The US drift into Adam Curtis' broad thesis in hypernormalisation(a) continues apace I see. Great to see J Pow putting up a fight but I fear this is all going one way.
(a) >We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They don't care. We say we care but do nothing.
That belief isn't the consequence of the situation, but the cause. There is ample ability to change events, but people must believe they can act and act together, as they have for centuries of democracy and for all human history. They do it in Iran. The Republicans and MAGA movement have made changes that would have been unbelievable ten years ago.
> There is ample ability to change events, but people must believe they can act and act together, as they have for centuries of democracy and for all human history.
This is the political will of a plurality of American voters. They certainly can't claim they didn't know what they would get, and they seem unconcerned by any of these actions that many of us find terrifying.
It is difficult to see how we can democracy our way out of this situation.
> This is the political will of a plurality of American voters.
This fallacy gets repeated over and over, but it's obviously false.
Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? It's a quintessential fact of politics that voting for a candidate is not equivalent to an endorsement of everything that candidate does in the future. It's a premise that is obviously false when we consider our own votes, but it feels cathartic to force the claim on to the other side.
This administration's net approval rating flipped net negative very quickly after his election and has been trending downward. It's just navel-gazing to pretend like what he's doing has high approval.
> It's just navel-gazing to pretend like what he's doing has high approval
Then how is it being reflected in Congress? Where are the Republicans speaking loudly on behalf of their dissatisfied constituents and voting on bills accordingly? We shouldn't have to wait every two years for a midterms or general election for the negative approval rating to make itself known, politicians can choose any time to act in a way that shows they're listening to their constituents.
they're basically fucked. they can't turn against Leader, because their base would abandon them immediately. But they desperately wish they could hold him back, because they are well aware they are going to get creamed in November.
as far as "bills", there's no bills because that's up to Mike Johnson who is a super loyalist. His district is very safe (Cook R+26).
> their base would abandon them immediately...they are going to get creamed in November.
These seem contradictory. So they risk losing their voters if they oppose Trump, but also know voters will vote them out?
>that's up to Mike Johnson who is a super loyalist. His district is very safe (Cook R+26).
That's part of why we've had so many forced votes around Johnson.
And I guess we'll see in Novemeber which branch is true. Either the R's are safe and the voter base is strong/popular enough to keep them in, or they are actually unpopular and at best scared of Trump (and at worst, super loyalist) and they will go down with the ship.
their base alone is not big enough to give them electoral victory. they always need more. but they need the base too. Because of Trump's lawlessness, they can't have both, hence you see a lot of retirements etc. this year.
> Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with?
I personally haven’t, no. And I definitely have never voted for a candidate who claimed they’d do horrible things if elected. There is no one who voted for Trump the second time around who has the excuse of him “doing things I don’t agree with”. He told everyone what he was going to do, and people still voted for him. Either they agree with his actions or they’re stupid. If the former, they’re irredeemable; if the latter, they need to take responsibility and act. This was not an “oopsie” you can simply regret and vote better next time, irreparable damage is being caused to the world. Negative approval ratings mean nothing to a despot.
This is not a fallacy, simply an opinion you disagree with. But one which I strongly agree with.
I'm not American, and though I may not agree completely with the politicians I voted for, I have not been blindsided yet. The second election of Trump is a symptom of Americans either unable or unwilling to look beyond single issues or sports team politics.
To then turn around and act surprised is just a way to conveniently absolve themselves of the responsibility of electing him to begin with. If this wasn't the case, Trump voters themselves would be calling for his impeachment, not Democrat voters.
Approval rating means nothing if it enforces nothing.
If you're not American, then you may not understand the way the American voting system works.
We only have two parties. (Technically, there are some third parties, but they're effectively worse than negligible—voting for them is guaranteed to either do nothing or harm the cause you're interested in, unless the candidate is already a member of a major party and merely cross-endorsed.)
This means that if you care about one thing that one of the two major parties ostensibly supports (or is ostensibly better at than the other), more than any of the things on the other side, you have no choice: you have to vote for that party's candidate.
We also have a mainstream media landscape that is fully captured by the wealthy on the right. It is hard to overstate the extent to which our media carries water for the Republican Party.
And finally, we have absolutely abysmal civics education. It has been steadily gutted over the course of decades. To some extent, this is a deliberate move to make it easier to use the aforementioned media capture to control the average voter.
So if you're a low-information voter, you think the economy is bad, and you want to fix that, you're going to vote for the candidate of the major party that media has been telling you for 50 years is the party that's good at the economy, despite the fact that every time they're in office the debt goes up, regular people's lives get worse, and more protections go out the window.
> If you're not American, then you may not understand the way the American voting system works.
This is incredibly unlikely, given how pervasive American politics is, and how much the results of the American elections affects the rest of the world. Additionally, having a two party system is unfortunately pretty common.
As a german, i can assure you, GPs comment was spot on and is very transferable to germany, no matter how many serious parties are listed on the ballots. Its is the elites, slowly undermining democracies and public/private institutions all over the western world in similar ways.
I've seen plenty of comments from people outside the US that clearly don't understand how the US system works. For that matter, that's not limited to people outside the US.
I've talked with a number of people online from Europe (particularly the UK) who came in with the assumption that a parliamentary system was the default. (I don't consider this a mark against them: everyone is likely to start out with the assumption that the first thing they learn about is the default. They were just part of that day's lucky 10,000.)
There are a great many reasons why people might misunderstand why so many people voted for Trump, and most of them start with assuming your own experience is universal, at least in certain realms. I suspect that, for people outside the US, not really understanding our voting/electoral system is one of the top ones, and it's a very understandable one. I prefer to go for it first, because the one I consider next most likely is a bit less charitable: assuming that everyone shares your privileges. (ie, "surely no one could possibly be so uneducated as to think that Trump was anything but a liar and a fascist." Buddy, you can't even imagine how bad the American education system can be, or how hard it is to care about anything other than the bare necessities when you're poor...)
That is exactly the problem. The first past the post single representative systems all have this feature. It seems almost inevitable that they will just because of that. Some sort of representative system will reduce this disconnect between what voters want and what they get because it allows more parties to flourish. The downside is that you end up with coalition governments. These are seen as “weak” although I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.
You're missing some history that pushed former Democratic vorers to vote Trump. Taxpayer funding of NGOs that were writing grants to organizations that were effectively censoring onlinespeech. This and the Disinformation Board, and the direct phone calls from US senators and Congressmen to takedown opposition ideas n social media was a direct attack on the First Amendment by the Democrats. Yes Trump's FCC threats over Jimmy Kimmel were also wrong, but he didn't have a government agency doing it to citizens. Trump ended that system. Also, DNC threw working class under the bus and chastise them for leaving the party that screwed them. If sports team politics is what you're hearing, you're being lied to.
He's clearly alluding the fact that the Biden admin did far worse.
The great sin of Trump's FCC was a single ill-advised tweet by FCC chair Brendan Carr... in which he threatened to enforce the law as written. For comparison, the Biden admin's FBI actively engaged in purely political media manipulation in service of the sitting president's campaign, such as when they lied to Facebook (and presumably others) to "prebunk" the Hunter's Laptop story, which directly lead to a near-total ban of a factual news story.
He wrote that the FCC wasn't a government agency. Hard to argue that is correct, or that their political pursuit of one of trump's "enemies" isn't actually political.
It was more that a tweet no, but an interview with Benny johnson, an avowed political figure paid by Russians at one point?
> He wrote that the FCC wasn't a government agency. Hard to argue that is correct
You're harping on a detail that hardly matters in order to avoid the broader point, which is rather silly. The FCC is a government agency. Brendan Carr made an ill-advised tweet, which doesn't hold a candle to Biden's use of the FBI to spread misinformation and induce censorship for political purposes.
> or that their political pursuit of one of trump's "enemies" isn't actually political.
Of course it's political. It's political when both sides do it.
When you're ignoring the comment talking about people arrested for criticizing a political pundit to argue about minutae and claiming "both sides are bad", yes.
You got me. I am avoiding the comment about the Perry County Police Department, as it's so incredibly damaging to my worldview. The cognitive dissonance is simply too great to bear.
Someone would have have to be deeply ignorant to think that Donald Trump, notorious for his numerous lawsuits and public threats to silence any critique of himself in the press, and whose campaign was coordinating with Twitter to take down posts while he was sitting president (just as the Democrats were, but they weren't in office) would champion Free Speech in any, way, shape or form.
This “both sides” bullshit is so tired. You’re exaggerating and misleading with most of this, but even if all of this was true, it represents about a week’s worth of what Trump has done. They just shot a woman in the face, immediately started calling her a terrorist, and show no intention of even investigating it. I don’t give a single fuck about the DNC “chastising” someone when held up against this kind of slide into fascism.
Peek mind virus would be now, to dismiss your rebuttal as "extreme left censorship" or something and not think further about anything you brought up. I have seen this delusional behavior too many times, it is really tiring.
I'm convinced that abortion is the worst thing the Democratic party could have ever taken up. You simply cannot sway a vote of a person who believes you support murdering babies. (I am pro abortion, but a substantial amount of people think it is morally murder.) Those people have to vote R their whole life no matter what. Nothing is worse than murdering babies.
Democrats would probably never lose again if they publicly dropped support for abortion.
This has the same energy as "Democrats would fair better if they let slavery be legal again". Aren't democrats critisized by their actual voter base by trying to continually appeal to a party that will never vote for them? It really just shows that the major parties are either center right or far right.
So, we've seen large disproportionate electoral success from pro-life democrats? Referenda protecting abortion rights in red states were totally crushed?
Wait no. That's not what has happened.
Further, democratic voters are democrats because they support the policies that the democratic policy supports. Democrats suddenly being down with a federal ban on abortion isn't going to exactly get pro choice dems (the huge majority of their voting population) to run to the polls.
Dems tried the "actually we are right wing too" approach on immigration. Do people who hate illegal immigrants vote dem now? No.
Roe v. Wade isn't gone because of the will of the people. Nobody voted to overturn it. It's gone because of a unique scenario involving the balance of power in the SCOTUS.
Congressional Republicans simply refused to confirm a legally appointed justice, allowing a conservative justice to be appointed in their place after the next POTUS was elected. Then, another liberal justice passed away creating another vacancy which was again filled by a conservative. If either or both of those things hadn't happened, Roe v. Wade would not have been overturned.
And sure, you can say it was the will of the people that a conservative was in office at the time, and appointed the justices, but that's not the same as voting for or against federal abortion rights.
Appointing judges to overturn Roe v. Wade was a focal point in the 2016 election. Dangling that possibility was the entire point of the confirmation shenanigans.
Abortion is an emblematic example of how this kind of triangulation doesn't do what you're expecting. The Democratic party didn't take abortion up on the federal stage, repeatedly declining to create any new statutory protections and endorsing things like the Hyde amendment that acknowledge it's a contested issue. I think that was probably the right decision even in retrospect, but it didn't earn them even a modicum of goodwill from anti-abortion advocates.
You simply can't convince the public that your party doesn't stand for things your members care deeply about.
I mean, everyone knows that D widely supports abortion. It's been shouted from the rooftops for decades. It wouldn't be very believable in one cycle even if they tried, which they didn't; neglecting to bring up the topic is not close to publicly dropping support. Part of why it's so bad for them is because it will be very difficult to get disentangled from it.
From a pro-life perspective, "well they didn't make it easier to murder babies or bring it up much" is not compelling.
To me your phrase "publicly dropped support for abortion" sounds like "neglecting to bring up the topic". If you mean that Democratic leaders should somehow convince their members to support abortion restrictions that they oppose, I'm not sure why you would presume that's possible.
I'm imagining a candidate saying something like, "I want to help America with x y z [blue team related] issues. I want to bridge the aisle with Republicans and voters. To that end, I vow to not support any measures for the expansion of abortion. I believe that right now it's more important to help Americans in other ways. This is a contentious issue, but if we can set it aside for the moment, I believe D and R can come together to solve x y and z."
Maybe Democrats would never vote for this, but that's kind of the problem.
>I want to bridge the aisle with Republicans and voters.
Anyone saying this in 2026-2028 is going to be eviscerated by democrats. The bridge was long burned and now they are throwing citizens into the burning wreck. You don't "bridge the aisle" with people who threaten your life.
Also, anyone who wants to protect kids but isn't pushing the Epstein files to be released spoke wide and loud on what they really care about. So many motte and baileys out there.
Again, Democratic politicians routinely made such statements in the era before Roe was overturned. The longstanding Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funds from being used in any way to expand, promote, or perform abortions. There was just no way to get around the fundamental problem that, to a critical mass of Republican voters, "I'd like to maintain the status quo so we can focus on other issues" was an unacceptable pro-abortion stance.
The official Democratic platform for every cycle from 1976 to 2000 (except 1984-88 when abortion was not mentioned at all) explicitly acknowledged that abortion was controversial, that abortion opponents were welcome in the party, and that decreasing the number of abortions that are necessary is a worthy goal. The issue got more polarized when it became clear that no compromise or detente less than overturning Roe v. Wade would ever be accepted. I don't know of any specific pledges not to expand abortion access, again because the Hyde amendment prevented any proposals to expand abortion access.
> This is a contentious issue, but if we can set it aside for the moment, I believe D and R can come together to solve x y and z
I'm curious: Where does your line of thought actually end? Do you agree that they should perhaps meet Republicans in the center around vaccine issues and dismantle vaccine requirements? What about issues of climate change? Corruption?
It ends when they can win powerful majorities in elections again. What I said is only controversial because the topic is relatively well supported. But if you look at it as a party supporting a topic that is preventing them from winning elections, it doesn't really matter what that topic is, they need to rethink their platform until they can win elections again.
It might sound unsavory to say that they should drop <issue you think is important>, like climate change, but if that were genuinely the reason they're losing then of course they should drop it. The alternative is you just have a party of ideologues with no power. They can still do good things without doing <important thing>.
I just don't think any issue is as contentious as abortion, or having as much of an effect, because you can hold your nose about a lot of things, but not about 'murdering babies'. Again, this is a moral hard line that a lot of people have. They seriously think that Democrats are ontologically evil because of this; it's far beyond the political. I don't think they need to drop those things you listed from the platform because I don't think it would help them win.
From talking with Republican or centrist or ex-democrat peers and family, some of them would vote Democrat "if they stop killing babies", and others would "if they stopped the racial shit". I've never heard anyone say such a thing about anything you listed.
i.e. Abortion is generally supported by 63% of the overall population, 85% of Democrats and 67% of moderate/liberal Republicans. I don't see how you'd ever convince Democrats to drop it to cater primarily to conservative republicans.
I asked you, specifically, where your line was at. If the dems were losing because they thought people getting shot in the street by government agents were bad, should they instead say 'actually, a little murder is alright'? What about gay marriage? First amendment rights?
The notion that they should compromise with people whose ideals align with literally killing people or taking away rights is a notion I reject. I will never, ever vote for a democrat that compromises in the way you suggest so they can choose which side they want to try and get votes from.
Well I typically vote Republican, so I can only speculate. But let's imagine that 70% of people support ICE, and those people would never ever vote against ICE, because they think that is evil; everything else is the same.
In such a world, the Dems have no power, because they get 30% of the vote at most. They should stop fighting ICE so that they can at least do something on their agenda. The choice is between passing some good legislation unrelated to ICE, or never being able to pass any legislation. Obviously the former is better.
At the end of the day it's a democracy. The people vote for what they want, and then get it. The people originate the ideas that are available to be implemented. The notion of a democratic representative refusing to do what is needed to get votes is meaningless. It's the notion of a political idea that is refusing to be believed in, so must become irrelevant.
Anyway, your whole train of thought presupposes correctness and righteousness and that change to certain things is not on the table. If somehow the Democrats shrunk to the size of the Libertarian party because they held onto all that, you could keep voting for them, but real politics continues without you. I am suggesting they change before that shrinkage occurs, not after or never.
That was the point. democrats often point out those rare cases where the womens life is in danger and then use that as the absolute we must allow all abotions. Nobody will argue for the compromise and so you lose a lot who won't acpept the absolute.
any bill to ban abortions (because "muh sacred life") should include funding for childcare, medical coverage, and school lunches. Pro-lifers are unfortunately only pro births when it comes to voting.
So many people didn't vote for the Democrats in 2024 because they didn't support Palestine and they lost as a result. If the Democrats become identical to the Republicans then why would any non-Republican even bother voting?
You are so correct in your first statement yet imply something in your second I think is so incorrect in a wider context that it strikes me like whiplash.
Paying lip service but not addressing that friction was a significant part of what killed the Harris campaign, IMO.
well yes. That's the big issue. Trump didn't get more votes, Harris got drastically less than Biden. People didn't come out.
She had a bad hand needing to start out 6 months into an election cycle, and she played it poorly to boot. That's why this "we need to appeal to moderates/right wing" narrative is so frustrating. That's exactly what Harris did by trying to downplay Palestine/defend Israel and refusing to talk about the tensions in the job market. She established herself as "more of the same". That doesn't win votes in increasingly bad times.
They were generally good at making sure whoever is "really running the country" stayed in the Lawful Evil alignment. If the trump regime was smarter we may have been truly cooked.
Instead we have cartoon supervillains trying to pick fights with our allies in the open, and police openly shooting citizens. Pretty hard to defend that.
Trump still has plenty of support from large swathes of Americans despite his increasingly more overt actions.
For many, he _is_ doing what he was elected to do. This _is_ what the American voter wants. The American voter wants illegal immigrants out, does not care how it happens. They also want cheap oil and are willing to overlook the implications of international military action if it means they get it. They also don't care about the environment enough to curb their consumption or invest in alternative energy sources.
These preferences are all aligned with Trump's actions.
His supporters are down with whatever he says needs to be done. It's about him--there's no ideological consistency at all. As long as he's for it today, his supporters are for it today. If he's against it tomorrow, they will immediately fall in line and be against it tomorrow.
This is why he's a Republican. He said it in his book (who knows if he actually wrote it) that if he ever ran, he'd run as a Republican because they don't think, they just fall in line.
... and many just post-hoc rationalize their already irrational decision to vote for him. If you would ask them, illegal farm workers are still very welcome in red states, i guess.
Minnesota occupation is not about illegal immigration. It is about terrorizing a blue city. It is about terrorizing non whites regardless of citizenship.
I agree that Trump voters want that. But, we should not lie about them caring about illegal immigration or "not caring about the method".
They care. If Trumps thugs murder, beat or kidnap people, if non whites and suspect liberals suffer, they actually prefer it. Trump voters prefer it when an agent throws a tear gas into a car or on the crowd just as a goodbye package.
> They also want cheap oil
Oil is so cheap, oil companies are slightly at loss when producing it.
>> This is the political will of a plurality of American voters.
> This fallacy gets repeated over and over, but it's obviously false.
And it's used to condemn and justify. Most politicians, including Democrats, like to pretend that winning means the unpopular policies they happen to like are the will of the people. They will constantly gaslight you on it.
In reality, American politics gives people coarse choices that few are entirely happy with and many are very unhappy with. It's really hard to justify radical partisan action without denying that fact.
It's true that partisan politics provides only coarse choices. That's true of America's bipartisan system as well as multiparty parliamentary systems. But the parties are still dynamic coalitions that can change dramatically over time. Just look at the difference between the 1950s Democrats vs the 2000s Democrats, or the 2015 Republicans vs the 2020 Republicans.
The coarse options that are available at election time can be massively influenced in the years leading up to the election.
> It's true that partisan politics provides only coarse choices. That's true of America's bipartisan system as well as multiparty parliamentary systems. But the parties are still dynamic coalitions that can change dramatically over time. Just look at the difference between the 1950s Democrats vs the 2000s Democrats, or the 2015 Republicans vs the 2020 Republicans.
You're missing my only point, which is how (say) a coarse 51% victory for a coalition gets frequently and deliberately misrepresented as "the American people" wanting that coalition's unpopular policies.
American politics isn't really about representing the American people, it's about minority ideological factions jockeying for power to subject the American people to their vision. Hence the rise of campaigning that's mostly attacking the opponent. A recent example is the Democrats vis-a-vis Trump: despite all their rhetoric, their behavior over the last decade belies an attitude that they think they use the repulsion he generates to avoid moderating themselves and still win.
>which is how (say) a coarse 51% victory for a coalition gets frequently and deliberately misrepresented as "the American people" wanting that coalition's unpopular policies.
I think the larger point is "we have 2 bad choices, but we chose the worse one". Because "both sides are the same".
> it's about minority ideological factions jockeying for power to subject the American people to their vision.
Yeah, the current vision unfortunately sucks much worse than status quo neoliberalism, though. But we overall chose that. People ignoring the issues with Trump only reinforces how bad things have gotten.
Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with?
I'm having a hard time thinking of things this admin and their party has done but hasn't directly campaigned on, directly praised someone else doing, etc. On the flip side of that, which empty promise, if fulfilled, would be worth the situation we're otherwise in?
well they had quite a few contradictions. They campaigned on "No new wars" and meanwhile the US hit Venezuela and might be trying to do the same on Greenland and Mexico. Campaigned on jobs but manufacturing has been plummeting all year. Campaigned on cheaper groceries but things are more expensive.
It's a big maybe, but maybe if Trump actually managed to end the Ukraine War and push out Russia the chaos would have been a net benefit (from a utilitarian POV). Instead, he berated Zelensky on camera.
Trump campaigned on "No new wars", but given Trump's history in his first term, his party's history in general, you'd have to have be a rube to believe this. Also why does this earn Trump a vote when his opposition was also running on the status quo in this regard, especially the considering the historical US uniparty approach to foreign affairs?
But, go ahead, set that aside. You think that is a worthwhile tradeoff for Trump sending federal agents to gun down his political enemies (US citizens who hurt their feelings)?
I think we can both admit there's a lot of rubes in this country.
>why does this earn Trump a vote when his opposition was also running on the status quo in this regard, especially the considering the historical US uniparty approach to foreign affairs?
