year [2024] put the number of
| dead Ukrainian troops at 80,000 and the wounded at
| 400,000, according to people familiar with the matter."
| [https://archive.ph/5wRcT]
|
| And today Trump blamed the Ukrainians for the war going
| on for that long, saying they could have stopped it three
| years ago.
| watwut wrote:
| He is literally giving Ukraine to Putin. Which Russia
| will use for further expansion.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> He is making himself complicit in the deaths of
| hundreds of thousands in Ukraine
|
| Utter nonsense. He's trying to end the war. That may not
| happen on terms that make you happy, but people will stop
| dying which is quite the opposite of what you said.
| crooked-v wrote:
| > people will stop dying
|
| I think that's an overoptimistic judgement of the fate of
| Ukrainians left stuck under Russian control. Russia
| doesn't even care about its own people dying.
| fjjjrjj wrote:
| Lying and blaming Ukraine for starting the war and taking
| sides with Russia puts blood on his hands.
|
| That an aggressor nation can walk into another country's
| sovereign territory and annex it with the blessing of a
| sitting US president is a disgrace.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| He may think this position will help him take Greenland,
| among other (terrible) reasons.
|
| "Make Annexing Great Again"
| phkahler wrote:
| >> That an aggressor nation can walk into another
| country's sovereign territory and annex it with the
| blessing of a sitting US president is a disgrace.
|
| They did that first in 2014 under Obama, and again under
| Biden. The current situation has no criteria for an end -
| it's an endless conflict. Trump is going to move towards
| resolution of that and the fighting.
| fjjjrjj wrote:
| That won't stop Russia. It just buys them time to regroup
| and keep pushing.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| The _current round_ of fighting.
|
| There's still quite a bit of Europe that Russia wants to
| plunder for resour... I mean... influence. All of
| Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics, the Balkans - anywhere that
| used to be a part of the Warsaw Pact - is a target.
|
| Appeasing Putin now will likely see another military
| action in the next decade, especially if the US
| significantly reduces or totally ends its commitment to
| NATO.
|
| To be fair, the US has done _nothing_ but harp on its
| allies in the organization to _increase their g_ddamn
| defense spending_ for the better part of three decades
| now, and only some of them have truly taken it seriously
| since 2022. Even if spending levels are increased now, it
| won 't have enough of an effect to see battlefield
| dividends for several years, if not at least a decade.
| The end result is that the US will be the security
| backstop for a Europe that has taken American willingness
| to get into a possible thermonuclear war for granted, in
| the face of more Russian incursion, no matter how poorly
| handled that incursion might be.
| sterlind wrote:
| The UK and France also have nukes. I'm not sure about the
| UK, but France at least would shield NATO and EU with the
| nuclear umbrella even if the US leaves NATO. Finland,
| Romania and Poland might want to ask France if it minds
| sharing.. ideally before the alliance gets so weak that
| Putin decides to test our resolve.
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| Exactly. It's like saying "If she hadn't fought back, it
| wouldn't have hurt so much".
|
| Absolutely disgusting
| globnomulous wrote:
| This is not unlike saying that rape ceases to be rape
| when the victim stops resisting.
|
| We have every reason to think that "ending the war" under
| Chief Cheeto will mean "capitulate to the aggressor," and
| Russia has already shown its eagerness to commit genocide
| against Ukraine and eradicate it culturally.
|
| So he is indeed complicit. The unacceptable terms he
| wants or likely will suggest (and the unacceptable manner
| in which he pursues those terms, by negotiating without
| Ukraine's involvement) -- essentially Ukraine's surrender
| -- amount, by corollary, to a justification of further
| Russian aggression when Ukraine rejects them.
| lonelyasacloud wrote:
| > Utter nonsense. He's trying to end the war. That may
| not happen on terms that make you happy, but people will
| stop dying which is quite the opposite of what you said
|
| I was going to say just like Neville Chamberlain did with
| Hitler - but realised that would be grossly unfair on
| Chamberlain as he never tried to exploit Czechoslovakia
| for half of its mineral resources.
| avmich wrote:
| How do you know he's trying to stop the war and not just
| looking for personal benefits? His words are worth
| little.
| sophacles wrote:
| Is there someone who thinks that a man impeached for
| seeking personal benefits from Ukraine in exchange for
| help isn't going to do it again?
| borvo wrote:
| He is trying to "end the war" on terms that enrich
| himself, in vainglorious pursuit of a Nobel peace prize,
| and in a way that will almost inevitably result in a
| wider conflict very soon. Please don't pretend this is
| about "people will stop dying". That is utter nonsense.
| peteforde wrote:
| Putting aside every instinct I have to join the choir
| voicing every issue I have with blaming the victim and
| cozying up to the agitator, or to challenge your
| charitable view of Trump's motivations...
|
| I'm genuinely interested to hear your take on the likely
| and potential repercussions of rewarding Russia/Putin for
| their aggression. What makes you confident that they
| won't reasonably perceive this outcome as tacit
| permission to start coming for other territory?
|
| Putin loves working off maps from the 1800s. Finland, for
| example, is a likely future target.
|
| Not to be hyperbolic, but there's a good reason you
| aren't supposed to negotiate with terrorists.
| shikon7 wrote:
| I have no confidence at all. In fact, preventing further
| Russian aggression might not be Trump's goal to begin
| with. After all, Trump did say he would encourage Russia
| to invade a country that didn't pay its due.
| Ray20 wrote:
| >What makes you confident that they won't reasonably
| perceive this outcome as tacit permission to start coming
| for other territory?
|
| Putin has approximately zero interest in territories and
| annexations. The entire war with Ukraine is exclusively a
| reaction to the Maidan in 2014, an attempt to prevent
| something similar in Russia.
|
| Talks about "rewarding Russia" - is literally Putin's
| propaganda to hide his complete failure. There is no
| reward, the whole current situation in which Putin put
| himself, when his authority and influence is lower then
| ever - was planned as a short two week campaign with no
| downsides.
| crooked-v wrote:
| > two sides of the same coin
|
| One of those sides is milquetoast and piecemeal kowtows
| to corporate interests, but still generally belives in
| the rule of law. The other side has been busy making Nazi
| salutes and illegally giving complete read-write access
| to the entire government's payroll to random
| twentysomethings who work for a South African billionare.
| globnomulous wrote:
| > I am independent and not a Democrat or a Republican
| because they are two sides of the same coin.
|
| The only sense in which this is true: the GOP are
| fascist, racist authoritarians who have waged a decades-
| long war on the middle and lower class; the Democrats
| aren't.
|
| If you think the Democrats and GOP are equally bad,
| you're out of your mind.
| fjjjrjj wrote:
| I don't think they are equally bad. GOP are rotten to the
| core. I don't understand why a new party has not formed
| to leave the batshit crazies behind.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| systemic problems require systemic solutions, currently
| the systemic incentives are for single-party. If you want
| multiparty you're going to have to want a good deal of
| constitutional changes or internal party structure
| changes (although we already have a good amount of that
| in the form of house caucuses).
| rjbwork wrote:
| > I don't understand why a new party has not formed to
| leave the batshit crazies behind.
|
| Because when hyperspaces of political positions are
| projected onto a one dimensional binary, to choose to
| form a new party guarantees that one half of the
| hyperspace loses for a generation until there is a full
| party realignment. It is game theoretically sub-optimal
| in the short and medium terms, and depending on the
| effectiveness of your opponents, the long term as well.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Because there is no political future in doing so.
|
| Politics is attractive to people with psychopathy. I'm
| not gonna say they're _all_ that way, but a significant
| enough chunk of any political apparatus in the US is. If
| you want to have _any_ chance of getting elected - much
| less having a real career - you have to play by the rules
| of those who see humans as means to ends and gamble that
| their opponents won 't go as low to stop them.
| globnomulous wrote:
| I see. They're two sides of the same coin in the sense
| that they're both part of the two party system. My
| original comment is overstatement and maybe melodramatic.
| Sorry for that, and for the accusation, and thanks for
| the civil, thoughtful response.
|
| The other comments do a good job of explaining why an
| alternative party hasn't emerged, better than I probably
| can, so I'll skip that part. To some extent I do wish
| (and I gather you share the wish) that the US political
| system worked more like Europe's multi-party
| parliamentary democracies, relying on shifting, unstable
| coalitions rather than monolithic, monopolistic party
| machinery. On the other hand, I think it was Europe's
| parliamentary system that preceded, and produced, the
| Third Reich and other fascist regimes in the early 20th
| century.
|
| In fact, I wonder whether two-party systems, like the US,
| on average produce worse outcomes than multi-party
| parliamentary systems. I'm not sure they do. But I also
| don't know enough about politics, political theory, or
| modern history to answer the question myself. I'm not
| even sure which other political systems are, or were, two
| party.
|
| Edit:
|
| On second thought, I'm not sure I agree at all with the
| other comments that explain why alternative parties
| haven't emerged. The comments all take for granted that
| there's a desire for an alternative but also that the
| alternative wouldn't be viable. I'm not sure there is
| such a desire. Most polls show that GOP voters approve of
| the party, if I'm not mistaken. So the answer to your
| question may be a lot grimmer than the one already
| offered here: there's no third party, very simply,
| because the overwhelming majority of GOP voters really do
| want a fascist regime.
|
| On that note, this article is worth reading:
| https://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-
| authoritarianism . It makes a great case against the
| materialist explanation of authoritarianism's rise in the
| US (i.e. the claim that Trump voters are angry about
| their worsening prospects, declining fortunes, and
| deteriorating communities, often related to the opioid
| epidemic). Instead, it explains support for
| authoritarianism as a result of disposition and
| psychology. That rings true to me. American
| authoritarians really do care about the things they say
| they care about -- above all, "woke" politics,
| transgender people in bathrooms, immigrants, Muslims,
| people of color receiving preferential (i.e. fair)
| treatment. They really are fighting a cultural and
| religious war, not struggling against unfair, challenging
| economic conditions. They really are just hateful.
|
| They hate secular progressives and want to shut them out
| of the political process -- and want to brainwash their
| children.
|
| They hate LGBTQ people and really do want to push them
| back into the closet -- and ideally wipe them out.
|
| They hate people of color, or those who seek equality,
| and see nothing wrong with the disadvantages people of
| color face. Out of one corner of their mouths they'll
| scream about tradition, their pride in "their" country,
| and how hard their parents and their parents' parents
| worked -- and then out of the other corner of their
| mouths they'll reject that America's history of slavery,
| Jim Crow, racism, and the like have any continuing
| relevance or consequences for people of color.
|
| They hate immigrants (or rather brown immigrants) and
| really do want to close the borders.
|
| They're driven, in short, by a primitive xenophobia
| triggered by anything different from themselves -- which
| is why Fake Tan President is their God emperor. He's one
| of them.
| fireflash38 wrote:
| Congress needs to be expanded to do its job, and drop the
| filibuster. We need more, proportionally allocated
| representatives. Representatives that come from more than
| one of two parties. Representatives that spend more time at
| home than on the campaign trail or in DC.
| wavemode wrote:
| Representatives with term limits. It blows my mind that
| someone can be a career congressperson. It creates
| precisely the same adverse incentives as being a career
| president. Your whole focus becomes making sure you stay
| in power. Which for congresspeople means toeing the party
| line.
| organsnyder wrote:
| Term limits lead to institutional knowledge and skills
| being concentrated in unelected staffers and lobbyists.
| Effective legislating involves building relationships,
| negotiating skills, and deep subject matter knowledge in
| at least some areas.
|
| Yes, we have tons of bad legislators: some just not good
| at their jobs, some actively harmful (leaving that vague
| on purpose--I think all partisans can agree that they
| exist, even if we disagree on who they are). In theory,
| they can be excised via the ballot box. However, we don't
| want to kick out the good ones just as they're getting to
| be their most effective--not only do we lose their direct
| skills, but we lose their ability to mentor the promising
| up-and-comers.
|
| I place more blame on the way we do primaries and general
| elections: in most districts, the only thing that matters
| is the primary, and that produces some truly rotten
| results.
| heylook wrote:
| > Term limits lead to institutional knowledge and skills
| being concentrated in unelected staffers and lobbyists.
|
| Who cares? They don't get to cast the votes.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They were casting Feinstein's for years.
|
| https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-
| features/dian...
| flenserboy wrote:
| if the voters can't keep someone they like in office,
| there must also be strong restrictions on time served as
| congressional / governmental aides, or else those people
| will become even more powerful than they already are. far
| too many elected officials already appear to be nothing
| more than fronts for their unelected staff.
| Jun8 wrote:
| You've nailed it. I call this the _Galadriel Principle_ and
| it can be applied to many things: weapons, executive
| procedures, etc.:
|
| "And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely!
| In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I
| shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning
| and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon
| the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning!
| Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me
| and despair!"
|
| Oppression when Galadriel is on the throne may be better than
| that for Sauron; it's still oppression.
| mjevans wrote:
| The Lord of the Rings movie that that scene so much
| emotional justice. Visually representing the power
| corrupting even with but a taste.
| lolinder wrote:
| > having our judicial branch become openly partisan
|
| A lot of the decisions that have been flagged as "openly
| partisan" are just the Supreme Court saying exactly what
| you're saying: the executive branch and judicial branch don't
| have the authority to write laws and both branches should
| really stop writing laws and force Congress to do that.
|
| We will see this year and in coming years whether this
| Supreme Court is partisan or just activist in tearing down
| executive authority. If they uphold this administration's
| opinions about executive power, then yes, they're blatantly
| partisan and have no integrity. If they stand in the way,
| then maybe they just finally had the numbers to rein in the
| executive branch like conservatives have been arguing for for
| generations.
|
| I don't think we have enough information at this point to
| judge which is more likely (though I know most here will
| disagree with me on that point).
| redeux wrote:
| What say you of the Trump vs United States (appropriately
| named) ruling that gives the president immunity from crimes
| committed while in office? Does that align with the idea
| that SCOTUS may reign in presidential power?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States_(202
| 4...