To be frank, because we're applying logic to irrational actors. It shouldn't change anything, but Trump yelled it louder, looked more like the people who voted for him, and it's just one of the many ways they rationalize what they already wanted deep down (but need the not say out loud).
>You think that is a worthwhile tradeoff for Trump sending federal agents to gun down his political enemies (US citizens who hurt their feelings)?
Hard to say, I'm not a utilitarian. But I can see it from that lens. You'd save hundreds of thousands of lives, further constrain Russia on the global level if Ukraine can get into NATO, and even curb off other tensions like China vs Taiwan and Israel v. Palestine. That's a lot of good.
These aren't good directly reflected in the US economy nor jobs, though. That's the issue with utilitarianism in that it ignores the micro socio-economic situations, and those can build up into even worse timelines.
> It shouldn't change anything, but Trump yelled it louder,
No, he did not. This is simply not true. The thing about Trump being pro peace was just one more pure bad faith lie. And people who voted for Trump did not believed in Trump for peace thing.
Maybe we should stop projecting positive motivations on people who were about something else entirely
>The thing about Trump being pro peace was just one more pure bad faith lie.
Okay, the reverse logic works as well. People didn't trust either candidate so it came down to all the above, superficial factors or much deeper, unspoken motivations.
My main point is more on "people already knew who they wanted" more than whatever their outward facing words say.
> People didn't trust either candidate so it came down to all the above, superficial factors or much deeper, unspoken motivations.
They liked trump, because he promissed to harm trans, liberals, dominate women, dominate international politocs and because he is proper masculine per conservative outlook.
Nothing unspoken about that.
> Okay, the reverse logic works as well.
It does not. You need to ignore what candidates said, what people supporting them said, what poloticians said and what people wrote on social media.
You need to literally ignore what republicans, conservatives and were saying praising and doing, just so you can whitewhash and sanewash their choices and opinions.
> My main point is more on "people already knew who they wanted" more than whatever their outward facing words say.
They wanted to cause harm to people they dislike. They want to liberals others suffer as they watch how "proper manly men" mistreat people.
If it's obviously false, can you show research that proves it?
Because from what I see most of this was part and parcel of a published plan. [1] People on both sides either bragged about executing Project 2025 or tried to warn their base about it. People still voted for this, and those who didn't vote at all, by staying home, also voted for it.
This move slots in well with the overall exploration of eliminating the fed completely. [2]
As much as I hate what’s happening, that’s how democracy works. Sometimes the majority chooses to burn the house down and all you can do is sit and watch
In this case the candidate they voted for was a convicted criminal and pathological liar.
Dishonesty is the through line of Trump’s entire life. There was no reasonable expectation his second term would bring anything else. Anyone expressing buyer’s remorse at this point is impossibly naive.
> Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with?
If we are talking about past culpability, this one does not works at all. Trump is being exactly who he was and what he campaigned on. This is not the case of someone switching up after being elected. This is case of who openly or tacitly supported Trump, because they thought they will personally benefit on top of having fun of watching liberals suffer.
By tacitly I mean all those bad faith "both sides" and "Trump is dove, Harris is aggressive". As an example, Latino Trump voting men were attracted by the misogynistic and male dominance content. They thought they wont be personally affected. Rural people still cheer to occupation and terrorization of cities ... and still think they are the only true Americans. They though they will be able to keep their farms like the last time. And so on and so forth.
People knew full well what is going on when they were hiding behind euphemisms about conservatives and blamed liberals when those said the truth. They just liked the project and thought they will be affected only a little.
The most compelling and resounding message of his campaign was that he promised to grief MAGA's perceived enemies.
Whatever stuff he said in his stump speeches about foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy, whatever, was largely ignored by his base. The real reason they voted for him (and the reason they still support him) was his promise of cruelty and to hurt people they didn't like, and that's the one promise he is delivering on and boasting about every day.
When brown immigrants' doors are kicked in, people are black-bagged and dragged away in an unmarked van, when families are torn apart, when "city people" get shot and are crying on TV, that's what really gets MAGA motivated and that's what keeps them excited about politics.
> Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? It's a quintessential fact of politics that voting for a candidate is not equivalent to an endorsement of everything that candidate does in the future.
You can look back on everything Trump said and campaigned on. He's a liar, a cheat, and a fraud but he openly campaigned on making people suffer, hurting specific groups and demolishing the government. The people either voted for him assuming he was blustering about his claims or liked what he was going to do. There's countless examples of people who when asked why they regret voting for Trump, they say because he's 'hurting the wrong people', while also saying that they would gladly vote for him again.
He is the most popular Republican president, among other Republicans, we have had in our lifetime. Anecdotal: I live in a red state with red friends and red family. They might not like this or that but they are unwavering in their support for Trump the man. It is still very uncomfortable to say even the most superficially negative thing about him or his policies. So, maybe there is some internal dialog going on there that I'm not privy to, but outwardly the support is 100% there, and that is all that really matters.
What you observe is cognitive dissonance resolved by ignorance. I dont have any advice for you, since i dont know your close ones, but a warning. When these conflicts dont get resolved in a constructive way, this behavioral conditioning might lead to repulsion targeting you. I have lost a long time childhood friend, even though my approach to him was always calm but persistent for over a decade.
Yes. The hardest thing about all of this is watching people I've known for years defend the indefensible. It is really difficult to stomach hearing your grandma call for the insurrection act.
What do you feel makes their support so unwavering? Are they fine with anything as long as they feel the "bad people" are hurt? Do they genuinely see themselves getting richer? Do they simply only watch Fox News and other conservative media and never consider what's happening in their neighborhood?
They built an entire identity around it. They're in too deep to just back off and admit to being wrong. It's the same reason why doomsday cults are stronger and more united the day after the predicted end of the world: It's too late to back off, the only solution is to dig deeper.
There are as many answers to that are there are Trump supporters I know. These aren't stupid or evil people, and I don't think its as nefarious the things you are suggesting, at least in most cases. On the other hand, as I sit here and try to answer your question, I can't come up with anything that paints anyone in a very good light and I just end up with more questions.
Ultimately I think there is a common personality trait that allows a person to rationalize pretty much anything. And I think most people have that personality trait. Maybe I do for all I know.
The exchange in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls always comes to mind:
“But are there not many fascists in your country?"
"There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the times comes.”
I agree with your sentimen. I'll use a favorite quote of mine as well
Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.
Robert A. Heinlein, Assignment in Eternity
Whether they know the evil or not, they will go out of their way to to find a way to justify it. That's why those scare news on networks works so well. It gives them "permission" to accept something they wanted to believe,and now they have "proof".
Moreover, it's part of a core issue many in this society fall into (all across political spectrums) : it is shameful to be wrong. And apologizing makes you "weak". Even if you do change your mind, you can never admit it. And some people will be on their deathbed spouting a belief they changed on rather than "showing weakness".
I don't know how and if we can change that cultural element. That seems deeper than any billionaire regime.
We have to teach kids about cognitive biases, best by example or demonstration, and how you keep your sceptic guard up for life. We needed this even before the internet started to actively target these cognitive biases.
When you say "our lifetime" you must be talking about people who were born after 2004? Reagan was certainly more popular among Republicans, and I think W was at the end of his first term (he definitely was right after 9/11 when approval ratings for anything American were approximately 100% within America).
Your intuition about this is wrong. Reagan's approval among Republicans averaged about 83%, Trump's numbers are typically over 90%, although currently he's down to an all-time low of around 85%.
You are quite wrong about GW as well. While he had a mandate, at first, for Iraq, he was deeply polarizing in pretty much every other regard.
seeing Dem numbers be in the single didgits and republican numbers in the high 80's really exemplifies how utterly divided the "United" States has become. I don't think any other president in the last century has been so divisive.
There's basically no more room for Dem's to disapprove, so I guess it's up to "Independents" to wake up.
My intuition is not wrong, and I am absolutely not wrong about GW Bush's approval ratings right after 9/11 (a peak of 99% approval among Republicans) and his approval ratings afterwards through the rest of his first term: https://news.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ra...
Concerning Reagan, I was looking at his 93% approval rating when he left office, and comparing it to Trump's approval rating at the end of his first term, but I am aware there are metrics where Trump would be seen as more popular than Reagan among Republicans, such as minimum approval rating): https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/ronald-reaga...
Trump's militant support among Republicans is irritating to say the least, but there's no need to rewrite history or double down on incorrect statements on your part.
Your own sources show that Trump is more popular than Reagan among Republicans. Just because there was a moment in history where his numbers were better than Trump's doesn't undo the fact that over the long term, on average, Trump is more popular with Republicans than Reagan was. Demonstrably. Is there a conservative left in America willing to have an honest conversation?
I explained why I mentioned Reagan and acknowledged that Trump is more popular by some metrics, but he doesn't matter ultimately because GW Bush was more popular than Trump with Republicans more recently by absolute highest level of support, an average over basically any time period over his first term, or the lowest level of support, which is why I said you must only be talking about people born after 2004.
You're just as bad as the conservatives you dislike, because the issue is that you're all ideologues, not the specific ideology.
All I have anymore is an undoubtedly flawed moral compass, but I know these things are wrong and, up until the last few years, they were not at all partisan. And this is just to name a few:
* Law enforcement should not wear masks.
* The military should not be used to police US citizens.
* The US should not threaten to invade peaceful allies. Canada. Greenland.
Anyone who violated any of these, regardless of party, would immediately lose my support forever. These aren't "mistakes", they are evil deeds. So, tell me who is an ideologue.
There are two reasons to doubt that. One is that people's opinions change after they have voted. The other is that there is enough evidence of 2024 election "anomalies" to consider the vote itself suspect.
The political will of a plurality of American voters elected this administration a little over a year ago. We don't have direct evidence of what the current political will of a plurality of American voters is. We have some indirect evidence via polls and off-cycle elections that this is not the political will of most Americans. We'll have stronger evidence after the vote for the full House and third of the Senate later this year.
Personally, I don't think we have evidence yet that the democratic process in the US is broken. I have concerns as many people do, but the recent off-cycle elections went off just fine.
> It is difficult to see how we can democracy our way out of this situation.
Assuming there is no martial law later in 2026, vote to give the other party more power in Congress so the Legislative branch can actually grow a spine and push back against Executive actions.
I'd love it if the other party would show evidence of being willing to elect vertebrates. Of course I'll still vote for whoever is most likely to win against the authoritarians, but at the moment that seems to be a bunch of worms.
This is disingenuous and a way to rationalise your feelings by blaming trump voters.
Firstly, it’s a two party state and choice is limited. People vote for the least worst option, or for a candidate that shares at least some of their values.
Second, many people did not vote.
Third, approval ratings show that many trump voters do not approve of his actions.
Fourth, where did “annex Greenland, abduct Maduro, remove independence of the reserve” appear on his manifesto?
Trump voters are either willfully ignorant or gleefully supportive. Maybe not the first time, but definitely the second and third time. There no longer exists other excuses.
Statements about policy goals can only debated if... they appear in a "manifesto"?
With all respect: WTactualF? Trump didn't even have a manifesto! This is just a license to excuse whatever vote you want.
The obvious truth is that the guy is an intemperate loon, has always been an intemperate loon, and is behaving like an intemperate loon in office, and along policy axes that you could absolutely see ahead of time.
It is totally ok to blame Trump voters. They literally wanted this to happen and it happened. OK, they did not wanted the "bad thing A" to happen, they only wanted the "evil things B and C" to happen. Usually based on what affects them personally.
> People vote for the least worst option, or for a candidate that shares at least some of their values.
Voting for Trump because you share his values is not exactly defense, something positive or even respect worthy. Yes, equally people voted for Hitler because they shared values. This commonality of values is why they are culpable and we can blame them.
This is what has been repeated again, again, again, again, and again since the election. Those other commoners did it. They wanted it.
So much effort spent talking about how democracy was so powerful—all the wrong commoners got what they wanted—right up until Trump and now it’s too late, no one cares about this one comment box.
I’m not an American. I just have a vested interest in the commoners of America getting their stuff together.
If food keeps going up, it might get there but in the affluent west we run on our stomachs and as long as most of the middle class can still afford bread there won't be enough of a mass mobilization to affect any meaningful change.
Stated differently, if things really are so bad (and I would be the first to agree that things are pretty bad), then why are so many comfortable people (like me) not out on the street every day?
There are a lot of reasons for that, of course, but the bottom line is that when things get bad enough -- much worse than they are today -- then more people will take to the street, along with whatever sacrifice that entails. We're just not there yet, because for many, there is far too much to lose.
People are (and have been) taking to the streets. Americans tend to think that a protest must involve everyone otherwise it’s pointless. They don’t realize that protests typically involve a tiny fraction of the population. The more, the better of course, but stop sitting around waiting for it to get big. Either get out there now or find other ways to contribute. There’s plenty to be done.
There was a study a while ago, analyzing previous events to estimate which percentage of a population needs to become active to effect meaningful change. The number was surprisingly low, I think less than 5%.
It's about 3%, and the study had major flaws in its context; large westernized countries are out of scope. I don't remember paper, but I just lost this argument to a lawyer.
I was just talking to someone close to me about what to expect if (when?) Trump starts annexing Greenland. I truly believe a national strike is our best bet.
But the reality is many (most?) people are living paycheck to paycheck and can’t risk that. But knowledge workers and especially software engineers can probably fare much better in the event of immediate job loss.
Now that’s not to downplay or minimize that risk, especially if you have a family, dependents, or some unique circumstance. But I’d hope for the majority of workers in our profession, it’s the difference between “I can’t buy food next week” vs “I have about 4-8 months before I’ve drained my liquid / emergency savings”
The sad thing is I don’t know what to do. Would this make headlines? Would they cover it? Would it get condensed into a single sound bite “big tech goes on strike”?
I’m conflicted but I feel like the choice should be obvious and simple. Just do it.
I will say upfront that I do not condone or support annexation of Greenland, but I have to ask why on earth you or anyone else think that would inspire any meaningful portion of the US population to organize a general strike?
Whatever happens in Greenland has no impact on at least 99.99% of the US population, and a general strike will have no impact on the small fraction of the US population that would support annexation.
People are taking to the streets. People are getting beaten, their property destroyed, their homes invaded and even murdered in Minneapolis as a result. The problem is that the US is massive; most people don't live in an active ICE zone where agents are going door to door kicking it in and pulling people out.
But even then, people are getting angrier. The injustices in Minneapolis triggered waves of protests here in Seattle. Eventually these things compound and more people become aware that we're living in the Great American Collapse.
A general strike at the level required to change things requires roping in unwilling participants as well. Probably on the scale of breaking infrastructure like payment systems or over the road shipping. If nobody can ignore current events because it's not just impacting but impeding and quickly degrading their quality of life they'll get angry. However just so long as people can go home and play their videogames, or listen to their podcasts, or read their books, they'll be able to focus enough of their attention away from events and keep their stress below the critical threshold just enough that they won't do anything. Calhoun's Rat Utopia Experiment comes to mind in that the rats suffered any number of indignities, maladies, and stressors just so long as they had ample access to endorphin and melatonin sources in strong enough bursts to stave off the constant floods of cortisol and norepinephrine.
Political theory is that ten to fifteen percent of a given population needs to actively rebel in order to enact change in a nation. The U.S. is fragmented enough by distance that you would need at least thirty percent of the national population to reach this state in order to get the ten percent in each of the six regions. Currently the number of people protesting is thought to be around four to six percent nationally, meaning it's less than one percent regionally. Part of that is because it's January, and most large scale protests happen in late spring or in the summer because schools are out and the weather doesn't suck. But part of it is simply because not enough people are motivated to act. Either pessimism or lack of direct harm is keeping them from caring.
So no matter what you're going to have to piss some people off. But it'd be better to piss off the people who will share your goals and ask forgiveness, because the other group was pissed from the beginning and have no forgiveness to ask for.
If you vote, the people you elect will ignore you. From your position as a private citizen there is nothing to hold your representatives responsible other than the possibility that their salaries and "campaign contributions" from lobbyists might stop. For many of these people they become incumbents because the voting population gives so little of a shit that they'll leave things as they are rather than spend the time and effort to research which candidate best aligns with their goals versus the incumbent. In actual use the only punishment mechanisms that exist have to be enacted by these representatives' direct peers rather than the people they represent, and as there are self levels of self interest that will dissuade them from doing so.
As for being labeled a domestic terrorist, the fools within this administration will use (and have used) any excuse to label someone as a domestic terrorist. In their view you are an enemy of the state regardless, because you are not the state. We are all in jeopardy no matter if we comply or not. If we will be labeled a threat because of any action we take, benign or malicious, then there is no practical fear of being labeled, only being captured and punished.
You can't, because everytime that happens, a group comes out of the woodworks that says X, Y, and Z need to be done before a general strike can even be considered.
X, Y, and Z usually involve community building, mutual aid, strike funds, housing security, and other precarity reducing actions.
If protests worked better than the alternatives then that's what megacorps and multinational corporations would be doing instead of bribes and lobbying. 'The people' still dont understand they're playing an entirely different sport.
> Not sure being out in the street really does much. Gives the jack booted thugs an excuse for a little recreational violence.
"Let" them do the violence. And let the violence be filmed. And let the (currently) indifferent / apathetic folks see the violence being done.
This is one way to enact change: most folks have no interest in violence and abhor it. By showing that one side is 'pro-violence' in their policies and actions you give more power to the side(s) that are not violence.
> Not sure being out in the street really does much.
I agree; this phrase was just a stand in for doing something -- anything -- about the state of affairs I don't like. Other than things I can do from my couch like commenting on HN.
>then why are so many comfortable people (like me) not out on the street every day?
because a lot of people have a kind of built-in main character syndrome and believe they're the protagonists of the world and things can't really go bad. They haven't internalized that there isn't some god behind the curtain that saves them.
That's how it goes in every country that ends up in the dirt, they all thought they were special, they all thought "surely we're not there yet" and you can pick their remains out of the rubble.
A protest is meaningless without the implicit threat of violent revolution behind it. Trump et al can just ignore your protests, unless he thinks you might break in and start killing.
Today's protests have no teeth. Nobody is uncomfortable enough to risk prison or death. Seriously, if you turn off the TV and the Internet, what is wrong with your life? Is ousting Trump going to fix that? Is it worth dying for? Nope.
I feel like you shouldn't get to criticize protests for not being violent enough if you're not already performing sufficiently-violent protests. "Firebombing a Walmart" meme really is evergreen.
> That belief isn't the consequence of the situation, but the cause. There is ample ability to change events, but people must believe they can act and act together, as they have for centuries of democracy and for all human history.
True. But it’s very overwhelming since we are so democratically inept right now.
> They do it in Iran.
We know this because the local elites underlined it for us.
HyperNormalisation is one of many great documentaries by Adam Curtis, many of which are available on archive.org [1]. Specifically, I can recommend The Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares. No need for YouTube :) FWIW, these used to be able on Google Video back when that still existed. And via torrents.
And for anyone who is nervous about clicking that video link at work: BBC in this context stands for British Broadcasting Corporation, which is a fairly well respected news group.
When I first watched a bunch of Adam Curtis stuff I thought it a long winded way of stating bad things have happened and have resulted in these bigger, overarching, bad things.
Thinking about it now 10 years later it feels alot different. The pervasiveness of tolerance of lies and fakeness has gone so far past anything I could have imagined being a big contributor to that.
For me, the key lies in the "We know they lie. They know we know they lie.". I'd argue that the transparency of lies is a fairly immature theme, relative to the long arc of history. Probably post-Iraq WMD is where I think it really started to ramp up and the emergence of virality/segmentation aspect of social media has really revved it up.
I would view that kind of lying as show of force: "Everybody knows it, but nobody can do anything about it, we are above even these rules."
Worse still is when it's an "affirm the falsehood to show you have been dominated by our threat of punishment" scenario:
> 'The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.' He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: 'How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?'
> Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.
> 'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.'
Curtis tried to make these statements on the downside of neoliberalism + postmodernism but I don't think he did a very good job based on the discussion on these films.
I think his work is just too stylized. He has such an interesting style that it overwhelms the message. I barely remember what his messaging is in films. Just the interesting visuals and ominous music.
If you read Undoing the Demos by Wendy Brown and Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition together you will understand exactly what he is going for. As a film it doesn't really work that well though beyond a kind of depressing entertainment. The themes are too subtle and philosophical along with most people don't have the background knowledge to really make sense of his points.
Hasn't this always been the case, what is different right now is that the tech enables to do this at scale, at much higher frequency that makes them more audacious, since no regular person can keep up with it. The over saturation of lies/fake news has lead to numbness and the hyper-normalisation. So, unless something directly is affecting us currently, we won't care
No. The modern Republicans want you to believe that because it’s an easy path to despair and inaction, which means they win, but the magnitude and degree have varied significantly in the past. Where we are now is something living Americans don’t have experience with unless they escaped somewhere like the Balkans in the 90s.
People do nothing because they believe others are doing nothing and it's a suppressive feedback loop that's exploited. Repeating that people know and do nothing reinforces it and falls into the broad category of criticism for the the sake of social flagging and not towards actual growth.
Nothing that has worked yet. to say it hasn't worked yet is very different than saying nobody is doing anything. All we can do is try to figure it out. If you aren't doing something, look for something to do. Everyone I know is doing something. How are you going to figure out what will work except for trying things and seeing what you learn from that?
"Blaming" people for not being successful yet is very different than blaming them for not doing anything at all.
I think the real test will be, not whatever this administration does, but how much of that survives into the next one - how much is the new normal versus how much is a temporary aberration.
That’s true even if the next administration is Republican (Vance or whoever), but especially true if the next administration ends up being Democratic instead-which while not certain, has decent odds-the more Trump defies norms, the more voters who will wish to go back to a “normal” Presidency
> I think the real test will be, not whatever this administration does, but how much of that survives into the next one - how much is the new normal versus how much is a temporary aberration.
A reminder that this is the second time that Trump has been elected.
(People were saying what you're now saying after he was kicked out—an event that he says was rigged—the first time.)