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| The article you attached does not say that the ruling
| gives the president immunity from all crimes committed
| while in office.
| throw16180339 wrote:
| That's the practical effect of the ruling. It would have
| prevented Nixon from being prosecuted.
| cavisne wrote:
| Having a permanent bureaucracy that ignores directives from
| the executive only really benefits democrats (look at the
| Washington DC presidential vote totals). So this executive
| order is not a both sides thing, or about executive
| overreach.
|
| Something like the REINS Act, forcing regulations to be voted
| on by congress, would be something that hurts both sides &
| prevents executive overreach.
| alwa wrote:
| I'd note that the Washington DC vote totals mainly reflect
| people who live in the District proper, most of whom are
| not federal civil servants. Plenty of those seem to live in
| the Virginia and Maryland suburbs, or closer to their
| federal workplaces in other parts of the United States.
|
| Something tells me presidential vote totals around Fort
| Bragg or Oak Ridge--both home to notable numbers of career
| federal employees--might give a different impression.
|
| E.g. https://news.clearancejobs.com/2025/01/18/the-data-
| shows-whe...
| generic92034 wrote:
| > Eventually, and in fact about 50% of the time - the OTHER
| team is in power.. and may just push the overreach further.
|
| Are you sure this is going to be a fact, in the future? How
| likely is it, that the next elections will still be
| (somewhat) fair?
| cpitman wrote:
| Very. Election officials, across states and across parties,
| have been faithfully discharging their duties, often under
| pressure to not do so. This is a responsibility of the
| states, and not the federal government. If you're
| concerned, then work as a poll officer on election day.
|
| In Virginia, I get to participate an incredibly
| professional and structured process that makes it easy for
| everyone who can vote to vote _and_ makes sure there are
| many checks that the process is being followed correctly.
| rurp wrote:
| Past performance is no guarantee of future results. This
| administration is already much more aggressive and
| corrupt than the previous go around. Trump has been
| abundantly clear that he does not like or respect
| democracy and he might very well have the power to end it
| now. Congress's authority is already being usurped in
| blatant ways and they are openly talking about not
| following court orders. If they completely toss the
| courts aside and survive the resulting backlash (very
| likely) our system of government as we know it is over.
|
| The conditions for this are being set as we watch.
| Dictators always prize loyalty above competence, which is
| exactly what our current leader is doing.
|
| I don't doubt that nearly everyone involved in managing
| our recent elections are conscientious and professional,
| but what are they going to do if a bunch of troops with
| guns show up to change the results?
| margalabargala wrote:
| On the other hand, the popular power of the GOP is
| currently concentrated around a single person, someone
| who is also the oldest person to ever start a
| presidential term, and who does not lead a particularly
| healthy lifestyle. There is every chance that "What will
| Trump do during the 2028 election?" will be a question
| resolved by time and nature.
|
| There is no one waiting in the wings to take over
| popularly if this happens. Previous people who have at
| various times looked like they might, have fallen
| mightily from grace in the eyes of the party, such as
| DeSantis.
|
| It all falls apart without Trump. And Trump is an old
| man, doing a stressful job.
| sophacles wrote:
| Meanwhile the SAVE act is working it's way through
| congress. This bill has language that seems to prevent a
| lot of people from voting:
|
| Women who changed thier last name to their husband's.
|
| Naturalized citizens who come from places where the
| language requires non ascii characters.
|
| Anyone without a passport.
|
| Anyone from a place where the courthouse burned down
| taking thier original birth certificates with it...
| Copies don't count.
|
| To name tens of millions. Maybe trump will interpret the
| law in a way that lets people vote, or maybe he'll decide
| that correct interpretation is to limit voting to people
| more likely to vote for his third term.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| That's the reaction some extreme Trump supporters I know
| had after 2020. They claimed there would never be another
| fair election because of the manipulation of the electronic
| voting machines
| rurp wrote:
| That's nothing like the current situation. Those claims
| were based on stupid conspiracy theories with no
| supporting evidence. Everyone can see what this
| administration is saying and doing. Trump is _telling_ us
| that he doesn 't respect laws or democracy, and is
| following that up with action.
| jmyeet wrote:
| This is an example of what I like to call the "both sides
| fallacy". There are several reasons why people try and make a
| both sides equivalence in US politics. For example:
|
| - As a way of not having to know anything while appearing
| intellectual or somehow "above it all";
|
| - Genuine and fundamental misunderstanding of the political
| forces in the US. Example: thinking there's such a thing as
| "socialism" or "the far left" in America;
|
| - To knowingly deflect from the excesses of the conservative
| movement.
|
| Here are the two political forces in American politics:
|
| 1. The fascist party who has had a 50+ year project to take
| over and subvert every aspect of government to destroy any
| aspect of democracy and create a neofuedal dystopia
| masquerading as a Christian theocracy; and
|
| 2. The controlled opposition party who loves nothing more
| than to be out of power and, when in power, to do nothing.
| It's why Democrats not in office are suddenly for progressive
| policies like medicare-for-all (as Kamala Harris was in 2019)
| but when on the cusp of taking power, they have a policy of
| no longer opposing the death penalty, capitulating to right-
| wing immigratino policy, arming a genocidal apartheid state
| and the only tax breaks proposed are for startups.
|
| Look at how successful progressive voter initatives were in
| the last election compared to the performance of the
| Democratic Party. Florida overwhelmingly passed recreational
| marijuana and abortion access (~57% for, unfortunately you
| need 60%+ to pass in Florida) while Trump carried the state
| by 14. Minimum wage increases passed in deep red Missouri. In
| fact, abortion access has never failed to garner a mjaority
| of votes whenever it's allowed to be put in front of voters,
| no matter how deep red the state.
|
| So why if progressive policies are so popular, are the
| Democrats so opposed to them as a platform? Really think
| about that. The Democratic Party doesn't exist to abuse
| power. It exists to destroy progressive momentum at every
| level of government above all else.
| klipt wrote:
| What you want is a parliament with proportional
| representation. Parliaments don't experience gridlock nearly
| as often.
| curt15 wrote:
| >This new administration lays bare what we've known all along -
| the legislative gridlock and dysfunction in the house of
| representatives and senate has made them completely incapable
| of governing -- the least productive in a generation.
|
| Yet GOP senators were more than happy to claim credit for
| infrastructure funding that they opposed.
| exe34 wrote:
| Trump also rubbished the trade deals that he himself signed!
| dboreham wrote:
| To be fair it's unlikely he knew what he was signing.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Most dictorships started by the people in power streamlining
| decadent processes and burocracy, by putting into place the new
| regulations that would improve everything.
|
| Until a couple years later on average, a state protection
| organism gets put in place to check those organisations are
| working as expected.
|
| Eventually, the state protection organism gets a bit carried
| away on what they are supposed to be checking on.
| kbrkbr wrote:
| I don't think so.
|
| "Nearly half of dictatorships start as a military coup,
| though others have been started by foreign intervention,
| elected officials ending competitive elections, insurgent
| takeovers, popular uprisings by citizens, or legal
| maneuvering by autocratic elites to take power within their
| government. Between 1946 and 2010, 42% of dictatorships began
| by overthrowing a different dictatorship, and 26% began after
| achieving independence from a foreign government. Many others
| developed following a period of warlordism." [1]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship (see
| "Formation")
| pjmlp wrote:
| I might be wrong on being most, and eventually they might
| even be in minority, still some well known across Europe,
| have started with people that originally were
| democratically elected deciding that it was about time to
| change everything from inside.
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship (see
| "Formation")_
|
| Maybe worth considering:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup
|
| Also "How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days":
|
| * https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/arch
| ive...
| hammock wrote:
| Was with you 100% until the second half of your final sentence.
| Can you clarify?
| dkobia wrote:
| A bit hyperbolic on my part but I think Trump and Elon are
| quite a potent combination for the money and media influence
| they have between them. Members of congress and senators with
| opposing views are very unlikely to stick their heads up for
| fear of the immense amount of money that could be used
| against them in the midterms and beyond.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Michael Bloomberg could personally fund an entire
| presidential campaign. There's a newspaper named after him.
| How did he wield that power?
|
| The real problems with the DNC campaigns are complex. They
| have a poor model for how to run national campaigns,
| clearly. All this equities wealth was made under Democrats,
| including Elon's wealth, so it's not so simple as to say,
| chasing money. There is some consensus that Democrats need
| to run media personalities instead of experienced
| politicians. But not enough consensus to move away from
| demographics-based election modeling. Suffice it to say
| this thread could be an interesting conversation about
| anything but has become a magnet for fringe theories.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> The real problems with the DNC campaigns are complex.
| They have a poor model for how to run national campaigns,
| clearly.
|
| The DNC didn't even have a primary last election. They
| just propped up Kamala and said "here's our candidate"
| and expected the sheeple to vote for her. Meanwhile one
| of their best candidates was kicked out of the party a
| while back and is now Trumps DNI. And if you want to say
| "they didn't have time" well that's because they figured
| it was OK to leave a declining old guy in office beyond
| his sell-by date - yet another poor choice by the DNC.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| One point of view is, post hoc, ergo proctor hoc, doesn't
| really tell you anything at all.
| NickC25 wrote:
| Tulsi wasn't one of the Democrat's best candidates.
|
| You know who was? Senator Mark Kelly.
| ModernMech wrote:
| > one of their best candidates was kicked out of the
| party a while back and is now Trumps DNI
|
| Yeah, and the fact she's working for Trump now is proof
| that was the right call.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| _Gridlock_ , _disfunction_ , and _completely incapable of
| governing_ are a bit loaded, but other than that, a slow moving
| legislature was a feature built into the system -- not a bug.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I don't think they are a bit loaded at all. What have the
| last several congresses done that has actually helped the
| populace?
| drawkward wrote:
| The most notable things I recall in the last few Congresses
| were Mitch McConell stealing a SCOTUS appointment, the
| failure to remove Donald Trump from office (twice!--once
| for inciting an insurrection in front of the eyes of the
| world; it was literally televised) for political gain, and
| the voting down of Republicans' own immigration bill (again
| for political gain).
|
| Thats what happened. Pepperidge Farm remembers.
| buttercraft wrote:
| > legislative gridlock and dysfunction
|
| Isn't this a direct result of "no compromise" policies on one
| side of the aisle?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Right, democrats were ALWAYS looking for compromise. Hell,
| democrats have to compromise with their own party!
|
| If you doubt me, simply go read votes from the past 20 years,
| and compare it with say 1960-1980. Republicans do not cross
| the aisle anymore.
|
| The interesting part is that at some point republicans had so
| propagandized their voters against the very concept of
| governance that "Elect me to office for the next 6 years and
| I promise nothing will get done" was a decades long strategy
| that worked! The more republicans obstructed, including
| preventing republican voters from getting things they claim
| to want, the more republicans got voted in. For decades now,
| republicans that compromise with democrats have been
| primaried by less collaborative republicans.