Exactly: there was a brief moment when it looked like Republicans were willing to hold him accountable after the January 6th insurrection but that faltered and they circled ranks, especially when Roberts signaled that Trump had the support of the Supreme Court to the extent that they were willing to concoct a new constitutional doctrine to shield him.
A lot of people were hoping he’d just go away without them having to do anything difficult, but it’s clear that the next government has to reestablish the United States as a constitutional republic with the rule of law, even if it means hard things like trials for officials who abused their power. This kind of slide into authoritarianism isn’t an accident, and without consequences the people pushing it will keep trying.
The presidential pardon is clearly something that needs to either be heavily reined in or removed. How you do that I don't know, but turns out the US Constitution is something you can ignore, so...
The entire system of checks and balances needs some rethinking because it's clearly not as "perfect" as we've been told over and over again.
ex post facto can be ignored, and a new law of the land passed voiding pardons during 47s term. Because repealing pardons isn't weaponizing the person pardoned's behavior after the fact, it's against Presidential authority, so isn't ex post facto when it comes to the person who's behavior was legally determined to be criminal. Voiding a commutation for cause would be tougher and potential ex post facto, but not a pardon. We can void those without violating our ex post facto standards.
What are the odds the current Supreme Court majority are going to uphold voiding Trump's pardons? Pretty to close to zero.
The only way you could do this would be if you changed the SCOTUS composition through court packing or impeachment or constitutional amendment.
If you wait for the conservative justices to retire and be replaced through death/resignation – by the time that happens, the issue of voiding pardons will likely be mostly irrelevant, because most of the pardonees will be already dead. And that's assuming the political fortune to be able to replace them with justices of a different persuasion, as opposed to just more of the same.
A lot of us are really, really hoping that there is something unique about Trump that cannot be easily reproduced by the next MAGA leader. That the movement will fragment into irrelevancy as the usual elites regain control.
It may be that I'm a naive optimist, but I agree with him. When I look at who the hard core believers envision as the next torch-bearer, none of them have what it takes. Not Vance, not Rubio (Rubio! Suddenly he is 'strong'?? When was that ever a widely held opinion??), not the Trump kids. Trump has a way of defying political gravity and repeatedly escaping the consequences that take down every other politician. In this case the liberal consensus that it's a cult may not be that far from the truth -- maybe that's a loaded term, but how else do you describe a group of supporters whose faith is so strong that their ideology changes by the day to match whatever their leader currently says, even if it is diametrically opposed to what they said last week?
I think the test beyond that is how willing the next government will be to codify meaningful changes into law. After Trump’s first time it’s as if there was a big sigh of relief and a notion of “well, we just won’t do that again”.
It’s very clear now that we need a lot more regulation of what presidents can and cannot do. Not to mention judicial reform. But if you’re a democrat theoretically getting power in 2028 you’re going to have immense pressure to move forwards, focus on kitchen table issues, yadda yadda.
And extremely severe punishment as a deterrent against future efforts. Instead of a bunch of slow-rolled court cases and deferral back to the political process.
One thing I think is sometimes forgotten about shifting the overton window is that it sort of doesnt matter what political leaning has their hands on the lever. When it serves a purpose, which is not always a public first purpose, people in power will leverage any lever possible. Shifts in the overton window, just add more levers and it comes down to benevolence or luck that those levers aren't used incorrectly
Some things, it just doesn't matter what the next administration does. The people of the US may, at any time, elect an administration that continues the course of breaking norms. The fact is that businesses, industries, banks, and nations have to guard against that possibility more than they need to cooperate with the next administration.
I think it's a bit fanciful to think you can take all the policies back to normal and have, Europe for instance, say "Oh good! Everything's back to normal!" I could be wrong, but I think that ship has sailed. Europe will work towards a new normal that looks to their own interests. And no action the next administration can take will change Europe's determination in this regard.
I think this will be as true of actors in the financial and industrial spheres as it will be of Europe in the security sphere.
>Europe will work towards a new normal that looks to their own interests. And no action the next administration can take will change Europe's determination in this regard.
1) Europe will do whatever is easiest at the time relative to the comfort of the people. Meaning they will have very short memories if enacting some change makes people worse off.
2) If the EU does make change with regard to increasing military spending, that is good either way for the US. Less US involvement in conflicts on a different continent.
This is clearly a fraudulent criminal investigation. Classic dictator strategy of charging opponents with trivial crimes to achieve political power grabs. US futures in stock market are way down.
But I bet a third of the country will blindly support it. They will see it as a just investigation into a crime. And they won’t care about the consequences. Or connect cause and effect. And with that much support the administration can get away with anything.
As for their various unconstitutional and illegal acts - what method is there to hold the executive branch accountable? It’s not like there’s a police force to arrest them right?
"What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience of the ever-growing masses of our century. The merciless process into which totalitarianism drives and organizes the masses looks like a suicidal escape from this reality."
"Politically speaking, tribal nationalism always insists that its own people is surrounded by ‘a world of enemies,’ ‘one against all,’ that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man."
"Society is always prone to accept a person offhand for what he pretends to be, so that a crackpot posing as a genius always has a certain chance to be believed. In modern society, with its characteristic lack of discerning judgment, this tendency is strengthened, so that someone who not only holds opinions but also presents them in a tone of unshakable conviction will not so easily forfeit his prestige, no matter how many times he has been demonstrably wrong."
"Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness."
"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (that is, the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (that is, the standards of thought) no longer exist."
-- Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
Also Arendt: "The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world — and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end — is being destroyed."
Historically this is always the case until it absolutely isn't. And things just boil over.
Rupture -- often revolutions -- are entirely unpredictable, and cascading. They often occur after several failed attempts make it seem like the discontent has been at least partially contained (e.g. Russia in 1905 vs Russia in 1917). Maybe we're seeing this in Iran right now.
The kind of governance that Trumpism is attempting is inherently unstable. My guess is its higher level adherents know this. They just want to get theirs while they still can. Should be obviously the case as its very figurehead is obviously not thinking long term as he only has a few years left to live.
"Political hobbyism" is things like commenting on the internet, as distinct from going out and convincing people to vote differently or running for offfice.
Sure, there are more and less effective ways to engage in politics. But given that people spend nearly every waking moment now staring at information-on-screen-piped-through-internet, it's frankly ridiculous to keep up this "Internet isn't real life" charade.
Perhaps things were different in 2020, but today the United States government considers online commentary a key input to its decisions. The President of the United States, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had Twitter on a big screen in their war room for the Venezuela operation.
Young men put Trump in power? Afraid not. The demographic data shows that if it was narrowed down to one group, it was poorly educated white Christians over the age of 50.
I mean election victories are typically both multicausal and overdetermined. Poorly educated white Christians over the age of 50 form the GOP base, but especially a GOP win in the popular vote requires far more than that.
Parties focus so much on swing voters for a reason, and a lot of these swing voters are in fact swung by what they see online.
It's called 'kitchen table politics' (we used to just do it around the kitchen table) and is kinda a core Americanism. Welcome to this cultural insight about us.
His term ends on May 15, 2026, so it's almost pointless to file these charges now.
I see what's happening now as game-theory signaling, not as a real threat to Powell. I would suggest that this action is better seen as a latent threat to the next Fed chairman to let them know that they will either enact Trumps desired Fed policies or they will be prosecuted for anything that the administration can manufacture.
It's also important to remember that Powell is not the only Federal Reserve Board of Governors to have very odd accusations of wrongdoing and investigations launched. He's also done this with Lisa Cook. It seems pretty blatant at this point what's really happening.
Remember early in his first term when he tested waters but the governmental system pushed back and kept him in check? It feels like an out of body experience to look at this and contemplate how much he’s changed about how the U.S. government conducts itself.
In his first term, he probably didn't yet understand how much power the office truly holds and how to wield it and just how far you can go with that. Because the main restriction on all of that power has always been convention rather than any actually robust guard rails. But no one, not even someone like Nixon, has ever dared to truly test that out.
He knew how much power he had back then. The difference was that the government bureaucracy worked hard to counter his agenda throughout his term. It’s why The Heritage Foundation came up with Project 2025: an organizated and cohesive plan to dismantle the bureaucracy and consolidate power. And it is working.
The first term laid a lot of the groundwork for this term as well - had he not appointed three SC Justices, things would look very different. This court has said basically that all executive actions including pretextual investigations via the DOJ are legal and that there is no such thing as agency independence, even when written into the laws that created the agencies.
Yes, too much emphasis is put on Trump. He's just the President. This crisis has been 80 years in the making.
It's the Supreme Court that has expanded the powers of the President, and previously of the Federal government, far beyond what was ever intended.
By allowing the federal government to dominate the states, the Supreme Court created a position of unrivalled power.
Trump may be an evil narcissist by the standards of normal people, but there's plenty of those sorts of people in politics. That's why you have a constitution.
> It's the Supreme Court that has expanded the powers of the President
Sort of, but Congress also wrote a bunch of pretty broad, vague laws, delegating a significant amount of power to the executive via agency rulemaking, and it turns out the agencies are part of the executive branch and have to do what the head of the executive branch says they have to do (within the limits of those broad, vague laws). If Congress can't get back to smaller, simpler, more specific laws, and they continue to pass the burden of this complexity over to the executive branch to figure out, the executive branch will continue to wield outsize power.
Absolutely! The U.S. is defacto a Russia or China with a lower 'government expenditure/GDP ratio'
But that is not that much of a consolation if the government is allowed to pick winners and losers for kleptocracy or there is strong central planning and oversight on what should independent institutions
> He knew how much power he had back then. The difference was that the government bureaucracy worked hard to counter his agenda throughout his term.
He did not know. He was also not expecting to win, and so had to scramble to get people appointed.
He asked around and got people who were experts in their respective fields. The problem is that those experts (a) knew his ideas were bad, and (b) had integrity. It was, by and large, Trump's appointees that worked hard to counter his agent and not the government bureaucracy.
Trump did not make the same 'mistake' this time around: he appointed folks not for their competence but for their loyalty to him. That was and is the only criteria for serving under Trump.
well it tried to be organized, "cohesive" is a stretch.
And it's really fumbling as of now. The tarrifs were 100% on Trump and it's clearly thrown a monkey wrench in everything. the federal judges have slowed everything to a crawl, and these spectacles with immigration have activated American eyes in ways we haven't seen in decades. These kinds of plans work in the shadows and as of now it's all out in the open.
It will reverse in November at this rate, but even a few more reisngations or deaths in the house can dramatically shift plans.
I hate to assign him so much agency. The man seems a complete buffoon who lacks the ability to plan anything beyond real estate fraud. Instead, I look to all of the people in his orbit who can orchestrate long term goals. Sure, he will self sabotage many schemes, but will directionally go where the handlers want. Vance, Miller, Heritage Foundation, etc are the ones guiding most policy decisions.
That tariffs have been so absolutely scattershot, says Trump actually is the one calling the shots there.
His orbiters/handlers are totally throwing all kinds of stuff at him to see what sticks to his cooked brain. It's clear he's barely aware what's happening anymore. The only coherent things he can focus on are things from the 80s and 90s heydays and old and recent grudges.
It’s clear that he’s very easily persuaded on many topics that he already has a slight bias towards, but that he also has his pet projects that his handlers don’t want to mess with because that would jeopardize their political capital (ball room).
Quick heuristic I have is: vanity project = Trump; neocon pet project = Heritage Foundation; anything related to racial purity = Stephen Miller; quackery = RFK and other grifters.
The tariffs are partially his bias, but also Navarro who lost his mind somewhere around 2015 and became an economics pariah.
I'm not sure that the tariffs are just bias plus bad economic theory. I think it's that Trump sees tariffs as a source of revenue under his personal control - that is, not subject to the congressional budgeting process.
It remains to be seen whether the courts will agree with that. Last I saw, they didn't, but it wasn't a final decision.
He still doesn't understand, I think anyone that sticks all of this to Trump is playing exactly in the hands of the powers behind him: The Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, billionaires like the Koch, Stephen Miller, Bannon, so on and so forth, they would love to have Trump as the scapegoat for all of this.
Trump is not a smart person, he doesn't know much aside from what he's been told, and the people playing him to further their agendas would love more than anything to be kept in the shadows in case it all comes crumbling down to just pin it all on Trump, the moron.
They really didn't. It was a dog and pony show under the belief that he would not make his way back into power. The dems/reps did not want to set a precedent of holding a president to account for doing terribly illegal things. They didn't intend to actually do anything to prevent this.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. I wonder if the Democrats didn't delay prosecution until late 2023/early 2024 in order to have it be a headwind against Trump running again.
If so, they have been well-paid for that bit of "strategy". Trump was able to delay the cases long enough that the election came first, and now he has immunity at least while in office.
> I wonder if the Democrats didn't delay prosecution until late 2023/early 2024 in order to have it be a headwind against Trump running again.
I think they didn't realize the moment the country was in. They put a judge in charge of the justice department when we needed a bull-dog prosecutor. It was a bad choice.
The GOP in Congress abdicating its role and deferring to the executive, as well as SCOTUS continually using the “shadow docket” to rule in his favor with little to no explanation provided.
Congress: anyone falling out of line will lose his support in midterms.
Judiciary: appointments and ideological alignment with some of the Supreme Court. Thomas and Alito are fully controlled, Kavanaugh just loves a powerful executive, the rest aren't controlled but often in agreement.
Then there's his use of executive power to punish his adversaries, e.g. Perkins Coie.
The question is through what mechanism are other branches curtailing his power? It seems to be limited to strongly worded letters and speeches, indignant comments and scathing news reports but nothing real.
The execution of the Unitary Executive theory, a clear ideological descendant of Carl Schmitt’s Decisionism. Carl also had some beautiful prose describing the weaknesses of liberal democracy and how to exploit them that are very relevant to today as well.
Through the flawed primary system. Relatively few people vote in the primaries, which means they skew towards extremists. Trump can motivate MAGAns to vote in Republican primaries, which makes MAGA essentially a gatekeeper to Republican seats even in districts where the electorate at large is Republican rather than MAGAn.
He's not directly controlling the judiciary yet, but he has appointed wildly extremist judges and threatened judges who rule against him with impeachment, so he's certainly making an effort.
He's also appreciably more senile now, and a common manifestation of that is lowered inhibitions. I'm not saying that Trump was great at 70, but now that he's 80 he's considerably less in control of himself.
(If you doubt this, go watch some clips and compare how he talks now to how he talked during his first administration. If you were concerned about Biden's state in 2024, you should be concerned about Trump now.)
So I'm sitting here as a Canadian wondering what the American people are going to do? I understand a lot of what the President of The United States says - I even agree with some of it, the problem is I don't feel like we're engaging with the American people anymore. I really wonder where you guys are headed and what it means for the rest of us, I spent 15 years in the states, built a public company there, I really like the Americans, but I don't want annexation. I wonder where you guys are headed.
You need to know only two facts about America to guess that:
* Fifty three percent of Americans now read below the sixth grade level.
* As (ostensibly) a representative Democracy America's fate is dictated by the majority of it's citizens.
Our future is to become a broken nation governed by middle-school student level thinking. The only way to build a better America is to build a better populace, and that would be contrary to the interests of the angry, spoiled, children who seem to hold all the power now.
> * As (ostensibly) a representative Democracy America's fate is dictated by the majority of it's citizens.
No, it's determined by the people who actually go out and vote.
Bizarrely, voter turnout among younger people remains low. It's beyond frustrating to work with large groups of young people who are seemingly always talking politics and angry about something political, then to watch as half of them either forget to vote or act like they're too apathetic to vote.
The craziest part was seeing this apathy play out in states with vote-by-mail systems that required as little effort as possible. I still don't get it.
In defence of young people, it's "determined" by the people who actually go out and vote the same way a child "determines" what's for dinner when asked "would you like broccoli or brussels sprouts?"
American democracy is broken. Not in an abstract, hand-wavy feelings way but a hard, numerical, mathematical way. A two party system results in no real choice. First past the post results in a two party system. America uses first past the post. Therefore, Amercian democracy gives voters no real choice.
Margins in recent elections have been thin enough that higher voter turnout among young generations could have easily changed the outcome.
Blaming broken democracy is just a cop out. Youth voter turnout for primary elections, where there are many candidates, is also low. More parties isn’t going to change anything.
You're missing the point. There were only two possible outcomes: Democrats or Republicans. Both were bad and unappealing. Both are too dependent on the status quo to serve as vehicles for real change (so primaries are pointless too).
"More parties", through elimination of first past the post, absolutely changes things. It allows you to vote for someone who truly represents you and your interests without "throwing away" your vote. That's impossible today.
Democrats continue to offer up horrible candidates, and their idiotic primary system confirms those horrible candidates every 4 years. A slice of cheese could have beaten Trump, but somehow the DNC managed to offer up the most boring, milquetoast, unlikable, uncharismatic, centrist candidates they could find and beat him once out of three times. They're just kicking own-goals over and over, and they're not learning which direction to run down the field.
His policies were tempered, image-wise and often in substance, by his affinity for Joe Manchin alongside his disdain for Bernie Sanders. Balanced alongside the middle eastern foreign policy, he comes across as centrist despite the BBB.
Look up the build back better act that Biden proposed and tell me if you think that was centrist. It originally proposed extending the child tax credit (basically basic income for people with kids).
The Inflation Reduction Act, the negotiated paired down version was still the biggest climate bill in history.
He also attempted to cancel 10 to 20k each of student debt, a progressive priority. That was blocked by the Supreme court.
The list goes on.
If the electorate had given Biden a bigger majority in Congress he would have passed much more progressive legislation.
The self reinforcing prophecy of “somebody else’s job”.
It’s the job of politicians to pander to us, the good voter. Since they didn’t offer us something good, we didn’t vote, and that results in this current situation.
Politics is not my job, being aware of how politics works is not my job. My job is just to let them know they aren’t good enough. It’s because they aren’t good enough, that we landed up in this situation.
I remember watching a clip from Jimmy Kimmel on YouTube where they asked people on the street in LA whether they planned to vote in the 2024 presidential election. The twist was that they were doing this one day AFTER the election. It was so disappointing to see that many young people had no idea that the election was over and yet they said they planned to vote. One guy even asked who was running.
This is likely because for many young people the only source of news is social media. And they are unlikely to be targeted to see the political ads.
Interestingly, occasionally I see political ads on Willow.tv which I use to watch Cricket. And most of these ads have Noem threatening to deport people ("if you are here illegally, we are coming after you..."). I am a US citizen.
on top of that, you need to register as a voter in many places and that process ends months before the actual ballots come. These aren't things they teach in most schools (nor their parents, apparently).
>Bizarrely, voter turnout among younger people remains low.
in the grand scheme of history, it's not odd. Voter turnout correlates decently with age. It's an anamoly when they do get out and vote, like in 2008.
That's partially an effect of
1. not having compulsory voting
2. needing to actively register in order to be viable to vote, as opposed to simply being delivered a ballot like many other countries
3. the decades of "no politics at the table" policies to help expose the civic duties to the youth. And since it's not a flashy topic to talk about, they won't really bring it up themselves, or simply have non-informed views.
4. careful strategies to try and disenfranchise voters who may otherwise oppose a party. This is what "both sides are the same" does in a system without #1.
Not to mention the proliferation of social targeted media ads changing the landscape and active loopholes used to try and de-register voters. These all hit youth the most to vote a certain way (or not at all).
Hoping this might help you find a way to reach to the young people you have to work with:
I remember my young self being primarily concerned with being right about the world rather while also believing nothing I could do at my level could matter. Maybe it's just me but something about small incremental betterment was uncredibly unsexy to me. I would rationalize voting as "participating in the system" that was rigged anyways.
Somehow it changed after I watched CGP Greg's "rules for rulers" videos
This is utterly delusional. I can’t comprehend of whatever mind virus made it so far into the American political discourse for this BS to still be parroted in 2026. I am blessed to be born in and to reside in a country with a comparatively much better-functioning government and voting system. You better believe that if I were American I’d be voting for the dems in a heartbeat. I’d be endlessly annoyed about it, especially compared to the vastly more palatable options where I live, but there’d be zero doubt about my decision. The culture of not voting is the biggest unforced self-own the American public has inflicted upon itself. You all get what you deserve with that one.
Neither candidate was ever going to push back against Israel's genocide of Palestinians.
While it was very disappointing the Democrats weren't exerting significant pressure against Israel, and Kamala gave no indication she'd act any different, it was delusional to believe Trump was going to be any different. He was very clear that he supported Israel as well, and he went as far as to claim he'd support Netanyahu even more strongly than Biden. Sure, he sabre-rattled a bit about wanting the war in Gaza to end before he took office, but he also indicated he'd support residual IDF actions (i.e., continued killings of Palestinians) within Gaza afterward.
There was never a candidate who was going to push back against Israel, no matter how much you or I would have liked for there to have been one.
AIPAC has a terrifyingly strong grip on American politics.
The only way to address this and other similar problems is through campaign finance reform, which the incumbents will never allow. It doesn't mean we shouldn't stop pushing the issue though.
Because even just the boring sanity of Biden Harris was leagues better than what we all saw coming in 2024. (Putting aside that whole constitutional amendment about insurrections.)
Maybe they could promise to make the rent lower. Or to make abortion legal. Or to stop bombing 2 million brown children in the Middle East. Or literally anything people actually want, instead of running on the singular platform or "obviously they'll vote for us because we're not the Republicans". People are getting really tired of the latter. Notice every time a candidate comes out who actually promises things people want he wins by a landslide?
They actually have offered policies along this line but their messaging is weak at best.
It also competes with an opponent (the GOP) that is more than willing to outright lie to sway voters. This isn't to say that the DNC is beyond reproach but we're way past "both sides" at this point.
> Bizarrely, voter turnout among younger people remains low
I understand why my age group has low turnout. It's a disgusting chore that I force myself to do.
In part, it might be a chicken and egg situation. My age cohort doesn't vote because candidates suck. Candidates suck because they pander to those who do vote.