|
| Imagine a judge getting elected for insisting they will never
| hear another case!
|
| None of this should be controversial, republican politicians
| have literally stated this as their goal and promise.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| This even happens at a local level. I witnessed a
| Republican county councilor who was beginning to work with
| a local community on a serious issue they were having with
| their ferry. She got replaced with someone who wants to
| obstruct and cut in all cases, which serves as an object
| lesson for anyone else on the council with an at-risk seat.
|
| For some reason the people who keep saying government
| doesn't work are working very hard to make government not
| work.
| dboreham wrote:
| > For some reason
|
| Fairly obvious what that reason is.
|
| It's the same reason Putin supports Trump -- if you
| yourself are threatened by something (democracy) then you
| need to go make that thing a joke.
| diputsmonro wrote:
| For those looking for something to Google or concrete facts
| to back this up, "obstructionism" is the proper term for
| this.
|
| Some key examples: Reagan saying "the government is the
| problem", Newt Gingrich starting the modern obstructionist
| movement in congress with the Contact with America (also
| backed by the Heritage Foundation, which is behind project
| 2025), and Mitch McConnel breaking norms to practically
| shut down congress under his leadership, openly stating his
| intent several times.
|
| Republicans don't want to lead in any practical sense. They
| want to break the government and privatize the pieces so
| they can buy in and profit off of them. Anyone who can't
| buy in gets screwed, because services will cost more to pay
| for the investment and profits that the investors demand.
|
| Trump's biggest achievement last term was a massive tax cut
| for the rich. So to balance to budget, they now want to
| destroy as many government services as they can, using
| "efficiency" as an excuse.
|
| Breaking things is great when you run a social media
| company. Worst case scenario, your website goes offline for
| a few hours. When you start breaking the government, people
| die. Of course, if you're richer than God, you don't have
| to worry about the fallout. It doesnt matter if the FDA
| falls apart and leads to massive food contamination when
| you only eat Wagyu beef from your private ranch. People
| will die, you pay less taxes, and you only see it as a
| success.
|
| There are many other critiques to be made, but this is just
| the surface.
| maxwell wrote:
| No, it's the lack of representation. We're an extreme outlier
| among OECD countries, worst representation in the free world.
| Even Communist China has better representation. The U.S. in
| the 1790s had representation in line with Nordic countries
| today.
|
| The only change needed is repealing the Apportionment Act of
| 1929.
| timlarshanson wrote:
| Re the Apportionment Act of 1929 -- care to elaborate? Are
| there figures for "the worst representation in the free
| world"?
|
| My impression is that there are many reasons for the
| dysfunction of congress; the media feedback control system
| (in a literal and metaphorical sense) plays an important
| role, as does the filibuster, lobbyists, and other
| corruption.
|
| (Aside: in aging, an organisms feedback and homeostatic
| systems tend to degrade / become simpler with time, which
| leads to decreased function / cancer etc. While some degree
| of refactoring & dead-code cruft-removal is necessary - and
| hopefully is happening now, as I think most Americans
| desire - the explicit decline in operational structure is
| bad. (Not that you'd want a systems biologist to run the
| country.))
| thephyber wrote:
| Biology is a bad example when applied to a government.
|
| Almost all change in biology happens to populations, not
| individuals. In order for that to apply to governments,
| we would need to have massive churn and rapid
| experimentation of government policies and structures.
| These are not conducive to voter feedback (eg. Democracy)
| and would be so disruptive to business and life as to
| make governments useless until they reached some steady
| state.
|
| I remember hearing that Italy had 52 governments in 50
| years. It's suffering from all of the same problems as
| the rest of western countries, perhaps somewhat worse
| than average.
| monocasa wrote:
| Not the parent, but broadly agree that a change to
| apportionment would heavily change the US for the better.
| I don't think it would be a single fix for the country,
| but I think it would greatly help quite a few of the
| issues.
|
| Originally there were about 35k constituents/rep. Today
| it's an average of ~750k constituents/rep, with some
| districts at over a million.
|
| This is because of the Apportionment Act of 1929 capped
| the number of reps. If we had the same constituent/rep
| ratio, we'd have ~10k reps total.
|
| If instead we went back to the constituent/rep ratio that
| existed originally, a lot of our structural problems go
| away, via a mechanism that's accessible via US code
| rather than a change to the constitution.
|
| For instance, the electoral college is based on federal
| representation. If you expand the house by ~50x, that
| dominates the electoral college by nearly two orders of
| magnitude, and creates a very close to popular election.
|
| It's also much much harder to gerrymander on that scale.
|
| That scale would also have a return to a more personal
| form of politics, where people actually have a real
| chance to meet with their reps (and the candidates) face
| to face.
|
| It also feels that by having a much larger, more diffuse
| legislative body, we'd better approximate truly
| democratic processes in a representative democratic
| model.
| claar wrote:
| I recently watched a 2 hour congressional committee session,
| with 5 minute talking points per member. BOTH sides of the
| aisle used their entire 5 minutes to spout one-sided rhetoric
| and talking points obviously designed for re-election rather
| than anything resembling debate or conversation.
|
| I have no idea which side "started it", but where we've
| landed isn't useful.
| thephyber wrote:
| The causes are more complicated.
|
| The founding fathers envisioned the legislature be slow and
| deliberate, so it was never intended to move quickly.
|
| One major party doesn't think government solves any problems,
| so it's not incentivized to use it to solve any problems. In
| fact, a generation of Republicans have tried to stifle fixing
| any of the large problems.
|
| The other party is frequently torn between a wide spectrum of
| "do everything for citizens in a wide swath of policy areas"
| and "neoliberal free market capitalism", so they can't even
| agree when they are in majority how to weird their political
| capital.
|
| The rest is usually downstream of sound-byte media (stripping
| out nuance and polarization of media outlets), paid
| advertising scaremongering voters (money in politics), and
| electoral engineering like gerrymandering (legislators
| picking voters instead of the inverse).
| UltraSane wrote:
| Yes, and the filibuster.
| mmusson wrote:
| Power abhors a vacuum.
| frugalmail wrote:
| So your interpretation of "give the elected official oversight"
| is that "checks and balances" and "democracy" are "mere
| suggestions".
|
| You're mistaking: - bureaucracy with democracy - checks and
| balances with a neo-priesthood
|
| But hey, who needs a functional government when you have a neo-
| priesthood to keep things 'holy'?"
| cyberax wrote:
| Bureaucracy is what happens with _any_ large system. It's
| unavoidable, and the best you can do is to build institutions
| that know how to manage it.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| And bureaucracy isn't always bad. State and federal
| bureaucracies are probably largely responsible for
| protecting the 2020 US election from fraud and
| interference.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| It is telling that you have that interpretation of executive
| power but not the same of regulatory power.
|
| As proof, this isn't an American problem, it is nothing to do
| with the US constitution or "gridlock". In most English-
| speaking countries you have seen: massive increase in power by
| unelected officials, the vast majority of these officials have
| identical political views and operate with a political agenda
| (to be clear, at no point did anyone ask whether this was
| legal, whether these were "strongmen"), and this effect has
| paralysed government function in every country.
|
| Even worse, this appears irrespective of clear limits. For
| example, the US system of political appointments of judges is
| clearly a bad idea, the incentives are awful, the results are
| predictable. But the same issue with judges overriding elected
| officials is occurring in countries where selection is (in
| theory) non-political.
|
| The reason why is simple: there has never been a greater
| difference between the lives of the rulers and the ruled. The
| reason we have democracy is to resolve this problem.
|
| But the US is a particularly extreme case of this: if you look
| at how government operates in the US, what is the actual
| connection with people's lives? The filth and decay in US
| cities is incredible given the amount of government
| spending...the answer why is simple: the spending is for
| government, the people don't matter.
|
| Also, US-specific: it is extremely strange to characterise the
| US as a system of checks and balances if you look at actual
| real world political history rather than some theoretical
| imaginings of someone in the late 18th century. Checks and
| balances have always been dynamic. The reason why the outrage
| is so vitriolic (and the comparisons to Hitler so
| frequent...imagine if Hitler fired civil servants or changed
| regulatory policy, definitely the worst thing he did) is
| because the people being hit are the people who believed they
| would always be safe from oversight.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _This new administration lays bare what we 've known all
| along - the legislative gridlock and dysfunction in the house
| of representatives and senate has made them completely
| incapable of governing -- the least productive in a
| generation._
|
| Some articles which were written a few years ago, but were re-
| upped recently:
|
| > _In a presidential system, by contrast, the president and the
| congress are elected separately and yet must govern
| concurrently. If they disagree, they simply disagree. They can
| point fingers and wave poll results and stomp their feet and
| talk about "mandates," but the fact remains that both parties
| to the dispute won office fair and square. As Linz wrote in his
| 1990 paper "The Perils of Presidentialism,"[1] when conflict
| breaks out in such a system, "there is no democratic principle
| on the basis of which it can be resolved, and the mechanisms
| the constitution might provide are likely to prove too
| complicated and aridly legalistic to be of much force in the
| eyes of the electorate." That's when the military comes out of
| the barracks, to resolve the conflict on the basis of something
| --nationalism, security, pure force--other than democracy._
|
| * https://slate.com/business/2013/10/juan-linz-dies-yale-
| polit...
|
| > _Still, Linz offered several reasons why presidential systems
| are so prone to crisis. One particularly important one is the
| nature of the checks and balances system. Since both the
| president and the Congress are directly elected by the people,
| they can both claim to speak for the people. When they have a
| serious disagreement, according to Linz, "there is no
| democratic principle on the basis of which it can be resolved."
| The constitution offers no help in these cases, he wrote: "the
| mechanisms the constitution might provide are likely to prove
| too complicated and aridly legalistic to be of much force in
| the eyes of the electorate."_
|
| *
| https://archive.is/https://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/amer...
|
| When it has come to presidential systems, the US has been the
| exception as most others with something the same have not
| worked out over the long term.
| bagels wrote:
| I'd rather have gridlock than Hitler.
| davedx wrote:
| Completely incapable of governing is quite some hyperbole. IRA
| Act, CHIPs Act that got a TSM fab up in record time on American
| soil, Operation Warp Speed.
|
| This kind of rhetoric really just feeds the beast.
| toxic72 wrote:
| The CHIPS and Science Act is a U.S. federal statute enacted
| by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by
| President Joe Biden on August 9, 2022.
| Animats wrote:
| Yes.
|
| A good example is immigration policy. Setting immigration
| policy is an enumerated power of Congress. The executive branch
| has no say at all. Congress failed to revise immigration policy
| when it got out of sync with facts on the ground. That led to
| the current mess.
|
| The last attempt to overhaul immigration policy was in 2006.[1]
| Arguably, this was more workable than what we have now. It
| combined tough enforcement with a path to citizenship. It had
| supporters from both parties. The House and Senate did not
| agree on terms and no bill was passed.
|
| So, instead of reform, we had weak enforcement, now followed by
| strong enforcement. What we have isn't working.
|
| We need something like that bill now. Has anyone introduced a
| comprehensive reform bill in Congress? No, as far as I can see
| from reading through the immigration bills in the hopper. The
| current bills are either minor tweaks or PR exercises.[2]
|
| Beat on your congressional representatives. We need an
| immigration law that works. It's Congress' job to argue over
| how it should work, and to come up with something that, when
| enforced, still works. We don't have that now. Immigrants are
| screaming about being deported, legal residents are screaming
| about being caught up in raids, and farmers are screaming about
| losing their labor force.[3] This is the moment to _do_
| something.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Immigration_Refo...
|
| [2] https://www.newsweek.com/immigration-bills-republicans-
| congr...
|
| [3] https://www.axios.com/local/chicago/2025/01/27/business-
| lead...
| tippytippytango wrote:
| The people are intuiting this. I think the next election cycle
| will see a left wing strongman put in. That one will do damage
| after cleaning up the damage from the current one. So we'll
| yoyo back and forth between strongmen to get shit done because
| the legislative is useless. Because it's better to yoyo between
| extremes than to sit in stagnation. We need some reform or
| we're going to be stuck on this roller coaster for a long time.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > This is opened up an opportunity for a well funded strongman,
| and the checks and balances that were intended to protect our
| democracy are now mere suggestions.
|
| Well... most of them are.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Mistaking a well-funded, highly coordinated project that
| started over 15 years ago[1] for 'those clowns in Congress are
| at it again!' is a huge part of what has prevented us from
| digging out of this crisis.