Now to show my political biases:
In 2016 Sanders had a huge amount of support from young people but the DNC did everything it could to tilt favor away from him. He ran a hugely successful grassroots campaign taking small donations from individuals. Where did it get him? On stage with Biden - the anointed candidates with SuperPAC money. That is no small feat. His campaign ended only after the DNC guilted him into quitting as to "not steal votes". That's my perception at least. I temporarily changed my registration from unaffiliated to Democrat to vote for him in the primaries. Young people put in effort and showed up. It bought them exactly one legally rigged primary.
So every election I put on my clown makeup [0] and pretend like any of this is actually real democracy.
Maybe ask the young people if they actually wanted to vote for the options they had, before jumping to them being apathetic or hypocritical. And yes, I know the adult-in-the-rooms will be quick to point out that its simply rational and responsible to hold your nose and vote for the lesser evil, and the kids should know that, etc etc. But while it may be a good prescription to people, it doesn't actually address the problem. Maybe we should, but still, if you just want to scold people into voting for you, then you probably don't have a good platform and you probably don't deserve the support you do get.
The fact is, it would of been already incredibly hard for someone to be enthusiastic voting for Dems last presidential election; frankly even without even considering the utter and pointed moral failure with Gaza.
You want young people to vote, you can try to tut-tut them to vote for literally whoever, or you can, you know, listen to what they are saying, what they feel passionate about, and try even just a little bit to address it or, heck, put it on the platform. Its supposed to be a political party, something that unites people under some shared vision.
You want every single young person in the US to vote? Just say: free healthcare.
I mean, they tried that in the primaries and young people still stayed home. If they actually came out in force for Bernie like you said they would, he would have won every primary. Young people simply don't vote because of a lot of different reasons. Probably some of the reasons are immaturity and a lack of belief that they have agency, which is understandable given how society works in the US. You have basically zero rights until you turn 18, at which point you are magically able to vote! Do you believe you have the ability to affect the world at that point? Of course not.
"Put up candidates that don't suck" in this context is basically "put up candidates who will cater to young voters at the expense of literally every other constituency", which is exactly the reason Bernie lost in 2016, and lost even harder in 2020. You can't focus only on one group of people, even if that's the only way to drive their turnout. It's just a losing game, clearly not one worth playing with a group of people who don't yet understand that other people exist, with other priorities.
I guess I just didn't realize that was the settled reason why Bernie lost!
I just think even granting this framing, what is the point or the lesson here? Is the idea that Clinton in 2016 was more well-rounded, had broader appeal as a candidate and young people were too immature to realize this?
The lesson is that making your sole priority driving youth turnout is a losing strategy, for reasons that are not that confusing. The Bernie lamenters would do well to learn lessons from his failures, rather than blaming everyone else.
Sure, but what does this mean? Like ok we know not to solely cater to the youth vote, great. That wouldn't imply to me then that the correct thing to do instead is alienate or anger that same vote, right? Shouldn't we see nominees that cater to all of them, or a lot of them at least? Or, what's wrong with wanting that?
We do not need to start from the point of view that each given interest or group is totally opposed, that we are locked in some zero-sum death spiral where "the youth vote" shares absolutely no overlap with anybody else. Politics is possible at all because we believe in something else. You could decompose everything down into a list of people to blame with stuff like this, but it won't tell you what to actually do!
That's the thing - we already know that each given interest group has common interests. That's how you build coalitions, by finding those common interests and tamping down on the differences. The problem with the youth vote that we know, is that if we cater to anyone other than them, or god forbid have any opinion they disagree with, they get disillusioned or even outright hostile (very much to their own detriment), for reasons I speculated on above.
So it's better to treat them as a totally unreliable voting bloc that is nice to have, but in no way should be treated special. They are fickle, impossible to corral, and make particularly awful coalition partners.
Bernie, for one, would have done well to use their energy to launch, as he did, but then switch to broadening his coalition, rather than doubling down on catering to their every whim and attempted browbeating. That rigidity and tunnel vision is what sunk him, and is what would have led to total electoral collapse if he had somehow made it to the nomination.
Ok well then I guess there really is no hope here for this. I guess it's just a shame it's such a helpless case with the kids here!
But really, if you have a democracy where there seems to be one uncompromising bloc that no one can really satisfy, that too is democracy in action in a way! Or rather, it maybe says something about the state and the parties that this is the case with regard to the youth. Given all of history, we can't just say in general "kids are intrinsically uncompromising, short term idealists fundamentally incompatible with democracy." Right?
> Fifty three percent of Americans now read below the sixth grade level.
I don't know what to think when I see these quotes. Are you writing a local newspaper opinion piece about the "decline of America"? How is it meaningful to this discussion? It's like a poison blowdart shot from behind the stage curtain that kills the messenger.
By the way, I Googled for the equivalent stat about Canada: "48-49% having skills below a high school level". I'm not here to bad mouth the Canadian education system, but I think you will find fairly similar stats in most highly developed nations.
I've been reading this topic for years. It is very common with a certain party that the other side votes against their interest, or is too dumb to vote (literacy).
You can also see it in race voting, where people will say a certain race is voting against their interest just to vote for someone with the same skin color.
It's actually a talking point that actively pushes people away from their cause.
Does this type of voting happen? Sure, but not enough to push elections. IMO it's people who are confused on why others don't think the same way as they do and try to justify why anyway they can, usually through derogatory remarks.
datsci_est_2015 explains it better than I would just a few comments down, but this isn't what I mean. I mean that people who are semi-literate or illiterate are terrible thinkers. They are, in fact, fundamentally incapable of understanding the modern world they find themselves in and are CONSTANTLY taken advantage of.
Bad thinkers make bad decisions, and are vulnerable to being manipulated in ways that good thinkers aren't. Try getting a mortgage or a car loan when you can't read complete paragraphs. Try investing your retirement properly. Try doing just about anything that modern adults are required to do. You're definitely going to pay a "stupid tax" throughout your entire adult life if you lack the ability to read critically.
People bemoan the death of journalism, but it's not the journalists fault. Did you know that USA Today was intentionally invented to be an alternative news source for people who couldn't read well? At the time it was bemoaned as the end of western civilization. Now it requires more of it's reader than the places people actually get their news from (Tik-Tok and Bathroom wall graffiti presumably).
FWIW - One side is objectively worse than the other, but it's not by a wide margin (a few basis points if I remember correctly) and it's probably just because one side lives in states that love to take the education budget and blow it on "more important" things.
> people who are semi-literate or illiterate are terrible thinkers. They are, in fact, fundamentally incapable of understanding the modern world they find themselves in
It is always funny to me that the people making this argument are usually also the people who would view a voting literacy test as abhorrent (not you, necessarily). To me, if we're assuming a large amount of people are too stupid to understand information or know what is good, then it follows that we oughtn't let them decide the direction of the country.
I am genuinely in favor of a brief standardized test in the voting booth, but I think most aren't, especially those who are the most vocal about voter illiteracy/ignorance/stupidity. Follow through with your beliefs, readers. Pick one: are they too stupid to vote, or aren't they? If they are, support a literacy test. If they aren't, stop the ugly rhetoric.
The problem with a test is whoever writes/grades the test can ensure people they don't like fail. Elections are often close enough that they only need to fail a few borderline (and pass on their sides) to control an election.
as such I'm forced to oppose all tests even though the idea isn't bad.
The problem (like with voter ID laws in the US) is that it's a very slippery slope to voter suppression, and in the US we have a very creative history when it comes to voter suppression. You'd have poll workers who would present incredibly hard passages to read to voters based on a personal judgement call (read: black voters).
I (not OP) agree that dumb people voting is a problem but the alternative is to have arbitrary suppression of votes, which IMO is worse.
I don't know why objections to voting tests usually pretend we're in 1850. We have standardized tests, already, nationwide. It's a solvable problem. We wouldn't contingent a vote on a random poll worker's choice of passage to read.
And voting is legislated by individual states, that would theoretically implement their own standards though this may be intervened upon by the federal government). Heck, even standardized testing for students is done at a state level. The SATs/ACTs are privately administered. What example of a nationwide standardized test for literacy do you have?
A solvable problem, but someone chooses and implements the solution. Now imagine that person is from a party that you disagree with, and is highly motivated to find a way to tilt the playing field.
This talking point never contains international comparison nor historical comparison. Most people using it do not even know what "sixth grade level" actually is. They just know it means "a little".
Who cares how they're doing it in Albania? It used to be better in America, now it's worse and it's taken our entire society with it.*
I DO know exactly what sixth grade level is. It means they can read simple paragraphs, but not critically. These people lack the ability to think critically because they never learned it. They're the ones that open phishing emails and get taken by shady real estate con-men and Nigerian prince scammers.
You can be semi-literate and be a good person. You can't be semi-literate and make good decisions. Not in the modern world.
* To clarify - Reading levels in the United States have been declining at an alarming rate for a long time. They peaked in 1992 and have been steadily decaying since. You'll also note that 1992 was the year Dan Quayle was disqualified from the presidency because he couldn't spell potato. Imagine applying those standards to a modern politician.
It would be interesting comparison, actually. As interesting as French, Germany or whatever.
> It used to be better in America, now it's worse and it's taken our entire society with it. [...] They peaked in 1992 and have been steadily decaying since.
So, yeah, this would be an interesting historical comparison. It was worst most of the time.
> These people lack the ability to think critically because they never learned it. They're the ones that open phishing emails and get taken by shady real estate con-men and Nigerian prince scammers.
You are confusing two different things here. First off, highly educated people are in fact vulnerable to scammers ... frequently because of their own confidence.
> You can be semi-literate and be a good person. You can't be semi-literate and make good decisions. Not in the modern world.
But issue in modern world are not people just dont make good decisions. It is people who make immoral decisions. Vance have good reading skills, but he is still a fascist.
> You'll also note that 1992 was the year Dan Quayle was disqualified from the presidency because he couldn't spell potato.
This is not an example of mass of people using critical thinking and acting rationally. This is an example of blown up reaction ala Twitter mob latching on something trivial and making a big deal out of it. This is example of what happen when soundbite wins over substance.
I think it’s also important to talk about what it means to “read at a 6th grade level” when this is mentioned, because a lot of people (myself included) might assume that just means they could finish and understand a book intended for 6th graders.
But there’s actually meaningful criteria that sheds some light on the critical thinking capabilities of people who can or can’t read at certain levels, especially as it pertains to propaganda. Below a certain level, people are not well-educated enough to critically assess a text against the motivations of its authors (somewhere around 9th grade). Americans are prone to conspiratorial thinking so you might think that that’s alright because they’re often skeptical of any text, but it just seems like it causes them to dig even deeper into the propaganda that’s targeted to them.
It’s kind of like learning that some people don’t have an inner monologue, or that they aren’t capable of imagining shapes or objects abstractly in their mind. Except it’s a lot more serious as it deals with critical thinking directly: these people don’t understand that what they’re reading was written for a purpose.
This isn't accidental. Religious indoctrination literally teaches generations to make special loopholes in critical thinking and healthy skepticism to maintain their faith. And it has paid off in easy to manipulate masses for centuries.
The more religious people I know are some of the best critical thinkers. Especially those types who enroll their kids in the 'classical' education model. With the decline of religion in the USA, I don't think this is a very coherent scapegoat.
Religion isn't the only factor, nor did I claim it was.
But it's the only one I've seen convince PhDs to believe self contradictory "scriptures", cherry picked "evidence", appeals to authority, parrot useless platitudes, indoctrinate their kids, dismiss injustices, other people even for the most trivial differences in doctrine, and consistently vote against their own interests.
The Lippmann school of democracy sort of predisposed that people were too stupid and that through journalists would emerge a reasonable set of choices. For the most part that matches the way politics worked in the USA and most democracies until recently. Unfortunately the internet disrupted things such that suddenly everyone needs to actually be democratically adept in at least some form more akin to the Dewey school of thought.
The combination of literacy and the algorithmic propaganda machine is a pretty big stumbling block.
Interesting comment. I haven't heard this problem phrased this way nor have I heard of these schools, do you have a recommendation for learning more about this?
> At the turn of the 20th century, a crucial debate emerged between Walter Lippmann and John Dewey over the viability of democracy in an increasingly complex world. Lippmann critiqued democracy’s reliance on public opinion, arguing that citizens construct simplified “pseudo-environments” shaped by media and stereotypes, rendering them ill-equipped to make informed decisions on vast global issues. He warned that modern democracies are driven more by emotionally charged reactions than by accurate understanding, and that media, language, and time constraints further distort reality. Dewey responded not by dismissing Lippmann’s concerns, but by reframing democracy as more than a political system—it was, to him, an ethical ideal and a form of social cooperation. Viewing society as an interconnected organism, Dewey believed individuals flourish only through participation and education. He saw democracy as a continuous process of mutual growth, where every person contributes uniquely, and where the antidote to authoritarianism lies in cultivating thoughtful, empowered citizens—not in retreating from democratic ideals, but in deepening them.
She puts it all together relatively succinctly if dense. You can just read Dewey too if you want to be closer to the source. He's a bit more interesting because it is more of the road not taken out of the progressive era.
Truthfully I’m not familiar with any of this. I’m just curious how we managed a functioning democracy through the 1800s when literacy was certainly lower. And, how other democratic nations with similar literacy rates are doing.
Standards for "functioning democracy" were much lower then.
Most people were ineligible to vote in the 18th and 19th centuries. [1] Not even 20% of the US population voted in presidential elections until the 20th century. [2]
I don't think that's right - it looks like the stat is that 78% of Americans speak *only* English at home.
I'm not American, but anecdotally, a supermajority (like 80-90%) of people I know who speak multiple languages at home speak English at native fluency. (e.g. in my semi-extended family - parents/siblings/nibblings/partner/parents-in-law, there are 9 of us, and only 2 are more comfortable in French than English, but none of us would qualify as speaking *only* English at home.)
The problem is that a lot of what is happening is within the executive branch's power and/or democratic. A nontrivial number of Americans support everything that has been happening. The expectation at a time like this would be that you have checks and balances working, but all other branches have yielded their power. I find that jaw dropping personally, but it's where we are. Midterms are happening soon and are the right place to disrupt congress.
> No one has the power to save America from itself.
Wrong!! Please don’t say that! We all have power inside the US. Congress had the opportunity in 2021 to correct the wrong, but Republicans kowtowed and they are still doing so. That was the easy way. Now for the hard way, American people will have to do something about it.
The current situation is bad, but this is just doomerism.
The current administration will end. Trump can't live forever. His approval rating is already low and falling.
We're in for a bumpy ride, but then it's going to start reverting toward the mean. Not necessarily back to the way things were, but periods of extreme like this are followed by a reversion to the mean more often than not.
They way the current administration act, I start to think that their plan A is to stay for a long long time. There is so much open corruption that half of them would land in prison really quickly and they don't seem particularly bothered by that fact.
You're thinking about it with the wrong basis. They will not land in prison because they broke enough enforcement mechanisms to escape punishment. The administration will end, but the regime will not. Even if Trump died tomorrow, enough people have followed him through the holes he created that things will continue. You will of course have factions form and have those factions fight amongst eachother as they head off in their own directions, but the factions will exist in the first place. There is no way to stop them from forming and pursuing their goals without building new enforcement mechanisms, which they will obviously and vehemently impede the construction of. These people will likely die of age before they spend even a second getting a burning hot de-lousing shower and an orange one piece. This has happened every two decades in the U.S. since Reconstruction was sabotaged and prematurely ended.
I don't think you can really state that right now as certainty, it's becoming part of the illusion of continuity, this administration has shown how fragile the institutions holding American democracy together are.
The Pandora's box has been opened, it's not doomerism to see how unprecedented actions have been taken by this administration and not be sure of what's come next, you've never lived through something like that.
I had much more trust in your institutions a year ago, after 2025 I really do not believe the USA will be able to revert toward the mean anytime soon. The ultimate test for it will be the midterms, if the election this year goes well without a hiccup it might signal there is some institutional power still left in American democracy; on the other hand if there are hiccups, meddling by the federal government, and its allies (including the rich elite behind a lot of these people), it will just cement my opinion that the USA's democracy is in a death spiral.
But don't be so trusting, the cracks are obviously showing and are being exploited, just wishful thinking won't help at all your society at this moment, it's better to be a bit more doomerist and act against these actions rather than just "trusting the process" because if you end up losing the process the bottom will fall out.
I hope the OC said that in good faith, but I have my doubts. I think it's just a gentle way to accuse people like you and I of having Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Five people are voting on what to have for dinner. Three people vote for pizza. Two people vote for "You three." Pizza has won, but there is still a massive problem in that room.
Gonna have to force-feed them enough pizza, maybe tricking them that it's causing the other three great pains to give it to them. Fortunately, it's been shown that these people are very easily tricked.
Always amusing. So sure. I like to imagine the conversations at the begining of the late bronze age collapse, or perhaps aristocrats of the western roman empire living in Gaul.
"To say anything that challenges the current trajectory is doomerism. We're in for a bumpy ride for sure, but this will all correct itself. _it has to_."
Trump is not the problem, he’s a symptom. The problem is the roughly one third of Americans who think he’s great, and to a lesser extent the roughly one third who don’t care.
After all that’s happened, his approval rating is still above 40%. Those people aren’t going away or changing their minds any time soon.
'Oh gramps, for once, stop talking about the war'.
People really don't want to hear those stories because it makes them uncomfortable. I'm in an absolute minority in that I wanted to hear the stories even if they made me uncomfortable. But the vast majority of the people would love to get through life without learning history's lessons and as a result are much more likely to repeat them.
There's basically nothing the American people can do short term.
The US government is entirely non-responsive and only nominally representative.
Barring a wave of Republican retirements in the House, the absolute soonest there are any guardrails are after the 2026 midterms when a new congress is seated in 2027.
> There's basically nothing the American people can do short term.
If there are ICE agents in your area follow and film them. Create evidence of their jackboot tactics.
Most folks do not like force/violence, and the more people see the jackboot policies and actions of one side, the more folks will lean towards the side(s) that are against those policies.
The source for this [1] is more nuanced (someone can be both "not okay" with it while also blaming the victims), but it's true that survey respondents were five times more likely to blame the students than the National Guard.
Gerrymandering, infinite lobbying corruption, and manufactured consent are supposed to keep the populace doing and thinking what the 1% want, and cheating to help them. They can't even do those properly anymore with vast resources. Perhaps billionaires and failed celebrity reality stars don't make the best public administrators.
There are still some things. A handful of court cases have gone against the trump admin and they have (in many cases) respected them. For example, the suits against national guard deployments in chicago. Donating to organizations using the courts to leverage the law against the trump administration does have material effects.
The senate can also still hold some things up. If you have a senator who keeps voting for trump's judicial appointments or you have a senator who is in leadership then yelling at them to stop letting trump's judicial appointments sail through is important. The fact that the dems are not using every procedural step to slow down the process is ridiculous.
Of course there’s, it’s just that anti-Trump people don’t care as much and are not as brave as the pro-Trump people. MAGA people stormed the capitol, anti-Trump people just write well thought concerns on the internet. MAGA people for years endured deplatforming and being outcasts but developed methods to deal with it, the anti-Trump people are scared to lose what they have and are too concerned about their differences within and they are unable to build anything. It’s people with nothing to lose and everything to gain vs people with everything to lose and nothing to gain from having a fight.
Those who stormed the Capitol did it because they were against the current course of affairs. Are the anti-Trump people ever going to do something like that if they are against the current course of events? I don’t think so.
Consequently, Trump will win. That’s why people who control the capital are aligned with MAGA.
People are out there protesting right now even though ICE and the police have a history of shooting unarmed protestors. Leftists protestors are and always have been more harshly treated by this government than the other side.
If anyone is doubting this, look at how the police treat "ecoterrorists" versus mass shooters. Ecoterrorists in quotes because the real ecoterrorists are those polluting and destroying the planet for money, not a group of people that stop a machine from raping the land.
> People are out there protesting right now even though ICE and the police have a history of shooting unarmed protestors
I never understand what's the point of those protests. They should be taking over power by force or GTFO. Notice that successful revolutions storm the HQ, destroy some building of iconic significance or kill/capture the leader, not just enduring the atrocities of the foot-soldiers of the people who they are against.
The peaceful protest thing works when the people in the HQ care about what you think about them, which means it only works if those protesting are their people and not the opposition.
The lefties should start taking notes on what works and what the far right did to gain so much power and start stealing their methods. Display of dissatisfaction isn't going to work, if anything that dissatisfaction is satisfaction to the right wingers. They feel giddy when see the people they hate protesting, their only complain can be that the protests are not big enough.
> I never understand what's the point of those protests.
For one, it's about showing politicians just how unpopular these policies are. If you can convince a large enough swath of Republican congressmen their seats aren't so secure, they may start to break with the administration.
On the more extreme end: I doubt many of the protesters are familiar with it, but there is a 3.5% rule[1] in political science that states when nonviolent protestors grow to about 3.5% of the population, authoritarian regimes become likely to fall from power.
The pro-Trump group don't think about consequences is the thing. The anti-Trump group do, and that's a big reason why they're slow to respond. Performing a siege on the Capitol was a stupid, angry, and impulsive reaction with no thought of the consequences afterwards. That's the way the entire pro-Trump group tends to act. Meanwhile the anti-Trump group think about knock-on effects and long term consequences because they understand that nothing is an island and that everything is connected to everything else, even through degrees of separation. It makes them hesitant to do anything right away because they first have to consider what the ripples are going to affect outside of the area of their immediate focus. One group is reactive and the other is proactive, and being proactive is always going to be slower.
I don't think that's it. It has more to do with something to lose or not.
"The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose"
Liberals are generally more empathetic towards others and have good intentions when protesting. However if they have a comfortable life they will back down very quickly when faced with force. Just my opinion, could be wrong.
39% of the country still approves of him and his fractal waterfall of disaster. So many people, and so many now gifted power and immunity to swing it at dissenting voices. That's a lot of inertia.
In the "First They Came" poem, we're already at white Christian mothers, and it's not moving the needle. I'm not sure why there isn't more talk of succession on the coasts but at this pace, it feels inevitable.
How many people have sat down and "war gamed" this out? e.g.
Let's say that opposition to... Trump's unilateral rule, disregard for the constitution, interference with free and fair elections, building a private army and using it increasingly against immigrants and citizens alike, as long as they are "opposition" to Trump, etc... decides to get as organized and impactful as possible? What does that look like?
Some kind of public, open communication portal? A closed sign-up portal where you have to put in your information?
Some kind of plan to put a lot of bodies in one place? Peaceful protest? Armed and violent protest? (Literally insurrection against the authoritarian regime.)
Even the peaceful protest option which is scattered across 50 states, hundreds of cities, has resulted in some violent reaction by Trump's army, National Guard, even local law enforcement.
What are next steps for the American people?
I think those that are protesting by trying to keep it peaceful are holding onto hope that power is still somewhat distributed, and that elections still function enough to displace Trump loyalists (MAGA / Republicans) with Democrats that have at least paid lip service to being opposed to Trump. And maybe given a majority in Congress, they could at least enact impeachment.
But what else are the American people meant to do?
Complain to our representatives who will do absolutely nothing because the system is ripe for abuse and we’ve put people who actively want to abuse and exploit it into office.
I keep telling everyone and have been for a year, it’s not just our problem, due to global US positioning it’s now a world problem. Just ask Venezuela. Regardless of what you think about the end result the ends did not justify the means.
I for one will be collecting my (completely legal) hunting rifles and weapons I’ve had in storage since I was a kid, have them professionally serviced and grab some ammunition, on the terrible case I need to defend myself which I thought I’d never ever have to consider and I’d just sell them some day. But alas we have a lot of really really stupid as well as downright toxic voters in this country.
Nothing? Trump is playing freeway chicken with Powell, he's driving a Pontiac Fiero and Powell is driving a bulldozer. The Supreme Court has already signaled that they're not on board fucking with the Fed. This will potentially cost Trump his next Fed nomination for awhile, because GOP Senators are putting a hold on his nominations until the legal stuff resolves.
It's nothing. In a sane country Trump would have been impeached many months (or even years) ago and would have never managed to get a second chance at this.
If the continuation of the USA hinges on Powell the man should be given a spot on mt. Rushmore, but I don't think that it is going to happen. Congress and the senate are for the most part filled with people that are too afraid to act. And in the meantime a lot of other crazy stuff will happen (just look at the last 30 days) to push this out of the public eye.
"was impeached" means different things in context.
Sometimes it means "articles of impeachment were brought against an official". (1) i.e. that the process starts.
Sometimes it means a later stage in the process, such as those article not being voted down, and a trial proceeding.
In the strictest sense, it means that the process completes - "the official is found guilty, removed from office, and may never hold office again".
Parent comment seems to be using the strictest sense, due to "and would have never managed to get a second chance". You're not helping by using a confusing different meaning.
If you're going to be nitpicky about definitions it helps to be correct. In this case, the person you're replying to is absolutely correct.
The government site you linked says the same thing:
> If the House adopts the articles by a simple majority vote, the official has been impeached.
Trump has been impeached twice. I think the confusion comes in when people misuse these terms, often when they want to say things like "Trump was never impeached!". He definitely was by the only definition that actually matters, which is that the House passed articles of impeachment. He was not found guilty.
Call me old fashioned, but I think these confusions are intentional and should be met with correcting the definitions - not making up new meanings of words - especially in this case where it's formally defined in the law.
I was just nitpicking the nitpicking, especially the implication that using a word correctly is confusing the issue. The sentiment in the original sentence is straightforward to understand, even if the sentence is a bit ambiguous.
We vote. That’s all we can do. 50.5% of the people voted for this insanity in 2024. We can only hope they see how this is going and vote differently in 2026 and beyond.
You know what you are right. I think I was basing my numbers on old data during the election. The world, science, and reason was destroyed due to 49.8% vs. 48.3% in the popular vote.
They are headed for complete fascist take over. Going through a phase that Europeans went through a century ago, end up destroying themselves.
It’s very concerning that they have nukes. JD Vance said something about the risks UK and France owning nukes, I think he just wanted to start the conversation because I think he believes that it’s actually US that is the risk. We know that the guy is not actually a Trump ideology zealot from his pre-Trump alignment.
I think it'd be a mistake to assume that JD Vance is not exactly what he portrays himself as at this point. He certainly seems onboard with everything thats happening and is happy to defend it and push the boundaries for more lawlessness.
My read is that Vance may be a pure opportunist. He may be doing what he has to in order to stay in Trump's good graces, because that's where power is right now. But I've seen him put out very quiet "yeah, that's the administration's position, but I don't actually agree with it" messages once or twice.
I don't think he's someone who is under sway of the Trump cult of personality. I suspect that Vance's agenda is Vance.
I came in to say the same thing -- major, major respect to Powell.
I am not a big fan of his earlier policies (or of Greenspan's and anyone after him for that matter). His "unlearn the importance of M2" did not age well. He made the tail end of the ZIRP more painful than it needed to be. But those were honest mistakes from a public servant who did his best and believed in what he is doing.
And standing up for what he believes is right, against this insanity from the president is the gold standard of what we need from public servants. My 2c.
I have bad things to say about him. But they're firmly on pause. What Trump wants for the Federal Reserve is far worse.
And anyone who is a hard-currency quantity-theory-of-money conservative, should also be appalled by it.
Trump is way worse than what the harshest critics of the Federal Reserve think about it. Nobody right or left should support it. Only the billionaires will profit off the monetary disorder.
By design, kiss the ring. It’s a natural progression of the kind of grifting that has been occurring through 2025: shitcoin rugpulls, tariff announcements, etc.
Would love to hear what you've disagreed with because the man pulled off what can only be interpreted as a miracle in landing the economy nearly back on the 2% target with no massive economic problems after we went through an unprecedented pandemic, during which Trump printed $3.5 Trillion, causing massive inflation (yes, Trump did that, not Biden).
Fundamentally, people don't like situations with no good answer. I see it again and again, present a problem with no good answer and most people will resort to the answer that aligns with their political leanings even when faced with clear evidence they are wrong.
Look how quickly big business rolled over for The Felon--because they saw what mot people have been denying since the election.
big business will always act in the interest of big business.
Only a stupid business man will confront the full-might of the executive branch of the federal government heads on, particularly when the President is showing that he is willing to use that power against anybody
Big business will always side with the oppressors, it's like we learned nothing from history about colonialism, imperialism, or the history of european fascism. I mean FFS it was corporations that financed Mussolini. As you said they don't care, they just want to make money.
America has reached the inter-departmental warfare stage of failed states it seems. As an appreciator of all sorts of banana republics, kleptocracy and military juntas, this is a very familiar pattern of behavior.
Couldn't disagree more. Failed states normally have a single department (the military, often) dictating without opposition what other departments should do. Here we see a functioning system, the President presses, the Fed disagree and push back. The President weaponizes the judicial, yes, but it'll be a long shot. Nothing here smells to a failed state.
Shots fired. Even the republicans will not be able to ignore this and they know that if Powell caves in the American economy will likely collapse. So who will speak up in his defense?
Money rules everything and if there is one thing the donor class will not lose is their money. They are willing to turn a blind eye to the ripping up of the Constitution but as soon as you rip up the money, phone calls will be made, meetings will be had, and Vanguard and JP Morgan and Walmart will get what they want.
And what is stopping the donor class from simply jumping ship, or at least moving portions of their assets into forms that are shielded from what is going on?
Republican representatives have been very much behaving like cattle, they're scared and they think that there are no other options but to cower and to jump to Trump's every whim. If one of them stands tall and survives (which remains to be seen) and speaks up then quite possibly others will follow.
Republicans are afraid of their base. This is what has been said by republican reps when asked why they don’t break with Trump. Even now, Trump has some impressive Republican approval numbers given the scenario America finds itself in.
He operates on a version of America that is a shadow of the old nation, and in that shadow, it doesn’t actually need the capabilities and complexities it had developed over the past century. It needs to be simple enough to get votes and conversation points on Fox, and everything else can be blamed on some meme of the moment. It’s insane to see, but apparently we have the technology to make Hallucination driven government work.
My working theory is that the ai bubble is caused by trump. People are too uncertain to want to invest in most industries, but they have to put their money somewhere, so they put it in ai stocks. Since the supreme court is likely to rule trump's tariffs illegal in a week or so, this may lead to a stock market crash. As people reallocate their portfolios, they will sell their ai stocks, which will pop the bubble and cause a crash. Something to watch out for.
Valid theory, and if you look at the prices of assets like gold, the reallocation is already happening. But I feel a near-term crash in AI stocks is just not coming unless we are headed towards catastrophic economic conditions. Lots of market forces are involved in AI now and even people selling stocks (or a major correction) will not pop the AI bubble since the major players have invested way too much cash to just let it go away at this point. (IMO)
Remember the first time you wanted to buy a stock.
You used a product or a service that you liked immensely, realized it had a stock and wanted to be involved.
1 billion people are using AI, not dramatically changing their lives yet of course but for sure they go 'wow incredible I want to be part of this' when they make a video with Sora or generate a pamphlet without having to work
That's not why I bought stocks for the first time. I had extra money and wanted it to grow rather than sit around. I think the same is true of the majority of people.
I don't think we're disagreeing with each other in that we both think that ai will continue to be a successful industry, and furthermore that we both think that investors think the same. I'm simply hypothesizing an origin for the widely acknowledged bubble in ai stocks.
Nor would it have much impact. Retail investors are a tiny part of the market. Sure, we all have 401Ks and IRAs, but are we collectively trading GOOG and MSFT? No. The people managing funds that go into those 401Ks are trading those stocks, but individually we aren't (generally speaking, of course).
Yes, but for now the USD has more or less survived. If Trump forcibly removes the FED chair on a pretext things could go downhill very fast. You can probably kiss the USD as a reserve currency goodbye overnight and China is going to have a real problem given the amount of debt they hold. This could easily knock the last pillar that holds it all up away.
I don’t believe this will cause the collapse in the economy (short to mid term) that you are expecting, where I am defining “this” as a federal funds rate that is politically driven and lower than what Chair Powell would have otherwise set. On the contrary, I think it will largely benefit the kinds of affluent asset holders that comprise the top say 5% of the country, which probably accounts for most members of congress and the senate. I think those people will look around them and think this is ugly but otherwise fine. The inflation that follows will be painful to the rest of the country and, with any luck, an opposition party will be able to create a political narrative out of some solution to that pain.
Uh have you met Republicans? Anyone not fully onboard that had even half a spine retired or got voted out. The rest either love it or just fall in line so they can collect paychecks.
"The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President."
Thank you, Mr. Powell. We really want interest rates set to serve the people, not the whims of the President.
You had a comment to explain the poor take and instead do the equivalent of point and laugh. Can you help but wonder as onlookers question what your point might have been? People undoubtedly think this way, and to discount wholesale their line of thinking without engagement does not win hearts and minds.
why? asset holders in this country have a free fed put, wage earners get smashed in the face. you can make a solid case this institution is more harmful and free banking is much better for wealth equality.
This is... just crazy. One of those mostly boring bits of plumbing that has been left to professionals throughout the entire 50 years of my life - and they're trying to wreck it.
> One of those mostly boring bits of plumbing that has been left to professionals throughout the entire 50 years of my life - and they're trying to wreck it.
There is even a more boring and obscure bit of plumbing, the Treasury payment system, that they/DOGE went after last year:
It's also completely in character with Trump's behaviour. He is a dictator who wants what he wants and can't abide anyone standing in his way. He wants absolute authority to do as he wishes. This extends to removing foreign heads of state so he can access their countries resources and also threatening 'allies' so he can take their territory. We're watching him systematically destroy any good will or moral authority that the USA held.
It goes back before Donald was in charge of the Trump real estate business. It started with a really really shitty father who desired a “killer” business instinct in his children (read: cruelty) above all else.
Reading some of Mary Trump’s books will give some insight on the family that Donald grew up in. No love, all cruelty.
Donald is just a rich kid who inherited a big business and learned nothing but cruelty from his daddy.
I don’t think the main issue is that this type of person has been put in charge, it’s that the system can fail because of the will of one person. It kind of reveals that the guardrails were decorum and at its core Americans elects dictators that up until now chose to behave well.
More generally I think in an age of social media democracies will have to evolve to prevent leadership cults. Maybe something like the head of state being indirectly elected by local representatives.
“The system” includes the voting public. If a sufficient fraction of the population decides to override all common sense and vote a selfish conman into ultimate executive power then they can’t make the shocked Pikachu face when the rest of the political establishment fails to curtail his abuses.
There was an interview with an otherwise “intelligent” person in 2024 who admitted he knew Trump is corrupt and would mercilessly abuse the position of President but decided to vote for him anyway because he thought that checks and balances would be sufficient.
This is like putting a fox in charge of the chicken coop and hoping the neighbour’s dog will stop it eating your chickens!
Remember back when he had a TV show and his catchphrase was the hilarious and creative "you're fired"? The entire concept of The Apprentice as it was pitched to him circled around Trump being the god of business. I wonder if having that kind of a personal brand, alongside the mountains of self-aggrandizing merch could in any way indicate a total unwillingness to exist alongside anyone but worshippers and yes-men...
It's also for very stupid reasons: The fed dropping rates to the degree that would satisfy Donald Trump would greatly accelerate inflation which in turn would further upset voters, who would in turn blame Donald Trump (just like they did Biden before).
Is it just a cynical view that enough voters can be convinced it's the other side at fault?
Someone who supports trump, please let me know the logic on this. Genuinely. I'm trying to read other places about these charges but they're just so slanted that they're not really trustworthy. Is there anything to this, or is it really just to pressure the federal reserve?
Exactly. He thinks he knows better than the experts. He thinks lower interest rates are good and people saying they should be higher are just trying to make him look bad. Nothing he does is a clever gambit.
This model makes the most sense to me. If you just model it as: Trump wants to do things that make Trump look good, everything he's done fits into it quite nicely. If you want to predict his next move, think to yourself, what does Trump think will make him look the best to his adoring supporters?
Logically, conquering Greenland makes zero sense and is only damaging to the United States. But to his supporters, it will make Trump look powerful and good. Which is why he's talking about it, and why I think there's a decent chance that he's going to do it. I just hope there are enough sensible people left in his idiocracy cabinet to stop him.
I implore you to stop being credulous before it's too late. Trump supporters deeply believe, and are not shy about saying, that anyone who stops Trump from achieving his political goals should be imprisoned or murdered.
I have a family member like this who I interact with almost every day. When Renee Good was fatally shot in the face three times this family member said that she deserved it for "getting in the way" and that if she just ignored them she wouldn't have been murdered. With all of the video recordings that have come out and been extensively disseminated, pretty much everyone knows that she moved out of the way and stopped, and it was Jonathan Ross who initiated the encounter. There is no way to "get out of the way" and "ignore them" when armed figures enact force on whims. But people like my family member believe that these armed figures direct violence towards those who are dangerous rather than simply directing violence to anybody who is close enough to hurt. You cannot reason with people like that because they retroactively justify any harm in order to protect their belief in the systems of enforcement. To them order and structure are more important and valuable than agency and safety or in some cases even life itself.
Conservatives all over have 1 disease. They are incapable of abstract empathy. Until it personally happens to them, or someone very very close to them, they are incapable of noticing injustices or hurts.
That isn't true -- they just prioritize a different set of hurts. To be similarly reductive, leftists seem to only be able to sympathize with criminals and poor decision makers -- not crime victims, or hard workers. The leftist perspective just ignores individual agency.
And right now many have posted “lock him up” on Twitter in response to this news. Many of these users probably couldn’t describe the federal reserve or share anything at all about Powell. Their cult zealotry continues.
If citing the behavior of the most rabbid supporters is allowed (because that's who shows up to campaign rallies), then it's not hard to find an equivalent on the left. /r/all is full of people wanting various people in the epstein files, including trump, to be locked up on spurious associations.
Locking people up for crimes is different from locking them up because they are your political opponents. I don't think I've seen people on the left yelling about locking Mitch McConnell up, for instance, even if he bears much responsibility for all of this.
I think that's the point. None could name a crime, and that didn't matter.
Meanwhile, 34 actual felony convictions, court finding misuse of millions in charity funds, an attempted coup, being found liable for sexual assault, SCOTUS having to formally place the president above the law to avoid prosecution... none of it even moved the needle for those same folks.
>I think that's the point. None could name a crime, and that didn't matter.
From a 10s skim on wikipedia:
>Some experts, officials, and members of Congress contended that Clinton's use of a private email system and a private server violated federal law, specifically 18 U.S. Code § 1924, regarding the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or materials, as well as State Department protocols and procedures, and regulations governing recordkeeping.
I'm not saying those allegations are true, but to claim "none could name a crime" suggests you didn't even try.
>Meanwhile, 34 actual felony convictions, court finding misuse of millions in charity funds, an attempted coup, being found liable for sexual assault, SCOTUS having to formally place the president above the law to avoid prosecution... none of it even moved the needle for those same folks.
It's clearly a rationalisation. Nobody is rabidly averse to private email servers and calling for prison for every politician who used a private email server. It's Hillary specifically.
Whereas everyone thinks that all child rapists should be in prison!
> It's clearly a rationalisation. Nobody is rabidly averse to private email servers and calling for prison for every politician who used a private email server. It's Hillary specifically.
I think the world would be a better place if politicians with access to critical information were held to suitable security requirements under threats of punishment for laxity.
This would absolutely also include Hesgeth inviting a journalist to an airstrike planning meeting on Signal.
And likewise Trump putting boxes full of state secrets in a disused bathroom and on a stage.
The Trump administration are clearly hypocrites, clearly trying to throw the book at everyone else while bemoaning even the slightest consequences for themselves. I wouldn't call for Clinton's arrest, but I will say that anywhere that would arrest her should've given a much more severe punishment to Trump.
Then again, I'm not even American so I genuinely don't actually care if y'all leak state secrets like a basketball net leaks water.
Is there some well of non-rabid Trump supporters that I'm not aware of? I'm always open to the idea that I'm in a bubble, but my experience is that even the least rabid Trump supporters are completely unwilling to criticize him or oppose something he wants. Did any Trump supporters, for example, criticize the prosecution of James Comey?
>Is there some well of non-rabid Trump supporters that I'm not aware of? I'm always open to the idea that I'm in a bubble, but my experience is that even the least rabid Trump supporters are completely unwilling to criticize him or oppose something he wants.
In the context of the previous comment, the "non-rabbid" (and probably median) supporter would be someone voting Trump because they think they trust him more on the economy/immigration or whatever. They might be indifferent to his claims that he'll lock up his political opponents, or think that they're actually guilty of something, but that's not the same as being "rabbid" (ie. showing up to rallies and chanting "lock her up").
There's a difference between supporters and "the people who, in a single election, voted for him". The former tend to be pretty rabid and unmovable. Some portion of the voters are less firm in their support.
Right! With a non-fascist politician, what you're describing would be extremely abnormal; the median Biden supporter, Obama supporter, or Bush supporter would routinely take positions their guy didn't agree with even though they supported him overall. But the range of Trump supporter opinions stretches only from "politely support everything he wants to do" to "be performatively mean about everything he wants to do".
>But the range of Trump supporter opinions stretches only from "politely support everything he wants to do" to "be performatively mean about everything he wants to do".
You're basing this off... what? You're missing the options of "I'm indifferent about this", or "I don't agree with him on this but still think he's better as a whole than the alternative".
I'm missing "I don't agree with him on this" because I don't hear Trump supporters say that. Trump doesn't allow them to - he thinks it's wrong for anyone to disagree with him and illegal for anyone to try and stop him from doing something he wants to do. Again, the whole context here is that Trump is trying to jail one of his own appointees for failing to enact his preferred monetary policy.
I know many. They’re good people. But they’re willing to be indifferent to violence if the perpetrators are not on their team. Everyone does this to some degree, but their tendency to align on messaging is much higher than e.g. folks going at each other about their pet war.
They put a great deal of effort into talking about political violence and implying that Democrats are a source of rioting and terrorism. The indifference is only to their own violence.
> It is. What's more, such support is roughly the same across both parties, but both parties vastly overestimate the other side's support.
The difference between the two parties is that one elected a leader that agrees with that minority. This 2012 scene from The Newsroom outlines the difference:
I don't think this addresses the main point of my question, though. Do you know any prominent Democrats, e.g., representatives, senators, or presidents, who have called for a Republican to be killed?
> "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!!" Trump went on. "LOCK THEM UP???" He also called for the lawmakers' arrest and trial, adding in a separate post that it was "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH."
So more broadly, calling for any sort of capital punishment is also "political violence"? Even if you're against capital punishment, comparing it to something like Charlie Kirk getting shot is disingenuous. When people think of "political violence" they're thinking of the former, not capital punishment. Lumping the two together is like "do you support criminals? No? Why do you support Nelson Mandela, a convicted criminal?"
> calling for any sort of capital punishment is also "political violence"?
No, of course not, but I'm sure you knew that, hence constructing this straw man so you can knock it over and claim victory.
However, and more to the actual point, calling for capital punishment strictly because you disagree with the factual words someone chose to write might reasonably be considered "political violence". Especially when the words in question clearly call out your potential political intentions and remind people that said intentions can be battled in a particular way.
I consider January 6 to have falsified all research along these grounds. I acknowledge, sure, that virtually nobody wants to see gun battles in the street. But if you can talk yourself into believing that a mob sent to overturn the election and install the loser doesn't count as partisan violence, you can talk yourself into believing all kinds of catastrophes don't count.
>But if you can talk yourself into believing that a mob sent to overturn the election and install the loser doesn't count as partisan violence, you can talk yourself into believing all kinds of catastrophes don't count.
How's this different than say...
>polls show 99% (or whatever) of people are against crime
>voters elect a soft-on-crime politician, crime goes up
>"I consider the fact that the soft-on-crime politicians got elected to have falsified all research that people are against crime"
It's not different. If my city elected a mayor whose buddies committed a robbery 4 years ago, and his first act in office was to parole the robbers, I would be incandescently furious and definitely say that anyone who supports him is pro-crime.