|
| [1] e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| Or this opened opportunity for dictator to arise.
|
| I wonder which of these two commonly happened in the past.
| mmooss wrote:
| > the legislative gridlock and dysfunction in the house of
| representatives and senate has made them completely incapable
| of governing -- the least productive in a generation.
|
| They governed well enough until January 20.
|
| > This is opened up an opportunity for a well funded strongman,
| and the checks and balances that were intended to protect our
| democracy are now mere suggestions.
|
| Creating gridlock and dysfunction is an intentional (and well-
| known) strategy to create a strongman. Most of the gridlock and
| dysfunction are on one side. You can call that partisan but
| even they oppose even the most simple, inescable issues such as
| paying debt. Back under Obama, the GOP in Congress openly said
| that their goal was to make government a failure under Obama.
| ptah wrote:
| this is impacting scientific research to the point that people
| are scrubbing the word "gender" from their papers to avoid their
| research programs getting flagged by the doge gestapo
| afpx wrote:
| Given that it took about two centuries for the public to accept
| the heliocentric model, some patience may be needed. A great
| number of people only learn about gender through undergraduate
| education. And, iirc, only 25% of the population have
| undergraduate degrees.
| outsidein wrote:
| This creates strong associations to ,,Machtergreifung" and
| ,,Gleichschaltung"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung
|
| The Nazi term Gleichschaltung (German pronunciation:
| ['glaIcSaltUNG] i), meaning "synchronization" or "bringing into
| line", was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler--
| leader of the Nazi Party in Germany--established a system of
| totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German
| society "from the economy and trade associations to the media,
| culture and education".[1]
|
| There is no direct counterpart in Englisch Wikipedia for:
|
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machtergreifung
|
| Machtergreifung Mit Machtergreifung (auch Machtubernahme oder
| Machtubergabe) wird die Ernennung des Nationalsozialisten Adolf
| Hitler zum Reichskanzler durch den Reichsprasidenten Paul von
| Hindenburg am 30. Januar 1933 bezeichnet. Hitler ubernahm an
| diesem Tag die Fuhrung einer Koalitionsregierung von NSDAP und
| nationalkonservativen Verbundeten (DNVP, Stahlhelm), in der neben
| ihm zunachst nur zwei Nationalsozialisten Regierungsamter
| bekleideten (Kabinett Hitler); dies waren Wilhelm Frick als
| Reichsinnenminister und Hermann Goring als Reichsminister ohne
| Geschaftsbereich. Zusatzlich zur eigentlichen Ernennung umfasst
| der Begriff die anschliessende Umwandlung der bis dahin schon
| seit 1930 durch Prasidialkabinette geschwachten parlamentarischen
| Demokratie der Weimarer Republik und deren Verfassung in eine
| nach dem nationalsozialistischen Fuhrerprinzip agierende
| zentralistische Diktatur.
|
| Nachdem am 1. Februar das Parlament in Berlin, der Reichstag,
| aufgelost worden war, schrankten die Machthaber in den folgenden
| - von nationalsozialistischem Terror gekennzeichneten - Monaten
| die politischen und demokratischen Rechte durch Notverordnungen
| des Prasidenten ein. Als entscheidende Schritte auf dem Weg zur
| Diktatur gelten die Verordnung des Reichsprasidenten zum Schutz
| von Volk und Staat (Reichstagsbrandverordnung) vom 28. Februar
| 1933 und das Ermachtigungsgesetz vom 24. Marz 1933. Der Reichstag
| verlor damit praktisch jegliche Entscheidungskompetenz. Neben
| vielen anderen wurden nun auch Parlamentarier ohne
| Gerichtsverfahren in Konzentrationslagern eingesperrt und
| gefoltert.
| akomtu wrote:
| _No employee of the executive branch acting in their official
| capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position
| of the United States that contravenes the President or the
| Attorney General's opinion on a matter of law_
|
| In other words, "I will interpret the law for you, from now on.
| Don't attempt to read the law yourself."
| TrackerFF wrote:
| There are no laws in Oceania, only crimes.
| tiberius_p wrote:
| More firings of those who refuse to break the law...
| calibas wrote:
| If you're wondering why the President can essentially write his
| own laws when that's not how our system is supposed to work, it's
| because the President gets extra powers whenever we're in a state
| of national emergency.
|
| We've been in a state of national emergency since 1979.
| teeray wrote:
| States of emergency should at least go to congress for renewal
| every 3 months as a measure to be voted on individually (cannot
| be tied, for example, to budgets). If that's not enough to kill
| it eventually, it should automatically become a ballot measure
| on the next Presidential Ballot after some number of renewals.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| There's a lot of common sense "should" statements that are
| true and will never happen
| abrichr wrote:
| Emergencies must be renewed annually by the President. From
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12170:
|
| > The order was first declared on 14 November 1979 (EO
| 12170). At least 11 executive orders were based on this
| emergency state. The emergency, which was renewed in 2023 for
| the 44th time, is the "oldest existing state of emergency."
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Yeah. Dude. I don't like the outcome, but he has "extra" powers
| because Republicans won a lot of elections and are a majority
| in all three branches of government and in many statehouses.
| _cs2017_ wrote:
| Wow thanks man for sharing! This is so unexpected, I thought
| you're trolling! But google search doesn't lie:
| https://www.history.com/news/national-state-of-emergency-
| us-....
|
| Quoting from History.com: "When Donald Trump started his second
| term on January 20, 2025, the United States had around 40
| active emergency declarations (no really, we are serious),
| including the national emergency George W. Bush declared in
| response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks".
| triyambakam wrote:
| Would that be from Iran?
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| No, presidents can kind of claim national emergencies all the
| time. Usually they're used for sanctions, but they can also
| be for economic or security reasons (security being
| interpreted as times of war and in a _very_ broad sense).
| dbl000 wrote:
| For anyone interested in some more reading about the exact
| nature of the powers and Congress's attempts at limiting it, I
| found this link to be a decent introduction:
| https://protectdemocracy.org/work/presidential-emergency-pow...
| Aloisius wrote:
| The national emergency declared in 1979, against Iran, was done
| under the IEEPA which grants the President the power to block
| transactions and freeze assets against foreign threats. It
| doesn't grant the power to make laws.
| jfghi wrote:
| Who wrote this?
| lubujackson wrote:
| The President of the United States, of course. Or one of his
| subordinates, who, according to this missive, has the full
| authority same as the U.S. president, of course.
|
| "An assault on the king's men is the same as an assault on the
| king" and all that...
| Zamaamiro wrote:
| This EO, combined with his proclamation that "He who saves the
| country does not violate any law" paint a very concerning
| picture. This has, historically speaking, been the language of
| tyrants. No President is above the law, nor does the President
| "interpret" the law; that is the domain of the Judiciary.
|
| "Wherever law ends, tyranny begins"
| axus wrote:
| The Supreme Court literally said that Trump has absolute
| immunity for criminal use of presidential power. Combined with
| the statistical impossibility of a 2/3 senate majority for
| impeachment, this is a license to grab as much power as that
| same court will allow.
| bagels wrote:
| Republican Senators want this. It's not about statistics.
| They believe in this stupid Unitary Executive thing (aka, we
| should have a King).
| masklinn wrote:
| They don't actually _believe_ in unitary executive theory,
| as can plainly be seen any time a democrat is elected
| president.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| I'm curious how do we know this? I don't plainly see this
| it all.
| michaelt wrote:
| I think masklinn is arguing that, if Republican senators
| _truly believed_ the president should be an elected king
| with nigh-limitless power, then during Democrat
| administrations they would have been eager to approve
| anything the president put forward, as he was the
| president-king at that time.
|
| Whereas what we saw instead was them blocking everything
| they could, government shutdowns etc.
|
| Unless "Unitary Executive" means something a good deal
| more nuanced than the president being king, that is.
| crooked-v wrote:
| They believe in it, but they also believe that all
| Democrats are actually filthy cheats who stole every
| election and thereby inherently illegitimate.
| Sharlin wrote:
| They don't believe that about Democrats. Maybe their
| constituency does, thanks to propaganda, but the
| politicians simply just want to be in power.
| i80and wrote:
| Honestly I would be somewhat surprised if a good chunk of
| Congressional Republicans weren't high on their own
| supply at this point
| acomjean wrote:
| It was a while ago. But late last century the "line item
| veto" which allowed presidents to get rid of things in
| bills they didn't like was rejected by the courts. Oddly
| Reagan (R) asked for this power initially, but Clinton
| (D) ended up getting it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-
| item_veto_in_the_United_S...
|
| "Congress granted this power to the president by the Line
| Item Veto Act of 1996 to control "pork barrel spending",
| but in 1998 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the act to be
| unconstitutional in 6-3 decision in Clinton v. City of
| New York.
|
| The court found that exercise of the line-item veto is
| tantamount to a unilateral amendment or repeal by the
| executive of only parts of statutes authorizing federal
| spending, and therefore violated the Presentment Clause
| of the United States Constitution. Thus a federal line-
| item veto, at least in this particular formulation, would
| only be possible through a constitutional amendment.
| Prior to that ruling, President Clinton applied the line-
| item veto to the federal budget 82 times."
| imglorp wrote:
| Disbanding of both the legislature and judiciary would be
| on any dictator's playbook from the last N centuries. I
| can't imagine either of those bodies would be ok with
| getting shuttered but it seems they are both pushing for
| it. Why?
| bagels wrote:
| They get something out of it and lack of scruples? Money,
| influence, seeing their religious views pushed on others,
| who knows what else.
| tfigueroa wrote:
| Many would be adjacent to the new ruler. The startup
| shutters but the VP of Engineering is already starting
| something new with his old reports.
| philk10 wrote:
| Perfect timing when he's just tweeted out that he is The
| King
| bagels wrote:
| They created the circumstances where this could happen.
| It's a long term project. Supreme court picks,
| disenfranchisement, propaganda, refusing to hold Trump
| accountable for his crimes.
| fhdkweig wrote:
| Just because it took me a while to find the reference:
| The full quote on Truth Social and Twitter is "CONGESTION
| PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is
| SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!"
|
| https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1140320828
| 992...
| tptacek wrote:
| Well, yes, that's how the system works: a determined
| President can, in fact, grab as much power as the Supreme
| Court will allow. That's literally what the Supreme Court is
| there for.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Yeah nearly all the discussion here seems circular...
| DrillShopper wrote:
| The president can arguably pack the court and with his
| majorities nobody will stop him
|
| If you believe the Supreme Court is an effective guardrail
| against tyranny then you're deeply mistaken. The only true
| safeguard against tyranny is the American people refusing
| to comply and responding with force of arms if pushed.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| I don't care if you're a 3%er or a John Brown Gun Club
| fan, this is an absurd fantasy.
| mattlondon wrote:
| ISTR that this is one of the exact excuses people wheel
| out when "the gun discussion" comes up: to protect the
| people from tyranny.
|
| We'll see how that goes.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://theshovel.com.au/2020/06/04/nra-accidentally-
| forgets...