This response is funny to me, because there’s been a massive drop in rightwing violence in the US since Trump was elected… but that’s because state-sponsored violence isn’t counted towards the statistics.
Pretty funny how there aren’t any more Proud Boy marches, yeah? Couldn’t be that they’re all getting paid six figure salaries to round up brown people at Kavanaugh stops…
But yes. Most left wing thought leaders count state-sponsored violence as political violence, and that often includes the death penalty.
>This response is funny to me, because there’s been a massive drop in rightwing violence in the US since Trump was elected… but that’s because state-sponsored violence isn’t counted towards the statistics.
>Pretty funny how there aren’t any more Proud Boy marches, yeah? Couldn’t be that they’re all getting paid six figure salaries to round up brown people at Kavanaugh stops…
Yes, that's how protests typically work. If things are going your way, you stop protesting. Nobody is protesting for gay marriage in California because they already won.
I don’t want to assume your politics, but saying that the group of people calling for racial purity and ethnic cleansing don’t find it necessary to protest anymore because things are going their way is very much not a good sign.
Fucking wild. You can't get more mainstream opinion than this guy. Trump regularly has phone calls on air with this person, he's isn't a random someone on TV. He is one of the administrations goto mouthpieces for communicating this administration's policy on the largest news station. They are workshoping/normalizing MURDERING UNDESIRABLES on their MAINSTREAM MEDIA by hosts that the president ROUTINELY USE TO BROADCAST HIS MESSAGE. My point is THEY ARE OK WITH KILLING PEOPLE THEY DON'T WANT. A meak 'my bad' doesn't mean shit.
And you waive it away. 'Bro said my bad dude, what more do you want? You think he shouldn't be an administration mouthpiece just because he wants extra-judicial killing? Cancel culture'. You are literally Martin Niemöller:
"First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist"
...
He was literally you. He justified their calls for 'only killing Communists and only because they are bad and want to do bad things....' just like you.
So for fun I looked up your comment history and you aren't this dumb.
You are smart enough to know that homelessness is a HUGE political issue in the USA, the calling for death of homeless people is EXTREMELY political.
You are smart enough to know that FOX News is mainstream for the Right, now a few randos.
You are smart enough to know that reporters that maintain direct lines of communication with the President and routinely have interviews with him on their shows are considered mouthpieces for an administration, even if not directly employed by the administration.
Why are you posting in such bad faith? Is your position just indefensible so you have to resort to propaganda style communication and pretending you are dumb?
Fox News, a major American media company, had one of their main personalities say that homeless people should just be killed by lethal injection on air. The desire for killing for random reasons is so mainstream to them that their media is comfortable stating out loud people they don't want/are undesirable should just be killed. Their media organs are workshopping/normalizing killing undesirables.
I don’t know if you truly mean that or you’re just being glib. But if you’re serious, I’d strongly urge you to get help or just talk to someone you know and trust; even if you disagree on a lot of things.
All of the Trump supporters I knew in meatspace reassured me that he would never do his insane tariffs, and then when he did insisted that it was a good idea and they never thought otherwise. So I no longer trust that they're telling me the truth about what they want or what they would support.
Maybe eight years ago. But in my experience, Trump supporters today have no line he can cross which will cause them to stop supporting him. They might claim to, but time after time, they just find a way to justify and double down.
If you genuinely believe that, then I have some hope that the very toxic messages I see daily in political social media, saying exactly what's being alleged here, aren't deeply held beliefs but a tiny fringe.
I don't support Trump but I see the reasoning him and Bessent have. They want to lower the interest rate so that they can also drop the rate at which they issue debt/treasuries. They seem to think they are too financially constrained but will bankrupt themselves even faster if they hold big treasury auctions at today's rates.
It'll also lead to the general public feeling inflationary impacts. I think the government would cut relief checks to mitigate this and stir public sentiment their way, but it probably wouldn't be enough to maintain current standards of living.
I continue to be surprised by people who have seen things unfold as they have over less than a year of this administration and still somehow believe we'll continue to have "free and fair" elections anytime in the near future.
We have over, and over again seeing virtually all of the "checks and balances" we learned about as kids being overridden without consequence.
This community of all other should be aware of how easy it is to exert total control of information (I'm still surprised this article is on the home page). Everyone consumes almost all of their information through digital, corporate controlled means. Even people getting together a organically socializing in bars, something that was common 30 years ago, has been replaced with online interactions. Trump does not need mandate from the people to continue to rule the country.
> Trump Regrets Not Seizing Voting Machines After 2020 Election: In an interview, the president said he should have ordered the National Guard to take the machines
We've had a number of free and fair elections in the past year, including some where the Trump-supported candidate lost. That doesn't mean we're out of the woods, but Trump has not historically been willing to go out of his way to protect the electoral fortunes of people who aren't himself, and at least some of his allies are well aware that the peace and security we presently enjoy is not guaranteed in a post-democratic US.
When it comes to harm on this scale, always expect the worst, because the harm will be generational. More importantly, Trump doesn't give a flying fuck about anything outside of the executive branch and below the federal level, because the federal level executive has control of the instruments of war. And he has already proven that nobody manning those instruments of war will disobey him. The Marines got recalled, but the National Guard didn't. This latest thing with Venezuela is just one more section of the window that's been wiped clear enough for him to see what he can do. The final bit that's still obscured is whether or not he can give direct orders to the military and security agencies to subjugate the state levels of government. I've got a large amount of certainty that within the next week or two even that bit of obscurity won't remain.
As I always tell people, if you're right there's no point in arguing about it, so the only thing I would say is that you owe it to yourself to check your predictions. Set a reminder for January 25 to confirm whether Trump has ordered the military and security agencies to invade any state capitols. I did this a few times last year, and immigration policy is really the only topic where the "expect the worst" heuristic has worked for me.
My personal belief is that he will try it and it will fail, but that will of course lead to the Coast Guard and the National Guard being rescinded from the DHS and governor's control by decree and being placed under the Navy and the Army respectively. Currently this power exists in theory, but it's never truly been implemented, even during World War II. This is something that Hegseth publicly considered when West Virginia's state Congress decided that the extended deployment of the state's National Guard troops to Washington D.C. was not within presidential power and ordered them back.
Im not convinced Trump cares anymore. For whatever reason that may be, he has decided there is nothing that can stop him at this point. There is no congress or court that will hold him accountable. His supporters are unwavering and drunk on unchecked power right now.
especially as if the risk premium for the US increases because of the methods used to challenge Fed independence, the rates that truly matter, treasury yields, will increase causing limiting how much consumers can actually benefit from lower headline rates
The MAGA crowd and their lickspittles/enablers are so far removed from reality that they only believe their leader.
And many others will vote for system-wreckers (broadly: conservatives) again, because the democrats cannot fix much of the damage done within the next legislative periods, let alone just one... even if the miracle of a trifecta happens and SCOTUS loses its majority on top of it. Rinse, repeat.
These are the very people who would help him rewrite history that yes he indeed did earn the Nobel Peace Prize as it is obviously and prominently displayed in his office, the words and records of the Nobel committee be damned.
blame Donald Trump (just like they did Biden before)
Respectfully disagree. Republican presidents get a lot more economic leeway than Dem presidents, especially from the media. This has puzzled me my entire adult life. Inflation will bother media and public, but not to the same extent it did 2021-22.
Big media works for the capital class, community newspapers and other forms of local news that are largely pro-public have been gutted. The remaining large-ish public media orgs (PBS, NPR) are currently under attack to consolidate corporate-friendly agenda-setting.
Case in point, you’d think by how things are reported that Trump brought down inflation. But inflation was down when Biden left office and Trump has done nothing to improve it.
There hasn't been a single point in my shorter life so far where things have been this out of control. The fed is supposed to be as non-political as possible. I know politics and the economy are intertwined, but tell me how this won't end up a disaster please. How do we get back to the USA we had even 10 years ago?
> but tell me how this won't end up a disaster please.
Unless you want to split hairs and argue that "disaster" is really only in the middle of the spectrum of plausible outcomes... then there is no outcome here that isn't a disaster.
At *best* this only moderately raises inflation in the short-term and somehow the rest of the world isn't shaken too much and the USD somehow still remains a reserve currency.
I'm in the "USD looses reserve currency status in 6-48 months" camp but there are some reasonable arguments against this.
This is the second or third comment I’ve seen online that says this. I’m curious how do you conclude the fed has “never been non-political?” Is this just a matter of using the right terminology? The term “non-political” (also “independent”) isn’t concerned with each board member’s individual party affiliation, or how they vote in elections. It just means that management of the fed and importantly its monetary policy I.e. the federal rate, be guided by data; not influenced by short term goals of politicians and especially not influenced by the President or his administration.
(Edit) all that to say, maybe that’s what you meant by “never at an individual level”?
I have looked at individual votes for far too many years, and they often are politically aligned as per the respective state of the voter. This is not a coincidence, and it's not something to overlook. If the votes were guided by data alone, this pattern would not exist, but it does.
And it's pitiful that he has to be a Republican for people to credit him with sincerity. I think as much as partisanship itself, poisoning discourse by labeling appeals to evidence or procedural integrity as "partisan" proves too much and gets rid of objective reality entirely, creating space for bad faith actors.
I always appreciate when people make comments like this. It helps identify the trolls or people so completely outside of reality you can mark them as untrustworthy and ignore whatever they say.
I'm sure a lot of Indian exporters thought they were amused outsiders too, until he randomly applied a 50% tariff to their country. Nearly everyone who imagines that Trump is a sideshow who couldn't possibly affect them is wrong.
I can't say I'm the biggest fan of the financial apparatus in general but it is more than a little heartening to see someone in the federal government with a spine for once.
Best of luck JPow - that was a perfect statement from the Fed.
It seems like theres a bit of an inflection point right now in the US. I wonder how much entropy the system can handle it has to be near a breaking point.
> Some countries that have prosecuted or threatened to prosecute central bankers for the purpose of political intimidation or punishment for monetary policy decisions: Argentina, Russia, Turkey, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
> If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.
> I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed—including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy—until this legal matter is fully resolved.
There’s no question about the independence of the DoJ. Its independence is undeniably gone and it is full on working as Trump’s enforcement arm. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise is a clown.
Thom Tillis is a liar and will immediately confirm whoever Trump nominates. There are no examples of Tillis or other prominent republicans ever coming together to actually effectively oppose a Trump nominee (see the current secretary of defense, or leader of DHS for evidence).
What an unhinged moment in time. At some point, they'll need to be courageous people with the ability and funds to speak up and say enough. But will they? It does not appear so.
From an institutional engineering POV (warning- I am a grouchy old former political scientist), it would be interesting to come up with institutional solutions for some of the problems America is facing right now. Specifically I think I'd remove the Attorney General role from the President's authority and give it to Senate, to nominate & confirm exclusively. Let's say 51 votes to confirm and 55 votes to impeach. Even among presidential systems, the US cabinet is unusually presidential-centric. I'm not a big LatAm expert, but I think they typically separate the public prosecutor from the president's nomination capacity.
Of course I would strongly prefer to not be a presidential system at all. But if we're discussing post-Trump constitutional reforms that could plausibly pass, I think removing the Attorney General/DOJ from the president's purview and also placing some checks on the pardon power seem doable
>Of course I would strongly prefer to not be a presidential system at all.
Having grown up in the US and having blinders on, I always thought all those parliamentary systems seemed unstable and sometimes comical. But now I see the value in it. Once a leader has demonstrated he is not up to the task, has grown out-of-touch, or has descended into madness, he can be replaced by his party, and if that didn't happen, a no-confidence vote could trigger an election. No guarantee either of those things would happen, but the option exists. The fixed four-year term idea now seems artificial and inflexible.
I suspect the current US leader and maybe even the previous US leader (maybe in his 4th year) would have suddenly found himself a back-bencher.
Also, the ‘leader’ in a parliamentary system is simply a lot less powerful. The executive is the cabinet, not the PM. The PM usually appoints it, but the ministers don’t get to fall back on ‘just following orders’; they are very much using their own authority. And again there’s always the threat of replacement of PM and re-alignment. Realistically, the threat is more important than the thing itself.
I'm not sure if it's true that the leader is less powerful.
In many countries, it seems that the leader has near total control over candidate selection, and dissent is punished ruthlessly.
In the US, it's easier for a member of Congress to openly dissent against the President's agenda. This was a major thorn in the side for e.g. Joe Biden.
Some Republicans today fear dissenting (though of course, most are enthusiastically on board), but I'm not sure that it would be any different in a place like Canada or the UK.
> Having grown up in the US and having blinders on, I always thought all those parliamentary systems seemed unstable and sometimes comical.
There are so many different variables between countries, and plain luck, that it's tough to extrapolate too much, but this just jumped out a bit for me as a Canadian - the average Canadian PM term has historically been marginally longer than the average American Presidential time in office.
This would give congress much more power over the Executive branch. The justice department is run by the Executive branch. Congress's job is to legislate, not prosecute crimes. A president can be voted out or impeached if they do something bad.
It's not like campaigning and running elections are terribly hard these days. The AG (and other heads of independent executive departments) should be each their own races voted on by the public. (Yes, this obviously requires repudiating this new innovative brain damage called sparkling autocracy theory^W^W^W unitary executive theory.)
We also need Ranked Pairs voting so we end this two party duopoly bullshit. Primaries can remain, but voters should be able to vote in all parties' primaries (rather than having to pick just one).
We also need some sort of recall mechanism, either periodic option to vote no confidence (twice a year when elections/primaries are already held?), or something triggered when signatures/polling get high enough.
Since I'm making my Christmas list, we also need to drastically neuter sovereign and qualified immunity - remove their applicability for any action not explicitly authorized by the legislature (and Constitution). No more general "agents of the government" who unilaterally act with impunity, with only narrow legal ways of recovering damages.
But part of the difficulty that has precipitated our current situation is the absolute gridlock in Congress for the past twenty+ years. That's what pushed more and more power into the executive and executive agencies. I don't know if Ranked Pairs would be enough to fix that with fresh blood, or we need more direct democracy (voters can override their sen/rep vote on a bill?), or what. Maybe triple the number of sen/reps from each district so that voters won't feel they're losing their experienced politicians if they vote out the worst of the three.
I believe that if Trumpism is overthrown (because that's probably what it will take) there will be considerable effort to change the rules and set up strong constraints on the executive branch that cannot just be worked around by blowing past the guardrails. Trump exposed how weak the balance of powers actually is and how much it relies on (somewhat) good actors.
I dislike the existence of the Fed, but I dislike the idea of the executive branch being in control of monetary policy even more. I'll be tuning in to see how the case progresses.
You can dislike a solution but admit that you can't think of a better solution, or specify that it is better than an even worse solution.
I can see why someone would have a issues with "a bunch of rich bankers appointed by politicians" controlling American monetary policy. But I can't really see a better way at least, until we can achieve a post-scarcity economy or something.
Bernanke had a strictly academic career before going into public service (and was/is probably one of the foremost experts on the Great Depression, something that was handy in 2008/9):
I think people over-estimate how many "rich bankers" are in the Fed, especially at the FOMC.
Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast with some Fed members in recent years, especially the more obscure regional ones, about their work, and how they often go out and talk to local businesses about what's happening 'on the ground'.
I’m not denying that, but that’s not how I read the comment. That comment comes across as a relief that the Fed is under attack, but is more upset that the source of attack is the executive branch.
The appears to be difficult for a lot of people to like, but the Fed still exists because the people who bitch and moan about the Fed can never voice an alternative that wouldn't immediately destroy everything if it were implemented.
The eradication of the Fed and fiat money. As others have expressed, I also think the interest rate mechanism is clumsy and that bailouts do more harm in the long term than good (see one of the most recent examples [1]).
The libertarian view is that interest rates should be decided by the free market and not a central bank. Mainly due to what we're seeing now (the executive trying to take it over) and that a small board of people can make bad decisions that have reaching effects.
Markets don't always seek equilibrium. Some aspects of the economy tend to be governed by vicious and virtuous feedback cycles. Always leaving everything to markets feels like more of a religion than a reasonable policy position.
This is actually quite correct. The Fed Funds policy interest rate is a clumsy instrument because it involves chasing the ever-shifting balancing point of an inherently unstable system. You "cut" rates to increase money creation, which actually pushes your long-term rates higher due to expected inflation and leads to even more money creation for a constant policy rate, and vice versa. This can all be fixed very simply by changing the instrument to a crawling exchange rate peg, which has an inherently stabilizing effect, as seen from the effectiveness of currency board systems - that system doesn't shift against you if you stick to a bad peg, whereas it very much does if you stick to a bad policy rate.
The long term policy goal (stability in the path of nominal incomes (prices + real activity) in the very short run, and prices in the medium-to-long run) would be unaffected, but the whole operational aspect would be simplified quite a bit.
> The Fed Funds policy interest rate is a clumsy instrument because it involves chasing the ever-shifting balancing point of an inherently unstable system.
I don't know about "inherently unstable system", given that as central bank independence has grown so has, generally speaking, monetary stability:
Great Moderation basically involved the adoption of price stability as a long-term policy target, as opposed to trying to keep long-term fixed exchange rates. There's no reason to change the policy target, the issue is wrt. the policy mechanism/instrument.
You asked about which piece "of the dual mandate", but the OP said "operates as" which I am going to reply to.
Does the Fed can any data from labor sources or unions? I am asking in honest because the few reports from them that I have looked into(mostly around unemployment) all seem to be polls solely sourced from investor class assets like companies.
If they are only sourcing from one biased source for their data, they wouldn't have to have a bad mandate or manipulate it, to operate like it was for the benefit of the data source, right?
It prevents banks from doing their job, so does the existence of t-bills.
They hinder the economy by suppressing creativity and ingenuity . Every time a person becomes an investor instead of an inventor the economy and prosperity of a nation falthers.
You just don't see it in stats because stats can't measure against hypotheticals but that doesn't mean it isn't true
No it did not. I don't know why people repeat this so often but it is very frustrating. Nixon unilaterally ended the gold standard because the US was printing money to pay for Vietnam and the rest of the world called the US on its bullshit. The end of the gold standard is relatively recent in history and the verdict is still out on the impact.
I think your observation assumes that inflating the value of gold relative to the rest of economy is a problem - if you do not care about that I'm not sure it matters.
In any case gold served as a strong check on monetary policy even if it had problems. Certainly it is possible to have a "sound" monetary policy without gold. I'm just not convinced in societies ability to affect sound governance of monetary policy without some "stronger" guard rails. Especially not in today's climate.
No one. We should be on a hard money standard. The Fed shouldn't be able to socialize the impact of bad business decisions like what was recently done with Silicon Valley Bank using the BTFP. Sometimes consequences need to be realized, even at the cost of bad downstream impact to those indirectly involved. It's the only way for more resilient systems to arise since our current system interrupts important feedback mechanisms.
Threats like the ones Powell's receiving would be the end of any other presidency. Why tech elites continue to align themselves with this clownshow will be a source of incredible shame that I'll hold onto forever.
I think a lot of largest tech companies feel that they'll face retribution from the current administration for not being supportive enough but would not from future admins.
For many of the smaller players I think there's unfortunately a lot of people who realized there's significant money to be made in grifting. Many of the largest crypto proponents have pivoted into endeavors, whether crypto or otherwise, that profit off of being rewarded for being part of the 'correct' tribe.
> I think a lot of largest tech companies feel that they'll face retribution from the current administration for not being supportive enough but would not from future admins.
Hopefully we get the opportunity to disabuse them of this notion.
> I think a lot of largest tech companies feel that they'll face retribution from the current administration for not being supportive enough but would not from future admins.
The Democrats should play hardball but the geriatrics can barely take a swing.
They don’t know where the plate is, what the game is, or what day it is. They’re just hoping for ice cream when the nurse comes around with the meds. Meanwhile they are retelling stories from the 1960s for the hundredth time.
This is exactly it and parallels what happened with the end of the Wiemar Republic. There was an asymmetry in response between the Nazis and the government. You can see that in the limited prosecution and light sentences of the Beer Hall Putsch perpetrators.
The tech titans like Thiel see the Trump administration as a "big bet" a startup investment. They can "shoot for the moon" and try to realize the network state. If they fail, they figure they'll just toss the Democrats some campaign contributions and all will be good.
I would be heavily predisposed to vote for any candidate who had a public goal of breaking up the big tech companies and taxing their CEOs into oblivion. I want this primarily because of the immediate about-face they all had when Trump 2.0 was elected and them all contributing to and standing behind him during his inauguration. Had they not, mercifully, all shown themselves as the snakes that they are I probably would have mostly continued to considere them a-political-ish and not been strongly opinionated.
AI is a bubble; well, the stock market as a whole is, being led by an AI boom. At the end of a bubble (and it's not clear if we're there yet) markets find ways to self-finance. A crash means not just that the value is lower, but that the leveraged bets are now due, and those have to be paid by selling more.
When it crashes (and it's not clear when that will be), it will crash back to a cash-value baseline. And, sigh, it's not clear where that is. But it won't magically start going back up. The cyclic reinvestment engine needs to be reinvented every time.
The entire reason the markets give the response wanted after a rate cut is because of the decision being made independently of politics. A politically enforced rate cut may still boost the economy in the short term, over the longer term the interest rate mechanism will not be trusted. This will defeat the entire purpose for very limited gain.
Behind all of this is another fact that the conditions around the U.S. reserve currency are changing quickly. This is happening with just interest payments on existing debt being the largest cost every year.
No matter who controls the Government, soon they will all be forced to cut spending in a large way and be forced to try to inflate themselves out of this coming debt crisis.
Guarantee there are dozens if not more in the admin insider trading like they have on so many announcements. Market manipulation right out in the open.
The slimiest swampiest criminals, they need to be put on trial.
The titanic amount of generational neglect that has allowed even a fraction of voters to look at Trump for more than a second and find him qualified for any public office is truly fantastic.