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| What's kind of fascinating is the way they've introduced
| things like the Major Questions Doctrine (MQD), which
| asserted the importance (really, necessity, in their view) of
| Congress's _explicit_ delegation powers, as a way to curtail
| agency actions. But then faced with something like this EO,
| they seem quite obviously faced with something that runs up
| against the fact the Congress gave explicit statutes for how
| and what they should do. As far as I 'm aware, the statues
| creating these agencies don't _explicitly_ give the president
| this power...which raises a clear MQD consistency issue for
| the supreme court.
| masklinn wrote:
| It's not fascinating in any way, it's completely habitual
| for fascists to use every means at their disposal to
| prevent their opponents from doing anything only to ignore
| all roadblocks when in power.
|
| The GOP has been ramping up their support of unitary
| executive theory since the 80s yet no democratic president
| has been able to take a piss without cries of tyranny.
| tiahura wrote:
| There are three branches. Just three. If you are a
| federal employee, you either work for congress, the
| courts, or the president. A2S1 invests the president with
| all executive power. All of it. It doesn't carve out
| exceptions for the SEC or the Federal Reserve or USAID.
|
| If you've put yourself in a place where this arrangement
| is literally fascism, prepare to be disappointed by the
| courts.
| boroboro4 wrote:
| However you read the constitution it's not the way courts
| interpret constitution now. Unitary executive branch
| doesn't exist for last ~135 years, and was under scrutiny
| before that (and with way smaller federal government).
|
| With current supreme court nothing is sacred for sure,
| but overturning this and granting universal executive
| power into hands of president would be a disaster leading
| towards either authocracy or revolution. And yeah -
| that's all very similar to how fascism started, whether
| you would like to see it or not.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Pretty hard to square this perspective with the recent
| Raimondo decision, no?
|
| Is the EPA, at the direction of the sitting president,
| making rules about coal power plants not an example of
| the use of "all executive power. All of it."? Or does
| A2S1 carve out exceptions for the EPA, even if it doesn't
| for those other agencies?
|
| Whatever you think about Chevron deference or the
| specific EPA case I'm alluding to, the point is: The
| balance of power between the executive and legislative
| branches is nowhere near as clear cut as your comment
| suggests. Congress frequently legislates the structure
| and responsibilities of executive agencies. Presidential
| administrators cannot legally change those
| responsibilities unilaterally.
| eadmund wrote:
| Making rules sounds awfully like _legislation_ , which is
| a job for the legislature rather than the executive.
| Arguably, the executive can only regulate the executive,
| and Congress has to pass laws which apply to the populace
| at large.
|
| That's certainly not the way things have been run for a
| long time, but it doesn't seem irrational to argue that's
| the proper constitutional structure.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Making rules sounds awfully like legislation, which is
| a job for the legislature rather than the executive.
|
| Good thing Congress establishes independent agencies
| then. Their entire point is to receive rule making
| delegated to them by Congress.
| eadmund wrote:
| Article I, Section I states 'All legislative Powers
| herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the
| United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House
| of Representatives'; it says nothing about delegating
| those powers to independent agencies or to executive
| agencies. None of Congress's enumerated powers state or
| imply that it may delegate its power to anyone else.
|
| It would be pretty surprising if a law passed by Congress
| delegating to Charles Windsor its power to write the laws
| about taxes, borrowing money on the credit of the United
| States, regulating international and interstate commerce
| and so forth were constitutional.
| cvalka wrote:
| You are not a great fan of Morrison v. Olson, are you?
| tiahura wrote:
| A few years ago I actually came to the opinion that the
| IC was an inferior officer, but I forget why. Don't get
| old.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| > It's not fascinating in any way, it's completely
| habitual for fascists to use...
|
| This is a tiring way to speak to other reasonable people.
| dathinab wrote:
| yes but if the executive just pretends there is no issue
| does it matter
|
| part of the supreme court hasn't exactly been known to
| defend the constitution in word and spirit but find excuses
| to reinterpret it
|
| and worse by giving themself the right to authoritative
| misinterpreted law they can prevent any such cases ever
| appearing in front of the supreme court and/or very
| effectively blackmail people into not making or dismissing
| cases
|
| and Trump abusing power to blackmail people to get changes
| in of court related proceeding (to ironically black mail
| someone else to force them to fall in line or a court case
| against them gets reopend/not dismissed) did already
| happen, openly in public just a few days ago
| avalys wrote:
| "Criminal use of presidential power" is a bit of an oxymoron,
| which is why people are getting wrapped up in knots here.
|
| The Supreme Court said, if the Constitution authorizes the
| President to do it, then he can't be criminally prosecuted.
| That doesn't mean blanket immunity!
| jmyeet wrote:
| A competent Joe Biden would've taken that ruling, said "thank
| you very much" and "cleaned house" with Seal Team Six of
| select judges and politicians and then pardoned everyone
| involved.
|
| The fact that SCOTUS wasn't even slightly concerned about
| that happening belies the problem: the Democrats are
| ineffectual by design. They knew Biden would throw his hands
| up citing "norms" and "institutions" as an excuse to do
| absolutely nothing.
|
| SCOTUS completely invented a concept of presidential immunity
| out of thin air to derail the criminal prosecutions. They
| also deliberaly took their time. Remember when Jack Smith
| tried to appeal directly to SCOTUS because everyone knew it
| was going to end up there? Instead, SCOTUS put everything on
| hold for another 6 months as a delaying tactic.
|
| Even then, the opinion is rushed and haphazard and not at all
| well thought out. Some in the conservative supermajority
| allegedly wanted to punt the issue to the next term.
|
| The presidential immunity decision is so brazenly political.
| The Roberts court will go down in history for the kinds of
| awful decisions in the 1840s and 1850s that led up to the
| Civil War.
| ModernMech wrote:
| > the Democrats are ineffectual by design.
|
| The Democrats are people who believe in the rule of law,
| and they act like it. When pitted against people who have
| no qualms to win at all costs, even it means breaking the
| law and destroying the constitution, Democrats lose; if you
| value those things you can't preserve them by destroying
| them yourself. We are where we are because Republicans
| convinced themselves they deserved the power they have
| taken. The people who voted for them were convinced as
| well. That's the only failure we should be talking about
| right now. The Democrats, flawed as they are, did the right
| thing.
|
| That said, they will not be the people to lead us out of
| this. They know how to fundraise, campaign, and maintain
| the status quo. They're not built for this, so it's time to
| just look for someone new rather than try to reform people
| who are clearly not made for this moment.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Your courts and judiciary don't have any power - he'll just
| write an EO to release people. Senate and Congress likewise -
| meaningless talking shops.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see how legal immunity equates
| to legal authority.
|
| If you are a government employee and Trump orders you to do
| something that exceeds his authority, can't you still say no?
| It seems like the Supreme Court only said that Trump can't
| get in trouble for asking. I don't think the court said that
| you have to answer yes.
|
| I'm not trying to say that we're in a great position here or
| that immunity doesn't have some very destructive effects. But
| I am saying that we shouldn't act as if he has powers that
| the Supreme Court hasn't given him.
| eadmund wrote:
| I don't think that's an accurate description of the decision.
| I think that it stated that when the President exercises core
| constitutional power (e.g. the pardon power, or the veto
| power) then the exercise itself cannot be illegal. I'm not
| sure if the decision of the Court left open the possibility
| that the conduct _around_ the exercise of such power can be
| illegal. If so, then this could be a distinction without much
| difference: for example, issuing a pardon may not itself ever
| be criminal, but _taking a bribe to issue a pardon_ is
| separate from issuing the pardon itself. To some extent, I
| think that some of this does flow from the structure of the
| Constitution itself, but I'm not convinced that phrasing it
| in terms of immunity is particularly helpful.
|
| Then there's a rebuttable presumption of immunity for more
| conduct. I don't see that this flows from the Constitution,
| but perhaps it flows from judicial decisions over the past
| two centuries? 'When the President does something official,
| he probably is immune, but maybe he's not, and he could still
| be prosecuted from crimes he commits around the immune act'
| doesn't seem terribly meaningful.
|
| It sounds a bit to me like saying that a citizen is immune
| from prosecution for his _vote_ , but not for selling it or
| whatever. But I'm not a lawyer, and I could be wrong.
| FranzFerdiNaN wrote:
| It 100% was written with the explicit purpose of giving
| Trump the power to do whatever he wants. Including ignoring
| the Supreme Court hilariously enough.
|
| Anyway, the whole discussion is moot because Trump is
| turning America into a authoritarian state, so rules and
| laws and elections soon don't matter anymore.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Just remember, none of this was a surprise. It was advertised
| ie Project 2025. It is the culmination of the 50+ year
| Republican Project.
|
| And yet we had no opposition to it. The Biden administration
| and Kamala Harris were more interested in defending and
| providing material support for war crimes than stopping any of
| this.
|
| The Democratic Party is more comfortable with Trump as a
| dictator than an actual progressive getting in power. If the
| Democrats opposed and sabotaged Republicans half as well as
| they did Bernie Sanders, we would be in a very different place.
|
| It's quite literally "we've tried nothing and we're all out of
| ideas." They throw their hands up and surrender. You want a
| playbook? Look at what the Republicans did at any point from
| 2010 to 2016 and just do any of that.
| hypeatei wrote:
| I think it was definitely bad that Joe held on so long before
| letting Kamala run but incumbents lost globally[0], not just
| here in the US. People aren't happy with the effects COVID
| had, which is valid, but misplaced the blame which is how we
| got here.
|
| [0]: https://apnews.com/article/global-
| elections-2024-incumbents-...
| troupo wrote:
| It's definitely bad that Democrats could not come up with a
| single candidate, and a strategy for that candidate, but
| held on to Biden and then presented Kamala as a saviour
| when she was a meh candidate at best
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| They need to hold an actual primary.
| neaden wrote:
| Who are the "Democrats" that you are talking about? No
| one held on to Joe Biden, he was president and decided he
| was going to run for re-election. No one seriously ran
| against him because people generally don't try to run
| against a sitting president in a primary and if they had
| they would have almost certainly lost in a landslide.
| Biden didn't need anyone's permission to run, and no one
| could have stopped him from running. Then he dropped out
| and endorsed Harris no credible person attempted to run
| against her. There is no secret party leadership who
| decides on the candidate that we can now blame, and
| besides some of the efforts to convince Biden to drop out
| everything was done very publicly.
| watwut wrote:
| It is not just a case of people misplacing the blame. There
| was massive amount of lying and demonization of anyone not
| conservative right going on. There was a lot of
| fearmongering and hate ... all enabled by "moderates".
|
| The movements like these did not just happened because
| people were unhappy. They are result of long political
| project that was enabled, excused and defended for years.
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| The Dems were more afraid of the Israel lobby than they were
| of an actual Nazi movement seizing power over the country.
| Money has totally erased any semblance of morality from
| governance in the United States.
| johnea wrote:
| > The Democratic Party is more comfortable with Trump as a
| dictator than an actual progressive getting in power. If the
| Democrats opposed and sabotaged Republicans half as well as
| they did Bernie Sanders, we would be in a very different
| place.
|
| It's been like this for decades, and is why I haven't voted
| for a democatic party candidate for president in that time.
| Living in California, it doesn't even matter, all of the
| electoral votes go to the dems anyway.
|
| This is all a consequence of the US still governing with an
| organization that was designed in 1776. After WWII european
| contries reorged their governments as well as their physical
| infrastructure. The wswitched to propotional representation
| with parlamentary style governments. It's not perfect, but
| it's a heck of a lot closer than what we have in the US.
|
| With presidenatial electrions decided by 7 states, and by a
| small minority of the voters in those states, something like
| 1% of the US population is deciding the outcome.
|
| Neither dems nor reps want to change this. There is no real
| hope for actual democracy in the US...
| woah wrote:
| No. Since 2016, leftist democrats have promised that if only
| the democratic party moves far left enough, they will unlock
| some kind of secret progressive majority. This has been
| repudiated at every turn, most resoundingly in the last
| presidential election. The demographics that the leftist
| democrats had appointed themselves the saviors of went over
| to Trump, along with the tech industry which had formerly
| been a huge source of monetary and intellectual capital for
| the democrats.
|
| Unfortunately, the democratic party seems to be unable to
| make the necessary adjustment and return to the winning
| formula of the Obama years because the political hobbyists
| and professionals that make up the core of the party have
| purity-tested out anyone with more mainstream views. If they
| aren't careful, they will end up as a party representing only
| university HR administrators.
| watwut wrote:
| Democratic party did not moved left, not even close to it.
| Stop blaming left who holds no power for what right does.
|
| Democratic party systematically promotes centrists and
| measured politicians.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| Perhaps the winning formula of the Obama years was the
| absence of rampant social media use and the spread of
| propaganda / misinformation at the time. Not saying those
| things did not exist - but they did not have the ability to
| spread like wildfire compared to today.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Eh agree in part, disagree in part. In 2016 a bunch of
| people who would otherwise not be interested in politics
| were interested in two politicians - Donald Trump and
| Bernie Sanders. The Democratic party leadership made a
| concerted effort to drown Sanders' economic populism before
| it could succeed. That sent a message that it had no place
| in the party, killing their ability to grow the base, and
| giving MAGA (via the Bannon faction) control of economic
| populist messaging. Economic populists left the Democratic
| party, leaving them to rely on elites and cultural leftists
| to carry the party messaging, which resulted in what you
| described. And most of what you described only exists in a
| Fox News fever dream, but the Democrats opened the door
| right up for it to happen.
| woah wrote:
| > And most of what you described only exists in a Fox
| News fever dream
|
| It also exists in the 2024 election results
| arrosenberg wrote:
| I never said the election was illegitimate, just that
| most of the fears of right wing voters were.