This is one of the clear examples that Trump is seeing Putin's Russia as a model for his vision for the USA.
Venezuela, Greenland, and this. Anyone notice how these extreme events all happened around the same time of the Epstein files getting released with highly publicized questions about all the redactions? It certainly seems like a distraction game.
The difference is that the actions and rhetoric around Venezuela and Greenland and the Fed reserve are direct actions by Trump. The thing in Minnesota is a tragedy but I don’t think he told anyone to go out and kill somebody on the street.
I ask you to look deeper into what's happening there and reconsider your stance. US citizens are being beaten up and harassed, as are non-citizens. ICE officers are using their cars to ram observers and then arresting them violently. They arrested a teenaged clerk at target and then threw him out of a vehicle onto the street upon realizing he was a citizen. A woman was filmed being taken into a portapotty in handcuffs by a federal agent. The violence is quite clearly systematic. Watch the videos.
The stuff I mentioned, the clear escalation, happened over the last few days, starting on the 7th. Along with the USDA suddenly cutting off all funds to Minnesota (which includes SNAP benefits for > 100k people). I don't see how this is any different.
I find myself seeking out non-doomer people to read, since the doom and gloom doesn't really help, it's just demotivating. "Look for the helpers" and all that.
It's a particular and kind of peculiar attitude, because objectively "things ain't great" and it's really easy to dwell on that. But we also need some hope.
Lots of respected limits and lines on government power are just being casually broken, so I don't think you're wrong. Whatever's going to happen next it probably won't have the stability of the past.
I hope I turn out to be wrong, but the most convincing explanation I've seen for the "why" is that the 1945-2000 period was an anomaly, and now we're reverting to the mean: despotic governments, frequent wars for territory, and massive wealth inequality leading to powerful oligarchies as the only other important political players aside from the despot. This was the norm for the overwhelming majority of human history and perhaps it was massively hubristic to think we had escaped it for good.
It's not the only anomaly. There was a previous period of long peace between 1815 and 1914, between the Napoleonic Wars and WW1.
This balance of power was carefully set up in the Congress of Vienna following the (first) defeat of Napoleon, and was ended by the ambitions of a Kaiser who desired the prestige of globe-spanning empire yet couldn't diplomacy his way out of a wet paper bag to realize that empire without bumbling into war.
Thank you for pointing this out. It is really interesting, the difference between Trump 45 and Trump 47.
I would like to add one quote to be logged on this website:
> "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler," he wrote privately to an associate on Facebook in 2016. [0]
- Trump's future Vice President, JD Vance
If we survive the fall of Pax Americana in the next few years, and journalists and historians are again allowed to operate in a free environment, I really hope that they get to the core of how we got from 45 to 47.
The only reasonable conclusion at this point is that the fascists in the white house see their deep unpopularity, obvious loss of power in the near future (they have lost nearly every election in the past year by a landslide), and the Epstein files closing in. The obvious outcome will be at minimum jail and ridicule due to their continuous and obvious corruption, high crimes and misdemeanors like invading Venezuela, trying to invade Greenland, and sexual crimes against children. So they have to accelerate chaos to try and destroy law and order before it catches up with them and destroys them.
Its time to put up or get put down by masked goons.
"Has been set," not "will be set". We've been operating under the new scheme for months. Despite Powell's protestations, there was no evidence for cutting rates, and lots of evidence for doing the opposite. Unfortunately he gave in to Trump... but that obviously wasn't enough.
As a side note, is there a compelling reason why interest rates aren't set algorithmically? I assume human intuition isn't really a factor in setting them. This would eliminate concerns about political motivation.
Economic models are complex and far from perfect, and we're still waiting for Hari Seldon's psychohistory models to be created to tie together macroeconomics and macropsychology.
But who sets the algorithm? Whichever department of branch of govt was in charge of that would become have the enormous power, and political motivation would then fall to that.
Equally the same for data that goes into the algorithm - if you can control that you control interest rates.
Agreed, but we're already living that reality. Moving to an algorithmic approach provides a layer of transparency that makes manipulation easier to detect.
There's some slippery feedback loops involved, even if the models were very good, the reflexive nature of doing something like this would be very hard to get around
> is there a compelling reason why interest rates aren't set algorithmically?
Can’t believe you are saying that!! Then anyone can manipulate it like they manipulate stocks by writing hit pieces one day and gushing articles a few days after,
It's quite impressive how scared everybody is of this administration. News outlets, international leaders even in face of threats, big tech, including the delusional Musk who thought he could've handled the president's rage.
Hell even his own party is scared of speaking up, you either fall in line or you risk falling victim of the most vicious direct attacks, even if you've been a huge and core voice for the president, see senator Marjorie Green.
From Russia, to Belarus, from the Philippines to Argentina, from Hungary to Poland it's crystal clear what a failure of democracy it is to have a presidential republic.
The turning point may have been when the Supreme Court decided a president couldn't be criminally liable for anything done in office. Having no fear of consequences is quite an enabler.
This will continue until people actually get hurt. Trump is exactly what decadence looks like: people willing to vote for "their team" against any better judgement because nothing really every happens to hurt them.
The defense is that the status quo has become archaic and self-serving instead of serving the public so the current operations people doing some house cleaning and tossing a few rooms to see what’s going on in there is overdue, changes need to happen and power structures need to be shaken out a bit to make sure they are not getting in the way of the people they were created to act on behalf of, and scatter the ones who are “helping themselves” to the public coffers.
This just needs to happen every across all government, it’s like brushing your teeth to kick out the bacteria, but each individual institution needs a different kind of “floss” depending on the nature of the ways they have strayed from their original purposes.
That sounds nice, but I don't think there is much evidence that the above is actually what the current administration is doing, or even attempting to do.
Having blatantly political messages blasted across websites for national parks and on airport security video screens during the shutdown, for example, doesn't seem like a move towards "serving the public", but rather a move towards consolidation of direct control to the politicians at the top of the executive branch.
there’s just a lot of partisan media outlets that are trying to make it look this way because it’s the corruption paying to try and stop it so they can keep power
I don’t see evidence of corruption all I see is a system already heavily steeped in corruption and regulatory capture that is using fake and ironic anti-establishment narratives to try and keep it.
The most-unamerican thing you can do right now is HOLD bitcoin/gold/silver.
If you still want fiat — and they're available — Swiss Francs are deflating least-quickly.
Otherwise, as a fellow pleb, my best advice is to get enough bullets for occassional hunting (and other tax-free methods of living) and protection.
If you're of a draftable age/gender, I'd either get extremely fit or extremely disabled. If you're a lard-ass, I'd get to a state where you can live without medicines.
I'm not arguing against QE I am saying there was too much of it and we could have had recovered just fine without the severe inflation that landed us in the current predicament.
So this is the bar for the next country to surpass the US as the world's economic super-power, if this continues it's most likely going to be China to surpass the US.
An opportunity for the EU to stop its bureaucracy and cleanup its act. If it cannot convince anyone that they are next, then one can argue that democracy is completely finished.
If this nonsense continues it will be the UAE + Saudi Arabia + China, cutting off the west and that's that.
Terrible. Trump was even the person who nominated Powell in 2017, and now he’s being squeezed for doing the job of Federal Reserve Chair instead of bending to demands.
They're already pursuing a case against another Fed board member, and now this? I have a feeling these two cases are going to suffer the same fate as the Letita James and James Comey cases: thrown out due to incompetence and/or malfeasance. It's a disgusting, clear weaponization of the DOJ.
MAGA, of course, tried to accuse Biden of weaponizing them during his term so that they could justify the Trump 2.0 revenge tour. Now we're here.
What about another nice dinner with all the Silicon Valley CEOs paying their respect to the orange dictator? I'm sure that will appease him.
What a bunch of spineless puppets.
(Boring, important thing that holds civilization together.)
Dunning-Kruger effect billionaire: We don't need that. What's it even for anyhow? I'm not paying for it. All these naysaying wimps and freeloaders say we can't live without out. I will use my unelected government position and bling chainsaw to cut fraud, waste, and abuse to eliminate red tape and unnecessary big government regulation. And I demand a negative tax rate, subsidies, and lucrative government contracts! Rawr!
If Trump does try to politicize the fed he is going to do the one thing that the American political system will not tolerate - messing with the money of the most powerful capital class in the world. Normally, the incentives of this class are most aligned with grinding the rest of us into a fine powder suitable for lubrication of the engines of commerce, but hopefully just this once they'll come to the rescue. My only fear is that the short term quarterly obsessions that we've built might actually lead to some business supporting this decision out of a suicidal drive for short term gains.
If Trump does try to politicize the fed he is going to do the one thing that the American political system will not tolerate
I've lost track of the number of times I, and others, have said that.
Turns out there really are no brakes on the Trump Train. In the parlance of the metallic-headgear fans, any other POTUS would have been treated to a nice convertible ride through downtown Dallas by now.
The point is better (and stands on its own) without treading into personal attacks. Don't let a throwaway account bait you into turning it into a battle of name calling instead of sticking to readily available facts as you link at the end, it's what they often want and if they were sincere it severely diminishes the chances they'll believe your links were in good faith anyways.
Facts matter, as does telling people it is on them to understand them. Otherwise, we will spin in perpetuity refuting people who are not discussing in good faith. I stand by my assertions. I do not believe it is impolite to call out a potential lack of education, or ignoring of facts and reality. Without shared facts and reality, discussion and debate is impossible.
This is every part I agree with, with none of falling for the trap of looking bad for doing so. They've already edited the comment and posted a new one. Now the insults stand rather than just what you've said here, which was perfectly even keeled and factual.
If you're going to put the energy into refuting something, why bother wasting it by using personal insults to kick it off instead? Uneducated is at least borderline, if a bit blunt, but unsophisticated just drains any value.
I appreciate you deeply for standing up to it, I just don't want to see doing so made to look bad when the facts presented were so solid and good.
I don’t believe asserting that someone is uneducated or unsophisticated is an insult (if true); it is simply a fact and description, and stands regardless of the content of the post. Where you see malice, I see honesty and truth. “If this, then that.”
There are educated people, uneducated people, sophisticated people, and unsophisticated people (and overlap amongst). You will need to tailor your approach accordingly when dealing with each persona.
Hmm, I suppose people can see words in very different ways. If you're mother asked why the printer never works for her would you tell her she's uneducated and unsophisticated for not knowing before sending a link to the manual? It sounds like perhaps you would, but I wonder how many would really agree that's a neutrally worded approach.
Not for me to decide alone any more than anyone else alone I suppose. Thanks for sharing your perspective on it.
Yes, and she would understand why, but that is certainly different than a throwaway account making antagonistic, inflammatory political statements without citations and ignoring facts, no? Context, intent, and nuance, like facts, matter (imho).
It seems likely she would, and we are often similar to our kin I guess, but I still wonder if that's what the average person would consider neutral. I have no good way to answer that absolutely more than the next person though.
I tend to think that's because it doesn't matter who it is, it's always most productive to reply in a way which focuses on substance alone when one can't otherwise be positive. Particularly in pure text, it's so easy for things to come off worse than intended (something which has hit me quite well in the past as much as any). I've always assumed that's why the comment guidelines are so universally worded, mentioning what throwaways should be used for but with no mention of how they should be exempted from the usual approach. I.e. it's very easy for two people to feel like they are being neutral in text as the conversation escalates.
I've got to hop off for to get ready for work tomorrow. Thanks again for both taking the time to share your perspective as well as taking the time to respond to mal-intended throwaways with solid facts - it matters (thumbs up).
“Trump appointees to the US Commission of Fine Arts, however, required the project use more white marble to align with a proposed presidential mandate from the president that all new federal buildings be neoclassical in style. This luxury white marble comes from Georgia and has been used extensively in the construction of national landmarks including the U.S. Capitol. Aside from Georgia marble, the materials used throughout the Fed’s renovation are required to be sourced domestically.
“And to match the original marble facades and detailed interiors, the Fed is required to use specialized processes more costly than those allowed in Washington buildings without historical significance or not on the National Mall.”
Do you know anything about how data science works? The algorithm is to be tuned over historical data to optimize for an unchanging reward function. The problem isn't that complicated if you think about it.
> The algorithm is to be tuned over historical data
So you’re saying that historical data can’t have biases? Data cannot be collected and shared (or not collected a la jobs report) to manipulate the output? Seems a bit of a naïve take if you ask me.
If data is not collected, it is missing. A decent algorithm will be robust to missing data.
How on earth do you think the Fed sets the rate? Each board member probably has a simple spreadsheet, although they use their gut feeling in the end. It's markedly less objective and completely un-transparent.
People here are funny in that when I preach for transparency and objectivity, they preach for obscurity and individual board member bias. Their skepticism of data science shows how uneducated they are about defining and optimizing an objective function.
I’m not saying I’m against an algorithm. I’m saying that I’m against _only_ an algorithm. And we do want transparency and objectivity - nobody is denying this. I’ve worked with enough data to know that there are implicit biases, and just because data exists doesn’t mean it’s good. Let’s just say I’m skeptical that an algorithm alone can replace the Fed.
> although they use their gut feeling in the end.
That gut feeling check is pretty crucial, I think. Why not just work to make the Fed a more transparent org? And let’s say it is by an algorithm - will it be open sourced so it can be vetted?
Edit: also more crucially, who’s responsible when the algorithm fucks up?
That's just something they say to scare the children.
In any event, the point of a decent algorithm is that if the result isn't complying with the action, upcoming updates to the weights will fix it. Moreover, changes to the weight would be such that they optimize for maximum learning.
It is so weird seeing people preach for an obscure entity to do something so basic, and being shut down when asking for transparency. Today's AIs could write good model-development algorithms for tasks that are a hundred times more complicated.
Oops, the unaccountable algorithm eased when it should have tightened and Volcker Shocked when it should have eased. No prob, the weights will get tweaked and all will be well. Once the economic crisis blows over, anyway . . .
> That's just something they say to scare the children.
Is that really your response to “past results aren’t indicative of future performance”? Honestly at that point why not just let ChatGPT run loose and set guidance? Please, I implore you to think about the issue a bit deeper.
Criminal investigations in this administration are just a means of pressure and harassment, they have zero bearing on any suspicion of criminal activity. I predict that within a few days Powell will be the recipient of death threats. That's the second part of the pattern.
This administration has not been operating the DoJ in good faith. One only has to look at the buffoonish attempts to push through charges on Comey, James and other political opponents to see that.
Treating the investigation in good faith is not being neutral or unbiased. Expecting more of the same is.
Because it is very clear to most people - you excepted, apparently - that this is not a normal case but one that is solely predicated on putting pressure on someone who is not acting on Donald Trump's whim but based on their job description. If Powell would have reduced the interest rates further this would have never happened.
The DOJ is now weaponized as a political tool, rather than that it is used for its real purpose. If you refuse to see this that's on you, not even on Donald Trump. The FED is independent for a reason, you are seeing that mechanism in action and so far no US president has every made a move like this.
Building is much cheaper than renovation which is much cheaper than preservation. Ambitious project goals preserving unique historical assets make this project inherently expensive.
> ... complete overhaul and modernization that preserves two historic buildings that have not been comprehensively renovated since their construction in the 1930s ...
Without the Fed, how would you advise the nation deal with events like the Great Depression, the Great Recession, or COVID? Would you disagree that the Feds actions shortened these events and thus helped the public in the process?
Yes, I would disagree that the Fed has any positive influence whatsoever. It should be abolished and we should solve our problems with policy that relates to them and not pro-capital financial manipulation.
Have you read up on the wildcat banking era? The Fed, although far from perfect, was created to solve systemic problems with the decentralized American financial sector of its time. Chesterson’s fence is vital to discussions like these.
Doesn't the Fed do exactly that though? And without political influence? What would a different pro-labor system look like that could deal with national monetary crises?
I would argue that the Fed manipulating our financial system causes monetary crisis. The Fed is under the influence of capital which doesn't have the benefit of being even nominally checked by democracy. Were we (speaking as an American) to invest in our country and people we would have a healthier society and the means to deal with actual crisis.
> I would argue that the Fed manipulating our financial system causes monetary crisis.
Well, get ready because you aint seen nothin yet if you thought the Fed was manipulating our financial system. Do you honestly think a partisan system would be better?
As opposed to unhealthy unemployment which means the system collapses. Zero unemployment is not going to happen in any normally functioning society, though in the former USSR it existed. That included a lot of busywork (changing traffic lights, for instance, and requiring three cashiers to buy a bread).
The US government entered a debt spiral a while ago (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A091RC1Q027SBEA), and needs lower interest rates to service its tremendous debt while trying to inflate it away by printing money. That's all it comes down to. For decades fiscal conservatives were warning about it and were laughed at. Now that we're are the end game the inevitable shitshow will become apparent. You can hate Trump (rightly so), but as much as he did contribute to the problem directly, the problem is larger and systemic, and anyone else in office would have the exact same problem now.
Exactly, interest rates must come down due to the government debt burden. This debt burden creates a strong incentive to force rates to zero, but we have to pretend the Federal Reserve is independent.
Separately, I think Jerome Powell is one of the worst Fed chairs as he is most (but not exclusively) responsible for what happened to the housing market by creating a lock-in effect and focusing on their CPI basket.
Trump is, of course, wrong. But the independence of the Fed being at stake is a myth. Since the bursting of the dot com bubble, the Fed has operated as if the well being of the investor class is their number one priority.
If you are a complete normie, turn back now, it's gonna get conspiratorial. Otherwise, read on for some insights.
First, one must understand that the Federal Reserve was the main trojan horse vehicle for the European banking families into America. Read any number of good books, starting with the latest edition of G. Edward Griffins "The Creature from Jekyll Island".
But all that is mostly known already to those who have payed attention and done the reading... so whats next?
My conclusion is that America is being setup, in multiple ways (fall guy for global empire, etc), but one major setup that is going on right now is a twofer: 1) Jack up the US economy at any time by raising rates and unraveling the ponzi scheme and 2) If you do 1), you have the perfect excuse to try to implement some CBDC-esque new system, but this time with much more surveillance tech, for example unified ledgers that merge digital identity with financial identity, with ESG and social credit style added on. Read Whitney Webb for more on the structures being put in place for this.
So what is happening is that Trump knows the people that control the Fed, for whom the Fed chair is a mere mouthpiece, really want to suddenly and unexpectedly hike rates and soon, but Trump doesn't want it to happen under his last term, so he has been doing major backroom maneuvering to influence the Fed every time a rate-change date is coming up. Essentially he wants to kick the can to the next POTUS, but since the Fed is technically independent, it really can do whatever it wants, all he can do is fire after the fact. My guess is they will drop it on him late term, a perfect excuse to usher in the political pendulum swing of the hegelian game they play with us.
To me, that this backroom maneuvering is becoming more public tells me they really want to do the sudden rate hike.
I’m a little shocked to see the quality of some comments here - I would expect a more grounded discussion. This is like Reddit / YouTube comment history. Someone please tell me this is a Wendy’s.
Sure the Fed isn’t perfect. But we don’t really have a better solution as of now because our financial systems are extremely powerful and anyone in office would love to abuse it if they can.
Sure, the renovations are ridiculous. But it’s not like this administration is austere in the slightest, so that’s a bit rich. Not to mention the cronyism prevalent across the cabinet.
There's also little genuine conversation to be had. The situation is bad, has been bad, and seems to only be getting worse. That's the only interpretation any rational person can hold. And, when everyone has the same opinion and that opinion is drastic, that creates a circle jerk.
Not the renovations themselves but the cost is supposedly at 2.5B. Personally I don’t really mind but I also don’t think government buildings need to be all that fancy with marble flooring.
It was budgeted at 1.9B (in 2019). Most of the cost overruns are from unexpected site issues like asbestos (more than thought) and water table problems. The buildings are historic, they already had marble. The marble was taken down and saved, this marble will be re-used. Some pieces are damaged, those will be new marble. These buildings are near 100 years old. I also don't think they have marble floors, but facades and other stonework.
I don't understand the cost either, apparently it only costs around a billion dollars to build a skyscraper? The Burj Khalifa only cost one and a half billion dollars when completed in 2010. I don't know that there's criminal activity here, but the cost of this is rather surprising to me. I knew the Federal Reserve was being renovated, but I thought it was something closer to a hundred million dollars.
Far too many people decide to occupy the us vs. them part of their brain with National politics as opposed to sports.
Both are basically useless as it relates to your personal quality of life but at least with the latter you can see nice geometric combinations between players on a pitch and some incredible athleticism in between
Do you think that criminal prosecution for Jerome Powell for maybe doing something wrong with some building renovations under timing that just happens to coincide with the President’s personal and public vendetta against this person is worth steelmanning?
At some point it stops being steelmanning and starts becoming an invitation for some propaganda to distract from the obvious.
The more obvious something seems the more valuable steelmanning becomes, precisely because if the only steelman arguments you get (if any) are propaganda at best (instead of reasons you just hadn't considered) then you can be that much more confident your outrage is based in reason rather than feelings. My guess is there won't be many coming up with steelman arguments for this one though anyways.
Inviting propaganda is good, let the obviously weak arguments come front and center to be logically considered and ridiculed rather than put in small private group chats where they seem to grow and grow. This only works, in any way, if people stop saying things aren't worth having consideration about because it's obvious to them.
I understand the theory of steelmanning, but in cases like this it's just an high-brow version of the "both sides" style of journalism where you pretend like both sides are similarly plausible and deserve equal consideration. At the extremes, the steelmanning can turn into a game of giving the other side more consideration.
> Inviting propaganda is good, let the obviously weak arguments come front and center to be logically considered and ridiculed
That's literally what I'm doing: Ridiculing the obviously weak arguments.
And do you know what's happening? My ridicule and dismissiveness are being talked down, while you invite someone to "steelman" the argument instead. This pattern happens over and over again in spaces where steelmanning is held up as virtuous: It's supposed to be a tool for bringing weak arguments into the light so they can be dismissed, yet the people dismissing are told to shush so we can soak up the propaganda from the other side.