| tptacek wrote:
| What is it that you think this EO says? The first Trump
| administration went all the way to the Supreme Court to
| establish that he could coerce ALJs. There are already
| extensive internal checks on FTC, SEC, and FCC --- places where
| to exercise independent power those agencies still need the
| cooperation of DOJ.
|
| There's a clear norms violation happening here, but I don't see
| the power grab everybody else is seeing. These are powers the
| Presidency already had.
| mfkp wrote:
| Uncommon tptacek L. "extensive internal checks" that's
| laughable given what's been going on lately with the
| executive overreach.
| tptacek wrote:
| You misunderstand me. I'm not saying those internal checks
| are a good thing; I mean that the President already has
| extensive mechanisms to control what these agencies do.
| Jare wrote:
| He seems to be optimizing and polishing his ability to do
| so, which is very dangerous even if technically the reach
| is the same.
| rco8786 wrote:
| > These are powers the Presidency already had.
|
| Then what, in your mind, is the purpose of this EO?
| tptacek wrote:
| To serve notice to the FCC, FTC, SEC, and CFTC that Trump
| intends to override their internal legal interpretations.
| sanderjd wrote:
| But that ... is a power grab...
| tptacek wrote:
| No, the President already has that power. The _norm_ of
| the previous institutions was, largely, to let the
| agencies do their thing. This administration is not going
| to do that.
|
| This was a live question in Trump's last administration,
| but I don't think it is anymore after cases like _Lucia_?
| intermerda wrote:
| Great analysis. By your logic you don't think that the
| Enabling Act of 1933 was a power grab, correct?
| sanderjd wrote:
| You are dying on the hill of a pedantic point. A
| president also has the power to declare an emergency and
| deploy the military domestically. Doing so would still be
| a power grab. The term just doesn't have the precise
| narrow definition you seem to be arguing for. Its
| colloquial understanding encompasses the use of
| heretofore unused powers.
| tptacek wrote:
| Yes, because deploying the military domestically and
| overriding an FTC ALJ's legal interpretation are clearly
| comparable.
| grg0 wrote:
| They are comparable in that they are both an increasing
| exercise of power wrt what had been previously done.
|
| I concur with GP; you are arriving at the conclusion
| through your own logic but somehow not seeing the
| conclusion. See intermerda's point below.
| tptacek wrote:
| This is one of these situations where my immediate
| instinct is to clarify my own politics, but then I catch
| myself and conclude that my comments should stand on
| their own whether or not you feel like you have a
| partisan affinity to me. Mostly: this is why the threads
| on these stories are just wretched. You could say I'm
| wrong and nerd your way out to whether that's the case
| --- that's what this site is for --- but instead we're
| all just reflexively venting emotions.
| intended wrote:
| The terrifying thin i learned recently is that norms are how
| laws work.
|
| This i learned from a discussion between a magistrate and
| legal scholar.
|
| This means that a norm violation, practically speaking, is a
| law violation. Which i guess is a crime. But that has to go
| to the courts to be judged.
| colechristensen wrote:
| >paint a very concerning picture
|
| Donald Trump is trying to be dictator. He has been doing all
| but wearing a sign around his neck saying so for a long time.
| Please don't act surprised. It is not the time for quotes or
| being shocked at his actions.
| NickC25 wrote:
| He's literally said he wants to be a dictator.
|
| He's saluted Kim Jong-Un's generals. He's bent the knee to
| Vladimir Putain He's whined that it's not fair that he
| doesn't have the powers that Xi Jinping does.
|
| Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, it was widely known
| that Donald Trump was a fraud and a complete clown. It will
| be studied for decades how many people just willingly gave up
| their ability to call a spade a spade and ignore reality when
| it comes to Donald Trump. How did people become so fucking
| stupid?
| colechristensen wrote:
| It's pretty simple, working class mostly conservative white
| Americans have been feeling extremely disenfranchised and
| the right phrase is nearly "discriminated against" by the
| left and what were mainstream republicans. This bloc of
| people were used by entities foreign and domestic wield
| power. Large disgruntled groups of people are really good
| for this. Donald Trump is the perfect symbol for this group
| and there are even some strange almost religious feelings
| towards him in a few.
| tiahura wrote:
| _nor does the President "interpret" the law; that is the domain
| of the Judiciary._
|
| That is incorrect, the president's responsibility is to execute
| the laws of the United States. In order to execute a law, one
| must interpret it.
|
| The exclusive domain of the judiciary is the power to
| adjudicate cases. In order to adjudicate a case involving a
| law, one must also interpret.
| John23832 wrote:
| > In order to execute a law, one must interpret it.
|
| This isn't true.
|
| > The exclusive domain of the judiciary is the power to
| adjudicate cases. In order to adjudicate a case involving a
| law, one must also interpret.
|
| This is actually true.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _In order to execute a law, one must interpret it._
|
| I mean, yes, but in a non-judicial sense. The judiciary has
| the constitutionally assigned duty to give _binding
| interpretations_ in the course of adjudicating cases.
| avalys wrote:
| This EO says nothing about the Judicial branch and presents a
| perfectly reasonable policy statement about how legal decisions
| and interpretation should be made within the executive branch.
| What specific language in this EO do you have a problem with?
|
| I'm no fan of Trump, but this pattern of people hallucinating
| that Trump said something he didn't and then freaking out about
| their nonexistent hallucination, is getting very tiresome.
| vharuck wrote:
| Consider this hypothetical: a federal judge rules against the
| Trump administration's firing of the inspectors general and
| must offer the fired employees their positions back. The
| Attorney General says the judge overstepped his
| constitutional power and calls the ruling invalid. What
| should the person who would've rehired the employees do?
|
| Continue that hypothetical further: the case makes its way to
| the Supreme Court, who agrees with the federal judge. The
| executive branch continues to ignore the order. The Attorney
| General is held in contempt of court and fined a large amount
| of money. Who's going to collect it? Any executive branch
| employee trying to carry out that fine would be violating
| this executive order, and be dismissed. So the fine would
| never happen.
|
| Considering the president and vice president's recent disdain
| for judicial rulings against them, this may happen.
| avalys wrote:
| What's the solution you have in mind? Anyone in the
| Executive branch can interpret the law for themselves and
| disobey an order if they believe they have a legal basis to
| do so?
|
| That would be completely paralyzing.
| wnoise wrote:
| Yes.
|
| It would be completely paralyzing were the executive
| largely staffed with those that wanted to paralyze it.
| Usually that's not the case.
|
| I don't think that'd be case unless the orders were
| completely outrageous, in which case, yes, we absolutely
| want them disobeyed until adjudication could happen.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| https://archive.is/g6ElI
|
| "So, through constitutional means?" the presiding judge
| asked.
|
| "Jawohl!" Hitler replied.
| grg0 wrote:
| Good share, thanks.
| Sharlin wrote:
| I'm not sure what hallucinations you're talking about, given
| that this whole catastrophe has been one big "I told you so"
| thus far. By a bit of inductive reasoning we can predict that
| it will continue. (And it's not like it requires any special
| predictive abilities given that they _told_ us during the
| campaign what they were and are planning to do.)
| intermerda wrote:
| Imagine finding absolutely no issue with an EO that uses
| phrases like "so-called independent regulatory agencies".
|
| This is what Germans must have felt like in 1933.
| avalys wrote:
| What branch of government do these independent agencies
| exist in, and where is that defined in the Constitution?
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| > nor does the President "interpret" the law; that is the
| domain of the Judiciary
|
| Everyone tasked with enforcing a law must necessarily interpret
| its meaning. The judiciary gets the final say though.
| colmmacc wrote:
| At least on criminal matters, pardons over-ride the judicial
| branch.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| That's an unrelated issue.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Who will enforce following the law if the executive branch
| ignores the judicial?
|
| In theory the military is sworn to defend the constitution,
| but if the DOD is headed by a Trump loyalist (it is), then
| what?
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| There is no suggestion that that's going to happen.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The Vice-President of the United States is openly
| suggesting it.
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gx3j5k63xo.amp
| dathinab wrote:
| and the president did too in slightly more subtle way
| xnx wrote:
| > Who will enforce following the law if the executive
| branch ignores the judicial?
|
| Congress through impeachment. If they don't do that, all
| bets are off.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| But who enforces impeachment? Who evicts the President?
| dathinab wrote:
| And who impeaches a President which just gave himself the
| right to authoritatively misinterpret the law in whatever
| way they want and in turn can trivially turn you live
| into a living hell if they insist too
|
| especially if you yourself could get a part of the pie
| and don't think it will negatively affect you
|
| I mean don't get me wrong if they would do so literally
| tomorrow it would work.
|
| But as the majority of senate likely feel they have
| little to loose it won't be tomorrow.
|
| And when they realize that maybe they won't get part of
| the pie (they are mostly now useless for him) it will be
| to late and the fear of repercussions will have set in.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Upon impeaching the President, the VP would become
| President, and he would order the military to remove the
| ex-President. At that point the military would have to
| decide if it's more loyal to Congress or the ex-
| President.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Why would the President's hand-picked buddy automatically
| play ball?
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> The judiciary gets the final say though
|
| Unless your the previous admin who routinely ignored supreme
| court rulings and just did what they wanted to anyways.
|
| I find it laughable when people tell me they're concerned
| about Trump's overreach when both Obama and Biden were more
| than culpable in the same way, but somehow the those same
| people now? They were all as quiet as church mice back when
| Obama created DACA with an EO as an end around the
| legislature. Or the multiple times the Supreme Court ruled
| Biden's student loan forgiveness actions were
| unconstitutional (even Nancy Pelosi said only the legislature
| has that power, not him), he still went ahead and did it
| anyways.
|
| When you set the precedent that no rule of law or the
| constitution means anything, why are you surprised when the
| other party does the same thing? I'm sorry, but you can't
| have it both ways.
| dathinab wrote:
| you are mixing up different meanings for the word
| "interpret". "Authoritative Interpreting law" (or in general
| interpreting law) doesn't mean "trying to understand what it
| means" but means "deciding what it means in practice"
|
| especially if you add a "authoritative" in the front it in
| legal language means they gave themself the right (i.e.
| authority) to decide (i.e. interpret) how law should be
| interpreted, i.e. what the meaning behind the written word is
| in practice
|
| this is 100% without doubt or question not compatible with
| any democracy (including the US constitution) and is pretty
| much one of the default approaches Dictators use to get
| unchecked authority
|
| It means that in practice (assuming people comply with the
| EO) means they can do whatever they want as they can just
| willfully absurdly, but with authority , misinterpret laws.
| Including to e.g. persecute judges which "step out of line",
| or members of the senate which don't vote for whatever he
| wants etc.
| rchaud wrote:
| "He who saves the country" sounds suspiciously close to the
| "Founder Mode" thinking that Valley CEOs have been bandwagoning
| behind.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" - ah, one of those
| Government things where the title is exactly what it is not.
| "Department of Justice", there's another.
| titzer wrote:
| The phrase you are looking for is "Orwellian doublespeak".
| dang wrote:
| There's a bit of background at
| https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5152723-donald-t....
|
| If there are better third-party reports, let me know and I'll add
| to this list. The above is just the first one bestowed by Google.
| neom wrote:
| More allowing run of the mill American Politics around here
| these days or my imagination?
| nailer wrote:
| It's not your imagination, political articles that are
| normally flagged are being unflagged manually by dang. He
| discussed this recently.
| neom wrote:
| Thanks! I wasn't trying to be cute, was genuinely curious.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| "run of the mill"
|
| Experts across the political spectrum say what is happening
| at the moment is unprecedented in US history.
| concordDance wrote:
| Honestly dang, I'm seeing mostly not thoughtful substantive
| commentary here, just ideological battling.
|
| Which is a shame because this is certainly a topic it's
| possible to do that on (e.g. this comment here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43105417 ).
|
| Are the good comments really worth the large amount of heat?
| afpx wrote:
| I'm seeing a lot of helpful discussion, and I'm learning a
| lot. It's been easy for me to skip over the hyperbole.
| concordDance wrote:
| When I made that post this was in the main branch (e.g.
| starting at top comment and going down you hit this before
| any leaf): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43103830
| skc wrote:
| I think it's highly likely that the Democratic party will never
| govern the United States again.
|
| Every single move the current government is making increasingly
| seems to be a clever way to stack the chips in their favor in
| perpetuity.
|
| We seem to be living though the backstory of how some far-off
| sci-fi civilization came to be, replete with greedy tech corps in
| the ears and pockets of narcissistic leaders.
|
| The irony is that it's impossible to say if this will ultimately
| play out as a dystopian horror or a utopian fantasy.
| Rzor wrote:
| >I think it's highly likely that the Democratic party will
| never govern the United States again.
|
| I think they will when climate change comes knocking (I'm
| assuming the US will double down on carbon for some incredible
| short-term profit). Or at least some version of the democrats
| i.e. whatever is on the other side.
| netbioserror wrote:
| The executive is exercising executive authority over executive
| departments? Wow.
| hartator wrote:
| Didn't we decide to not talk here about US politics?
| calebm wrote:
| Here is the Google Gemini summary of the text of the Executive
| Order: "This executive order aims to increase Presidential
| control over the executive branch, including independent
| regulatory agencies. It asserts that the Constitution vests
| executive power in the President, who is accountable to the
| people. The order argues that independent agencies have operated
| with too little Presidential oversight, undermining
| accountability. Therefore, the order mandates that all executive
| departments and agencies, including independent agencies (with
| specific exceptions for the Federal Reserve), submit proposed and
| final significant regulatory actions to the Office of Information
| and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review. It also directs the
| Director of OMB to establish performance standards for agency
| heads, review agency obligations, and adjust apportionments to
| align with Presidential policies. Furthermore, it requires agency
| heads to consult with the Executive Office of the President,
| establish a White House Liaison position, and submit strategic
| plans to OMB for clearance. Finally, it clarifies that the
| President and Attorney General provide authoritative legal
| interpretations for the executive branch, binding all employees,
| and that no employee can advance a contrary interpretation
| without authorization. The order includes standard severability
| and general provisions, stating it doesn't create any enforceable
| rights and is subject to applicable law and appropriations."
|
| Personally, it seems better to have elected oversight of such
| powerful (and expensive) organizations rather than non-elected
| oversight.
| johnsimer wrote:
| I don't know why people are (reflexively?) downvoting our LLM
| summaries of the EO
|
| These LLMs score pretty highly on reading comprehension
| crooked-v wrote:
| If people want a zero-effort LLM summary, they can get one
| themselves.
| johnsimer wrote:
| the fact that the majority opinion on this thread seemingly
| does not even agree with Claude (which scores ~88% on MMLU
| (a measure of reading comprehension)) is a topic worth
| discussing
| crooked-v wrote:
| No, it really isn't, because the disagreement in
| interpretation stems from the obvious fact that Claude
| isn't aware of all the other blatantly illegal acts that
| the Trump administration is currently performing.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| SCOTUS bears a tremendous amount of responsibility for Trump's
| power grab. Its immunity-granting ruling means that it's
| extremely difficult to stop a President who decides to simply
| ignore the law.
|
| Even if you think Trump is a "good guy" who is "doing the right
| thing" _, he 's setting precedents whereby a President who is a
| "bad guy" could turn dictator, and then what? Literally the only
| option is impeachment, but the Senate has never convicted because
| there are enough senators who are afraid of a highly vindictive
| politician (and now his billionaire BBF) who __will__ go after
| them and whip up his base against them. If only they were more
| concerned about the country than their own re-election, but too
| few are willing to make that sacrifice.
|
| _ (this couldn't be farther than the truth from all I've seen
| Trump do, but just entertaining the thought here)
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I wonder when he's going to go after the Fed.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| It may be a good time to study how Stalin came to power in the
| USSR. It wasn't through the political establishment, but by
| taking absolute control of the bureaucracy.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| The USSR was already a one party dictatorship at that point, so
| I don't know if that's a relevant example.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Yes, it was a single party government, but not consolidated
| under a dictator until Stalin. Even Lenin, until he basically
| retired (was very sick and died soon thereafter), didn't have
| the iron grip on the government that Stalin did.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| all during covid and the biden admin we couldnt talk about any
| politics here. what a bunch of poppycock.
| trhway wrote:
| 5a - consistency with the President not the law. Classic
| principle of Russia and the likes.
| api wrote:
| My high level take on this saga is: welcome to the Chinese
| century.
|
| It's very common for companies that are failing to adopt
| uncreative reactive strategies that hasten their collapse. Look
| at the history of Kodak for some good examples. MAGA is that for
| the United States -- respond to the challenges of the new century
| by going back to the 1950s. MAGA (and Project 2025) is going to
| turbocharge American decline.
|
| The pathetic thing is that while the US (like everyone else) has
| significant problems, it was not "failing," but we decided to do
| this anyway largely because of culture war panic bullshit.
|
| Before this, America was in a place where it could credibly have
| continued to hold onto its global power. Its higher birth rate
| combined with a high immigration rate from all over the world
| meant its demographics were much better than China's. It was the
| world's #1 destination for high skill immigrants. The dollar is
| the global reserve, and that's hard to unseat due to network
| effects. Its military is still the most powerful. It still has an
| edge in many areas of high technology. Its universities are still
| arguably the best. It's still arguably the center of global pop
| culture.
|
| Now it looks like we will systematically forfeit all that. We'll
| close our borders to general migration and will no longer be an
| attractive destination for skilled immigration. By removing
| reproductive rights I predict we'll actually decrease the birth
| rate by driving people to sterilize themselves (already
| happening) and driving a further wedge between genders (see the
| Korean 4B movement). The dollar will start losing ground. Our
| military may stay dominant for a while but will gradually slip
| with everything else. We'll gradually lose our technological edge
| to brain drain and lack of high skill immigration. We're going to
| run some kind of culture war purge on the universities or maybe
| even defund the best higher education system in the world. We'll
| lose our cultural edge because right wing culture warriors will
| drive away all the artists.
|
| Imagine Germany without Naziism where they drove away or killed
| all their intellectuals. Imagine if Weimar Germany with its
| incredible intellectual and cultural scene had recovered
| economically and remained functional. They had the greatest minds
| in physics, philosophy, psychology, mathematics, and many areas
| of engineering. It's likely that without Hitler Germany would
| have developed the microprocessor, ArpaNet and Silicon Valley
| would have been German, the Germans would have landed on the
| Moon, etc.
|
| Muscular reactionary politics is a cult of what looks strong, not
| what is strong.
| intreble wrote:
| Here is the crux. If during this time they also dismantle the
| checks and balances that allow a stable democracy to exist then
| they transition into chaos. Chaos creates a very convenient
| excuse to establish martial law. This is accelerated if the
| people rise up to protest the dismantling of democracy. Martial
| law leads to suspension of elections, ipso facto, the loss of
| democracy.
| api wrote:
| Agreed -- which will vastly accelerate the collapse of the US
| empire since everyone around the world will start
| diversifying away even faster. If this kind of scenario
| happens then USD hyperinflationary collapse is on the table.
|
| The Heritage Foundation might get their Gilead LARP in the
| form of a hollowed out declining US whose young and high-
| skill people are pouring across the border in the 'out'
| direction. Meanwhile China is cracking AGI and fusion and
| landing on Mars with an improved clone of Starship built for
| 1/2 the price.
| arunabha wrote:
| In general, people are going to interpret this EO with their own
| lens. Unsurprisingly, reasonable people may disagree on the
| merits of the EO as a whole.
|
| However this part of the EO is pretty concerning
|
| > 'The President and the Attorney General, subject to the
| President's supervision and control, shall provide authoritative
| interpretations of law for the executive branch'
|
| and later
|
| > 'No employee of the executive branch acting in their official
| capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position
| of the United States that contravenes the President or the
| Attorney General's opinion on a matter of law'
|
| This can potentially enable an end run around congress and the
| courts in that the President can easily choose to interpret laws
| in a manner inconsistent with the intent of congress and courts.
| Now, we can argue the point and say that presidents have already
| done so in the past and that congress/courts should have been
| more specific. However it quickly gets into the issue of the
| impossibility of congress or the courts anticipating and
| specifying every detail to avoid a 'hostile' interpretation.
|
| This part of the EO says the president's opinion is the law as
| far as the executive branch is concerned. Given that the
| executive branch implements the law, this would imply that the
| president's interpretation is all that matters. The other two
| branches have no real role left to play. Given the supreme
| court's ruling on presidential immunity, this is a dangerous
| level of power concentration.
|
| Even if you support the current president's goals and objectives,
| setting up the president as the sole power center is an
| inherently unstable system. Nothing prevents the next president
| from having a radically different opinion. There is a very good
| reason why the founding fathers built in an elaborate system of
| checks and balances.
| codewench wrote:
| > Nothing prevents the next president from having a radically
| different opinion.
|
| Of course, this is only relevant if they are interested in
| having a 'next' president, something which it seems a segment
| of society is less than open to.
| arunabha wrote:
| I would like to believe(perhaps naively) that the segment of
| population which genuinely believes in doing away with
| democracy is pretty small.
|
| However, in case such an event comes to pass, what is _far_
| more important is the segment which _actively opposes_ such a
| power grab. Authoritarians reply on the passiveness of the
| majority coupled with a small but very vocal and rabid fan
| base.
|
| It's quite possible that a slow and gradual slide in that
| direction is underway, but the minute even a small faction of
| people actively oppose that, strongmen tend to find the
| limits of their power pretty quickly and mostly in ways that
| are pretty detrimental to their health.
|
| The civil rights movement is a pretty good example of the
| power of a small set of people being enough to have critical
| mass.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| It's about 70 million as of the last count in November.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| There are some odd patterns in the voting data. I'm not
| saying this is proof, but it's definitely weird.
|
| https://electiontruthalliance.org/clark-county%2C-nv
|
| https://www.thenumbersarewrong2024.com/across-the-
| us/swing-s...
|
| Then combine that with all the election interference we
| know Elon was doing, and previous years of being
| concerned about the security of voting machines.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crlnjzzk919o
|
| https://apnews.com/article/election-security-voting-
| machines...
|
| There are reasons to think the votes may have been
| tampered with.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42994293
|
| This was previously discussed on HN before getting
| flagged like most political topics.
| rchaud wrote:
| The civil rights movement would not have succeeded without
| the confluence of growing anti-government sentiment and
| protests around the Vietnam War, and fears about the spread
| of communist influence in the US. This forced American
| leaders to give 15% of their population basic human rights
| denied to them under Jim Crow laws.
| shostack wrote:
| Trump has explicitly said it's the last time people will have
| to vote. I don't know why people are glossing over this. He
| intends to take full control and never give it up. The time
| to act is now, not when he announces some emergency that is a
| thin excuse to cancel elections.
| bagels wrote:
| "He didn't really mean it" isn't really playing out so
| well.
| bagels wrote:
| There is no next legitimately elected president. They are
| going to disenfranchise us.
| daveguy wrote:
| Not if we speak the fuck up.
| hiatus wrote:
| I took it to mean that agencies no longer have the final say in
| interpretations of law when it comes to exercising executive
| power. So for instance if ATF says a banana is a machine gun
| and the president says "yes", then barring an act of Congress
| clarifying, it is. I don't see how you go from there to the end
| of judicial review?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "No employee of the executive branch acting in their official
| capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the
| position of the United States that contravenes the President
| or the Attorney General's opinion on a matter of law" would
| seem to rule out, say, accepting a SCOTUS ruling against the
| President, should he insist it was wrongly decided.
| hiatus wrote:
| Does any law or executive order say "unless invalidated by
| a court"? Isn't that kind of a given?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce
| it."
|
| They are openly contesting the authority of the courts in
| various statements.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gx3j5k63xo.amp
|
| > Vice-President JD Vance has suggested judges do not
| have authority over the Trump administration's executive
| power, as the White House responds to a flurry of
| lawsuits that aim to stall its agenda. "Judges aren't
| allowed to control the executive's legitimate power," he
| wrote on X.
| svnt wrote:
| For those unfamiliar -- the quote is from Andrew Jackson,
| and his stance on the court's invalidation of the US
| state of Georgia's policies that led to the Trail of
| Tears.
|
| Not a positive model to emulate.
|
| AFAIK the only other time this has been done was during
| the US civil war.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Pre-2016, you'd be correct
|
| Today? It's no longer a given. Trump, Vance, and Musk
| have all indicated a willingness to ignore court orders.
| Whether they will go they far is yet to be seen.
| svnt wrote:
| If the court cannot have an opinion more valid than the
| issuer of the EO, then on what authority can they
| invalidate it? The issuer can always say: that isn't how
| the law is meant to be read.
|
| First they marginalize, then they alienate, then they
| never have to take the extreme action that people like
| you would recognize as a problem.
| all2 wrote:
| Doesn't the EO apply specifically to the executive
| branch? How is this marginalizing the judicial branch?
| derbOac wrote:
| They are trying to supercede the oath to the the
| constitution that people in the executive take, and also to
| supercede the authority of the other branches.
|
| It's as simple as that.
| giantg2 wrote:
| If that were the case, then SCOTUS would just invalidate
| the EO.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| And the President's order compels them to ignore that
| contradictory opinion.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Where does it say that? What other EOs explicitly say
| that SCOTUS can override them?
| svnt wrote:
| Naive interpretations like this one, of bad faith actions is
| how we get there.
|
| This same assumption of good faith was wholly present in
| peoples' responses to project 2025 prior to the election.
|
| They are not acting in good faith.
|
| Try restating the problem: Why is this EO being issued? What
| problem, other than judicial review, does it solve for the
| executive branch?
|
| EDIT: For those who do not think this contributes anything:
| can you answer the question?
| galleywest200 wrote:
| >Naive interpretations like this one, of bad faith actions
| is how we get there.
|
| Instead of just dismissing things out of hand like this,
| maybe you could provide a "less naive" interpretation? Your
| statement is not helpful either.
| lobf wrote:
| That answer can be found in the question they asked. Care
| to take a crack at it?
| sterlind wrote:
| If the Supreme Court rules against the Executive, they might
| order an agency to comply with a ruling or - barring that -
| hold an agency head in contempt. Under this EO, the agency
| wouldn't comply, since the agency would assume Trump's read
| of the law is correct - superceding even the Court's. If they
| tried to enforce a contempt order, the US Marshals would not
| comply either. Soldiers that swear allegiance to the
| Constitution would also have to defer to the President, even
| if the Supreme Court ordered the military not to obey an
| unconstitutional order.
|
| The problem is the EO commands absolute subservience to the
| President's view of the Constitution, which makes it
| impossible for them to comply with Court orders.
| kkukshtel wrote:
| who could have seen this coming
| dizzant wrote:
| In the second quote, the phrases "in their official capacity"
| and "as the position of the United States" are doing a lot of
| heavy lifting.
|
| The EO is going out of its way to broadcast that its purpose is
| to establish a unitary policy position of the executive branch
| that stems from the President, rather than having "independent"
| agencies providing contrary position from within "in their
| official capacity" "as the position of the United States." The
| logical leap from there to "the President's (unrestricted)
| opinion is the law (without reference to Congress or the
| Courts)" is vast.
|
| The EO does not bear on the balance of powers between branches
| of government, but on the ability for the executive branch to
| function as a single entity within that balance, rather than a
| multiplicity of quasi-"independent" agencies.
|
| The disincentives that have always prevented the executive from
| blatantly violating the law are still in force and unchanged.
| They have been functional through 250 years of Presidents
| testing the limits of their authority.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > The disincentives that have always prevented the executive
| from blatantly violating the law are still in force and
| unchanged.
|
| We're just gonna pretend Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593
| (2024) doesn't exist, are we?
| dizzant wrote:
| That opinion specifically defers to lower courts to define
| the precise limits of the President's immunity. I refuse to
| believe that the collective effort of the judicial branch
| would construct those limits in a manner that enables
| dictatorship.
| procaryote wrote:
| The lower courts can be appealed to the higher courts, so
| the opinion of the supreme court was effectively that the
| president is immune if they say so, on a case by case
| basis.
|
| It was a clever but blatant way to give their side
| immunity without giving it to Biden
| dizzant wrote:
| You're correct that the Supreme Court ultimately has
| final appellate jurisdiction on matters of immunity, but
| that's a long way from enabling dictatorship.
|
| To get there, we would need to assume that the Supreme
| Court, including only 3 Trump-appointed Justices, is both
| unwaveringly partisan and unwaveringly supportive of
| dictatorship.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| > The disincentives that have always prevented the executive
| from blatantly violating the law are still in force and
| unchanged. They have been functional through 250 years of
| Presidents testing the limits of their authority.
|
| Can you elaborate on what those disincentives are? I am
| thinking:
|
| - Impeachment
|
| - Charged with a crime, found guilty, sent to jail. It seems
| like this one is no longer possible due to Trump v. United
| States
|
| - Killed by opponents
|
| Without the criminal charges being on the table, those
| disincentives look a lot weaker to me.
| dizzant wrote:
| I'm no legal scholar, but sure, I'll elaborate as a layman.
|
| During the Presidency, impeachment and judicial review are
| the important checks. During the transition of power,
| state-controlled (as in, not federally controlled)
| elections and Congressional certification are the important
| checks.
|
| While many people are disappointed with Congress'
| hesitation to impeach, impeachment as an institutional
| protection still works as a protection against blatant
| disregard of the law. Congress faces the threat of re-
| election practically constantly, and obvious disregard of
| the law without impeachment is not in Congress' best
| interest.
|
| Judicial review is clearly working. I don't need to recap
| the large number of cases that have be brought against the
| Trump administration this term. The administration is
| abiding by stays/injunctions, and the Courts are issuing
| opinions independently. The Supreme Court, even Trump-
| appointed Justices, has ruled against Trump before and will
| likely do it again.
|
| State-level control of Presidential elections and
| Congressional accountability to the public during
| certification protect against the spectre of a third Trump
| term or end of democracy. This scenario is extremely
| unpopular even among Trump supporters and would be a
| disaster for those in Congress.
|
| The recent Supreme Court opinion about Presidential
| immunity in his official capacity explicitly defers and
| leaves to the lower Courts to determine the precise limits
| of that official capacity. It is beyond belief that the
| entire judicial branch would collectively enable
| dictatorship "bEcAuSe iMmUnItY".
| bagels wrote:
| They're trying to leverage the immunity the Supreme Court gave
| him to extend to people following his orders.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > setting up the president as the sole power center is an
| inherently unstable system.
|
| Autocracies can be very stable... for a while depending on how
| much people are able to protest (or not). You could argue that
| N Korea has been "stable" (from the standpoint of the ruling
| family) for over 60 years.
|
| > There is a very good reason why the founding fathers built in
| an elaborate system of checks and balances.
|
| Sure that's what we were all taught in school. But it turns out
| that the whole system is heavily dependent on the executive
| branch "doing the right thing". But what good is it for the
| Judicial or Legislative branches to rule against the executive
| when the executive is in charge of enforcement? Even Nixon was
| eventually able to be shamed into doing the right thing, but if
| we have a president who can't be shamed into doing the right
| thing... well, I suspect we're about to find out, but my guess
| is that the checks and balances aren't going to be effective.
| tartoran wrote:
| > Autocracies can be very stable...
|
| Sure, if you kill all dissenters , keep population terrified
| and into the dark, remove all sources of information with
| propaganda then things could stay like that for a while.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Or if you manage to get most people to not care. There can
| still be dissent, but it would be too limited to have an
| effect.
| boroboro4 wrote:
| I come from autocracy and it's way more similar to the US
| than one might think.
|
| It all starts with distrust of institutions, (silent)
| support of majority and power consolidation under executive
| branch. It's very hard to get out of it, and propaganda and
| terror just one part of it, and I'm not even sure the
| first.
|
| Just to be clear I lived in Russia.
| enjo wrote:
| That isn't really what happened in Singapore.
| jv22222 wrote:
| If they were able to follow through on this absolute power
| would California succession be on the cards?
| Tostino wrote:
| Realistically, not unless the military fractured and there
| was a coherent alternative government that some of them
| aligned with.
|
| There is absolutely no standing up to our military if it is
| actually deployed against you as a regular citizen without
| equal military backing.
| procaryote wrote:
| That sounds pretty obviously unconstitutional. I don't see how
| a reasonable person could disagree actually. The whole point of
| the checks and balances is to prevent this.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Ok, so how would those checks and balances work if the
| president refuses to obey the courts? Who's going to enforce
| those court orders? I suppose you could say that the congress
| could impeach - but what if the majority of the House sides
| with the president? And if the House does manage to pass
| impeachment, it still takes 2/3 of Senators to convict - as
| we've seen that's a very high bar and very unlikely to
| happen. But let's continue the thought experiment and say
| that the Senate votes to convict - who's going to enforce the
| conviction and kick the President out of office?
| procaryote wrote:
| I never said the checks and balances are working well...
| but the constitutional checks and balances not working well
| is a lesser problem than the executive branch just deciding
| that the president is also able to do the judiciary's job
|
| It should be the trigger for country wide protests until
| the president is overthrown. It won't be of course. But it
| should.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Lots of things _should_ have happened long before we got
| to this point. After Jan 6th he should never have been a
| contender for the nomination, but then he was and won it.
| And then the electorate at large _should_ have chosen his
| opponent, but they didn 't. And here we are. I'm not sure
| what would trigger nation wide protests that are large
| enough to have an effect - I suspect that in our spread-
| out country you'd need something like at least 20% of the
| population which would be about 65 million people. Most
| people are too apathetic to be bothered and by the time
| some final straw makes them care it'll likely be too
| late.
| doctor_radium wrote:
| If it comes to it, the military.
| sjs382 wrote:
| Which? The State national guards? The "well-regulated
| militia?"
|
| The President is Commander in Chief of the US armed
| forces.
| adamsb6 wrote:
| The employees of the executive branch are not intended to be
| a check on the executive branch's powers. They are the agents
| of the executive.
|
| The legislative and judicial branches are the checks to
| executive power.
| spacechild1 wrote:
| > setting up the president as the sole power center is an
| inherently unstable system
|
| Only if there is a transition of power. If power stays in the
| same hands, the system can be _very_ stable - and not in a good
| way.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| > If power stays in the same hands, the system can be very
| stable - and not in a good way.
|
| I don't think it actually can be that stable. I think I see
| what people are getting at when they say this, but it seems
| to me that authoritarian governments are generally quite
| unstable, because power never stays in the same hands. Power
| _always_ changes hands, because we are mortal. Non-
| authoritarian systems are built to handle this, and ensure
| that it happens frequently enough that the wheels stay
| greased. Authoritarian systems are built around ensuring that
| the concentrated power stays only in the hands of certain
| people, and this is not possible.
|
| To put it another way, non-authoritarian governments have
| less variance because they are taking some (very) rough
| average of all the people. Authoritarian governments are much
| more subject to the significant variance of individuals.
|
| Of course we don't actually have _that_ much historical data
| on non-authoritarian governments.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We also don't have much data on how the calculus changes
| when AI transcript analysis makes the Stasi's wet dreams a
| reality.
| giantg2 wrote:
| 'The President and the Attorney General, subject to the
| President's supervision and control, shall provide
| authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch'
|
| That's basically what EOs are already.
| peterashford wrote:
| No. EOs can be overturned by congress. This EO says that they
| can't - ie: there's no checks or balances on the President
| giantg2 wrote:
| "This EO says that they can't"
|
| Where does it say that? What existing EOs explicitly say
| congress needs to overturn it?
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| Not incidentally, both the FTC and SEC have ongoing
| investigations or enforcement actions against companies owned by
| Elon Musk.
|
| What a coincidence
| jeffwask wrote:
| I think a lot more American need to read the Constitution.
| procaryote wrote:
| In many other countries people would take to the streets and
| protest until they get a new government if something like this
| happened.
|
| Perhaps you should try it?
| spacechild1 wrote:
| Yes! Where are the mass protests? Take some inspiration from
| Serbia: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/01/student-
| led-pr....
|
| I have been asking myself: what needs to happen until US
| citizens wake up and finally take it to the streets? In
| countries like Iran or Syria people have been protesting
| despite the danger of being tortured and/or killed. People in
| the US do not need to fear any of that, so what's holding them
| back?
| westurner wrote:
| Why do you think they are called "Independent Agencies"?
|
| Can we work on our definition of "Independent Agency"?
|
| The founders of this country intentionally did not create a
| "King" role.
| neilv wrote:
| Who is actually behind all these executive orders?
|
| Do they all originate by the President saying "I want X" in
| reaction to something, and lawyers figuring out how to do X?
|
| Do some of them originate with a wishlist of some extremist think
| tank or powerful people, and they finally found a President
| who'll rubberstamp them?
|
| Other?
| wilg wrote:
| They put out a whole playbook called Project 2025, developed by
| a bunch of insane people at the Heritage Foundation. Trump lied
| and said he didn't know anything about it. Now they're doing
| it.
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