An invitation for steelmanning isn't about setting aside equal consideration regardless of the quality of the arguments brought, it's about giving equal chance to even consider other ideas when one cannot seem to find any on their one. When the merits are poor, that leaves far less than equal consideration of them in the end. Making the consideration brought forth equal in total time spent regardless of quality has nothing to do with the steelmanning process. A weak steelman argument is precisely a confirmation the opposing view is not worth much consideration, if any.
> That's literally what I'm doing: Ridiculing the obviously weak arguments.
>
> And do you know what's happening? My ridicule and dismissiveness are being talked down, while you invite someone to "steelman" the argument instead. This pattern happens over and over again in spaces where steelmanning is held up as virtuous: It's supposed to be a tool for bringing weak arguments into the light so they can be dismissed, yet the people dismissing are told to shush so we can soak up the propaganda from the other side.
So far all I've seen in this chain is complaint of the possibility other arguments may be brought up for fear we'd have to consider them if they were. At no point is the goal supposed to be everyone ends up agreeing with how one particular person sees things, it's supposed to be that what everyone believes they understand is openly put on the table a given appropriate consideration for the merits of the points presented. There will always be someone upset their position receives ridicule, that's neither here nor there for those wanting to strengthen their understanding of the situation instead of demand any other discussion can only ever be propaganda and should not be given a single thought. Again, a lot of the time the steelman idea is still bad - and that's still a good signal which doesn't require one give that position equal weight in the end.
As a casual follower of economic news and completely ignorant of politics, my guess is that the administration believes the fed isn't acting according to mandate of stability and jobs. I have no clue how valid that is
Trump thinks lowering the interest rates means market goes up before election. That's all there is to it everyone knows it's not about stability and jobs
I hate Trump but Treasury control over central banks and interest rates is not a particularly revolutionary thing. Independent central bank is a relatively new invention and a non-independently controlled central reserve bank did not always lead to immediate implosion in all cases. The concept of independent central bank only became popularized in the 1920s. The world existed before that.
The dire thing here is that Trump himself is a maniac, so him taking control is very scary, but a non-independent central bank itself is not as big a calamity as 1000 other problems we're facing in society.
You can find many criticisms of the job performance of many of the past chairs of the US fed, the Fed is not infallible. The current Everything Bubble / Too Big to Fail situation we are in is largely of their creation.
The interest rates? If you wanted to crash demand for dollar various things makes a bit more sense. Venezuela might be more about threatening BRICS if you squint at it. The EU–Mercosur agreement looks like it might pass - timing is kind of weird. There is maybe a kind of logic to it for exports but I think it lowers the standard of living for us plebs.
I like jpow so I’m biased for sure. But when I zoom out, I think the thing some people are missing is the arbitrage aspect. With US politics, we typically get a choice between two people. Often it’s a choice between the lesser evil. Many of Trumps voters were not people who liked Trump, but people who were horrified by Kamala. This means Trump can arbitrage that gap, and do all sorts of disagreeable things as long as he remains the lesser evil to his voters, those disagreeable acts will be ignored come election time. Many Trump voters will be aghast at him weaponizing the courts to chip away at the independence of the fed, but they’ll vote for him and his preferred candidates because they feel the alternative is even worse.
The important implication is that resistance or countering with extremism in the other direction only makes him stronger. To defeat Trump the left will need to move closer to the middle so he has less room for that kind of political arbitrage. Alas emotion seems to be in greater supply than strategic thinking so probably things will get worse before they get better.
I am surprised by the negative comments, the low interest rates = better thesis has always been somewhat popular on HN , now just because Trump is saying it (and operating to get there) it becomes an issue or something not to be aligned with.
There are countless comments and discussions on this board about how:
1) interest rates should be zero,
2) interest rates being non-zero create a misallocation of capital where there is a return on an investment without any ingenuity or creation behind
3) Banks are too risk averse to lending and their risk averse behavior is due to the risk free rate they enjoy when they park money at the Fed and when they buy T-bills
No matter how little ingenuity or creation is required to keep afloat a zombie company or a dubious startup, for sure it's a notch higher than what happens when that money is parked at the Fed or invested in t-bills...
the fed's goal is zero interest rate, it's not that people are negative because "tRuMp SaId So" it's because he's trying to influence the fed's decision with criminal prosecution of the chair and not through his economic policy. His policy is ass and that's why the fed can't get back to their ZIRP goal
Even if one disagrees with Fed policy, the way Trump is having the DoJ criminally prosecute Powell under unrelated pretexts is disgraceful and undermines the Fed’s independence.
"In every case, I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of price stability and maximum employment."
I take any claims of absolute neutrality with a huge grain of salt. Besides, he's an unelected bureaucrat. He can only pretend to represent the interests of the people.
Puerile and uninformative, unfortunately. I respect that each of us has their world view, but if the last decade has shown anything at all, it is that when you are in the public square, you are asking for interlocution, not for escapism to be indulged. And the best thing is to do as you implicitly ask, and interlocute.
The US drift into Adam Curtis' broad thesis in hypernormalisation(a) continues apace I see. Great to see J Pow putting up a fight but I fear this is all going one way.
(a) >We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They don't care. We say we care but do nothing.
> I fear this is all going one way
That belief isn't the consequence of the situation, but the cause. There is ample ability to change events, but people must believe they can act and act together, as they have for centuries of democracy and for all human history. They do it in Iran. The Republicans and MAGA movement have made changes that would have been unbelievable ten years ago.
> There is ample ability to change events, but people must believe they can act and act together, as they have for centuries of democracy and for all human history.
This is the political will of a plurality of American voters. They certainly can't claim they didn't know what they would get, and they seem unconcerned by any of these actions that many of us find terrifying.
It is difficult to see how we can democracy our way out of this situation.
> This is the political will of a plurality of American voters.
This fallacy gets repeated over and over, but it's obviously false.
Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? It's a quintessential fact of politics that voting for a candidate is not equivalent to an endorsement of everything that candidate does in the future. It's a premise that is obviously false when we consider our own votes, but it feels cathartic to force the claim on to the other side.
This administration's net approval rating flipped net negative very quickly after his election and has been trending downward. It's just navel-gazing to pretend like what he's doing has high approval.
> It's just navel-gazing to pretend like what he's doing has high approval
Then how is it being reflected in Congress? Where are the Republicans speaking loudly on behalf of their dissatisfied constituents and voting on bills accordingly? We shouldn't have to wait every two years for a midterms or general election for the negative approval rating to make itself known, politicians can choose any time to act in a way that shows they're listening to their constituents.
> Then how is it being reflected in Congress?
“What people support” and “what politicians do” isn’t as strongly correlated as one might hope.
He just explained how it works for the presidency, why is it so hard to extend that logic to other elected officials?
they're basically fucked. they can't turn against Leader, because their base would abandon them immediately. But they desperately wish they could hold him back, because they are well aware they are going to get creamed in November.
as far as "bills", there's no bills because that's up to Mike Johnson who is a super loyalist. His district is very safe (Cook R+26).
> their base would abandon them immediately...they are going to get creamed in November.
These seem contradictory. So they risk losing their voters if they oppose Trump, but also know voters will vote them out?
>that's up to Mike Johnson who is a super loyalist. His district is very safe (Cook R+26).
That's part of why we've had so many forced votes around Johnson.
And I guess we'll see in Novemeber which branch is true. Either the R's are safe and the voter base is strong/popular enough to keep them in, or they are actually unpopular and at best scared of Trump (and at worst, super loyalist) and they will go down with the ship.
their base alone is not big enough to give them electoral victory. they always need more. but they need the base too. Because of Trump's lawlessness, they can't have both, hence you see a lot of retirements etc. this year.
> It's just navel-gazing to pretend like what he's doing has high approval.
Will these people vote for the opposition party? Or will they just say they don't like it and continue to vote GOP?
> Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with?
I personally haven’t, no. And I definitely have never voted for a candidate who claimed they’d do horrible things if elected. There is no one who voted for Trump the second time around who has the excuse of him “doing things I don’t agree with”. He told everyone what he was going to do, and people still voted for him. Either they agree with his actions or they’re stupid. If the former, they’re irredeemable; if the latter, they need to take responsibility and act. This was not an “oopsie” you can simply regret and vote better next time, irreparable damage is being caused to the world. Negative approval ratings mean nothing to a despot.
This is not a fallacy, simply an opinion you disagree with. But one which I strongly agree with.
I'm not American, and though I may not agree completely with the politicians I voted for, I have not been blindsided yet. The second election of Trump is a symptom of Americans either unable or unwilling to look beyond single issues or sports team politics.
To then turn around and act surprised is just a way to conveniently absolve themselves of the responsibility of electing him to begin with. If this wasn't the case, Trump voters themselves would be calling for his impeachment, not Democrat voters.
Approval rating means nothing if it enforces nothing.
If you're not American, then you may not understand the way the American voting system works.
We only have two parties. (Technically, there are some third parties, but they're effectively worse than negligible—voting for them is guaranteed to either do nothing or harm the cause you're interested in, unless the candidate is already a member of a major party and merely cross-endorsed.)
This means that if you care about one thing that one of the two major parties ostensibly supports (or is ostensibly better at than the other), more than any of the things on the other side, you have no choice: you have to vote for that party's candidate.
We also have a mainstream media landscape that is fully captured by the wealthy on the right. It is hard to overstate the extent to which our media carries water for the Republican Party.
And finally, we have absolutely abysmal civics education. It has been steadily gutted over the course of decades. To some extent, this is a deliberate move to make it easier to use the aforementioned media capture to control the average voter.
So if you're a low-information voter, you think the economy is bad, and you want to fix that, you're going to vote for the candidate of the major party that media has been telling you for 50 years is the party that's good at the economy, despite the fact that every time they're in office the debt goes up, regular people's lives get worse, and more protections go out the window.
> If you're not American, then you may not understand the way the American voting system works.
This is incredibly unlikely, given how pervasive American politics is, and how much the results of the American elections affects the rest of the world. Additionally, having a two party system is unfortunately pretty common.
As a german, i can assure you, GPs comment was spot on and is very transferable to germany, no matter how many serious parties are listed on the ballots. Its is the elites, slowly undermining democracies and public/private institutions all over the western world in similar ways.
I've seen plenty of comments from people outside the US that clearly don't understand how the US system works. For that matter, that's not limited to people outside the US.
I've talked with a number of people online from Europe (particularly the UK) who came in with the assumption that a parliamentary system was the default. (I don't consider this a mark against them: everyone is likely to start out with the assumption that the first thing they learn about is the default. They were just part of that day's lucky 10,000.)
There are a great many reasons why people might misunderstand why so many people voted for Trump, and most of them start with assuming your own experience is universal, at least in certain realms. I suspect that, for people outside the US, not really understanding our voting/electoral system is one of the top ones, and it's a very understandable one. I prefer to go for it first, because the one I consider next most likely is a bit less charitable: assuming that everyone shares your privileges. (ie, "surely no one could possibly be so uneducated as to think that Trump was anything but a liar and a fascist." Buddy, you can't even imagine how bad the American education system can be, or how hard it is to care about anything other than the bare necessities when you're poor...)
That is exactly the problem. The first past the post single representative systems all have this feature. It seems almost inevitable that they will just because of that. Some sort of representative system will reduce this disconnect between what voters want and what they get because it allows more parties to flourish. The downside is that you end up with coalition governments. These are seen as “weak” although I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.
… TBC
You're missing some history that pushed former Democratic vorers to vote Trump. Taxpayer funding of NGOs that were writing grants to organizations that were effectively censoring onlinespeech. This and the Disinformation Board, and the direct phone calls from US senators and Congressmen to takedown opposition ideas n social media was a direct attack on the First Amendment by the Democrats. Yes Trump's FCC threats over Jimmy Kimmel were also wrong, but he didn't have a government agency doing it to citizens. Trump ended that system. Also, DNC threw working class under the bus and chastise them for leaving the party that screwed them. If sports team politics is what you're hearing, you're being lied to.
So your theory is that this thing that nobody has ever heard about is what pushed voters?
>>Yes Trump's FCC threats over Jimmy Kimmel were also wrong, but he didn't have a government agency doing it to citizens.
so in this sentence do you think the FCC isn't a government agency or that Jimmy Kimmel isn't a citizen?
He's clearly alluding the fact that the Biden admin did far worse.
The great sin of Trump's FCC was a single ill-advised tweet by FCC chair Brendan Carr... in which he threatened to enforce the law as written. For comparison, the Biden admin's FBI actively engaged in purely political media manipulation in service of the sitting president's campaign, such as when they lied to Facebook (and presumably others) to "prebunk" the Hunter's Laptop story, which directly lead to a near-total ban of a factual news story.
You're joking right? People got arrested and jailed for posting a Kirk meme https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/17/politics/retired-cop-jail...
Let's not even talk about all the other rhetoric of arresting and even killing people who voiced different opinions coming from the current regime.
> You're joking right? People got arrested and jailed for posting a Kirk meme https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/17/politics/retired-cop-jail
How are the actions of the Perry County Police Department relevant to this conversation?
> Let's not even talk about all the other rhetoric of arresting and even killing people who voiced different opinions coming from the current regime.
Hysterical nonsense.
He wrote that the FCC wasn't a government agency. Hard to argue that is correct, or that their political pursuit of one of trump's "enemies" isn't actually political.
It was more that a tweet no, but an interview with Benny johnson, an avowed political figure paid by Russians at one point?
> He wrote that the FCC wasn't a government agency. Hard to argue that is correct
You're harping on a detail that hardly matters in order to avoid the broader point, which is rather silly. The FCC is a government agency. Brendan Carr made an ill-advised tweet, which doesn't hold a candle to Biden's use of the FBI to spread misinformation and induce censorship for political purposes.
> or that their political pursuit of one of trump's "enemies" isn't actually political.
Of course it's political. It's political when both sides do it.
> ...paid by Russians at one point
Ah, I see that I'm wasting my time here.
>Ah, I see that I'm wasting my time here.
When you're ignoring the comment talking about people arrested for criticizing a political pundit to argue about minutae and claiming "both sides are bad", yes.
You got me. I am avoiding the comment about the Perry County Police Department, as it's so incredibly damaging to my worldview. The cognitive dissonance is simply too great to bear.
I feel it bears repeating, Benny Johnson has been paid a lot of Russian money.
Someone would have have to be deeply ignorant to think that Donald Trump, notorious for his numerous lawsuits and public threats to silence any critique of himself in the press, and whose campaign was coordinating with Twitter to take down posts while he was sitting president (just as the Democrats were, but they weren't in office) would champion Free Speech in any, way, shape or form.
This “both sides” bullshit is so tired. You’re exaggerating and misleading with most of this, but even if all of this was true, it represents about a week’s worth of what Trump has done. They just shot a woman in the face, immediately started calling her a terrorist, and show no intention of even investigating it. I don’t give a single fuck about the DNC “chastising” someone when held up against this kind of slide into fascism.
Peek mind virus would be now, to dismiss your rebuttal as "extreme left censorship" or something and not think further about anything you brought up. I have seen this delusional behavior too many times, it is really tiring.
I'm convinced that abortion is the worst thing the Democratic party could have ever taken up. You simply cannot sway a vote of a person who believes you support murdering babies. (I am pro abortion, but a substantial amount of people think it is morally murder.) Those people have to vote R their whole life no matter what. Nothing is worse than murdering babies.
Democrats would probably never lose again if they publicly dropped support for abortion.
This has the same energy as "Democrats would fair better if they let slavery be legal again". Aren't democrats critisized by their actual voter base by trying to continually appeal to a party that will never vote for them? It really just shows that the major parties are either center right or far right.
Throwing an awful lot of maternal lives away for that one.
Similar story for lots of other unpopular issues, like the Civil Rights act.
Well you can be right, or you can win. This thread is a consequence of being right.
So, we've seen large disproportionate electoral success from pro-life democrats? Referenda protecting abortion rights in red states were totally crushed?
Wait no. That's not what has happened.
Further, democratic voters are democrats because they support the policies that the democratic policy supports. Democrats suddenly being down with a federal ban on abortion isn't going to exactly get pro choice dems (the huge majority of their voting population) to run to the polls.
Dems tried the "actually we are right wing too" approach on immigration. Do people who hate illegal immigrants vote dem now? No.
Well, some people can win. Other people will simply die of massive blood loss. As long as it's not you, right?
If Roe v. Wade is gone now, what point are you trying to make?
Roe v. Wade isn't gone because of the will of the people. Nobody voted to overturn it. It's gone because of a unique scenario involving the balance of power in the SCOTUS.
Congressional Republicans simply refused to confirm a legally appointed justice, allowing a conservative justice to be appointed in their place after the next POTUS was elected. Then, another liberal justice passed away creating another vacancy which was again filled by a conservative. If either or both of those things hadn't happened, Roe v. Wade would not have been overturned.
And sure, you can say it was the will of the people that a conservative was in office at the time, and appointed the justices, but that's not the same as voting for or against federal abortion rights.
Appointing judges to overturn Roe v. Wade was a focal point in the 2016 election. Dangling that possibility was the entire point of the confirmation shenanigans.
"Well, if we put another two or perhaps three justices on, that ... will happen automatically in my opinion because I am putting pro-life justices on the court" https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trumps-justices-dec...
Abortion is an emblematic example of how this kind of triangulation doesn't do what you're expecting. The Democratic party didn't take abortion up on the federal stage, repeatedly declining to create any new statutory protections and endorsing things like the Hyde amendment that acknowledge it's a contested issue. I think that was probably the right decision even in retrospect, but it didn't earn them even a modicum of goodwill from anti-abortion advocates.
You simply can't convince the public that your party doesn't stand for things your members care deeply about.
I mean, everyone knows that D widely supports abortion. It's been shouted from the rooftops for decades. It wouldn't be very believable in one cycle even if they tried, which they didn't; neglecting to bring up the topic is not close to publicly dropping support. Part of why it's so bad for them is because it will be very difficult to get disentangled from it.
From a pro-life perspective, "well they didn't make it easier to murder babies or bring it up much" is not compelling.
To me your phrase "publicly dropped support for abortion" sounds like "neglecting to bring up the topic". If you mean that Democratic leaders should somehow convince their members to support abortion restrictions that they oppose, I'm not sure why you would presume that's possible.
I'm imagining a candidate saying something like, "I want to help America with x y z [blue team related] issues. I want to bridge the aisle with Republicans and voters. To that end, I vow to not support any measures for the expansion of abortion. I believe that right now it's more important to help Americans in other ways. This is a contentious issue, but if we can set it aside for the moment, I believe D and R can come together to solve x y and z."
Maybe Democrats would never vote for this, but that's kind of the problem.
>I want to bridge the aisle with Republicans and voters.
Anyone saying this in 2026-2028 is going to be eviscerated by democrats. The bridge was long burned and now they are throwing citizens into the burning wreck. You don't "bridge the aisle" with people who threaten your life.
Also, anyone who wants to protect kids but isn't pushing the Epstein files to be released spoke wide and loud on what they really care about. So many motte and baileys out there.
Again, Democratic politicians routinely made such statements in the era before Roe was overturned. The longstanding Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funds from being used in any way to expand, promote, or perform abortions. There was just no way to get around the fundamental problem that, to a critical mass of Republican voters, "I'd like to maintain the status quo so we can focus on other issues" was an unacceptable pro-abortion stance.
Please link to one such statement.
The official Democratic platform for every cycle from 1976 to 2000 (except 1984-88 when abortion was not mentioned at all) explicitly acknowledged that abortion was controversial, that abortion opponents were welcome in the party, and that decreasing the number of abortions that are necessary is a worthy goal. The issue got more polarized when it became clear that no compromise or detente less than overturning Roe v. Wade would ever be accepted. I don't know of any specific pledges not to expand abortion access, again because the Hyde amendment prevented any proposals to expand abortion access.
> This is a contentious issue, but if we can set it aside for the moment, I believe D and R can come together to solve x y and z
I'm curious: Where does your line of thought actually end? Do you agree that they should perhaps meet Republicans in the center around vaccine issues and dismantle vaccine requirements? What about issues of climate change? Corruption?
It ends when they can win powerful majorities in elections again. What I said is only controversial because the topic is relatively well supported. But if you look at it as a party supporting a topic that is preventing them from winning elections, it doesn't really matter what that topic is, they need to rethink their platform until they can win elections again.
It might sound unsavory to say that they should drop <issue you think is important>, like climate change, but if that were genuinely the reason they're losing then of course they should drop it. The alternative is you just have a party of ideologues with no power. They can still do good things without doing <important thing>.
I just don't think any issue is as contentious as abortion, or having as much of an effect, because you can hold your nose about a lot of things, but not about 'murdering babies'. Again, this is a moral hard line that a lot of people have. They seriously think that Democrats are ontologically evil because of this; it's far beyond the political. I don't think they need to drop those things you listed from the platform because I don't think it would help them win.
From talking with Republican or centrist or ex-democrat peers and family, some of them would vote Democrat "if they stop killing babies", and others would "if they stopped the racial shit". I've never heard anyone say such a thing about anything you listed.
I don't know that opinion numbers really back that up: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opini...
i.e. Abortion is generally supported by 63% of the overall population, 85% of Democrats and 67% of moderate/liberal Republicans. I don't see how you'd ever convince Democrats to drop it to cater primarily to conservative republicans.
I asked you, specifically, where your line was at. If the dems were losing because they thought people getting shot in the street by government agents were bad, should they instead say 'actually, a little murder is alright'? What about gay marriage? First amendment rights?
The notion that they should compromise with people whose ideals align with literally killing people or taking away rights is a notion I reject. I will never, ever vote for a democrat that compromises in the way you suggest so they can choose which side they want to try and get votes from.
Well I typically vote Republican, so I can only speculate. But let's imagine that 70% of people support ICE, and those people would never ever vote against ICE, because they think that is evil; everything else is the same.
In such a world, the Dems have no power, because they get 30% of the vote at most. They should stop fighting ICE so that they can at least do something on their agenda. The choice is between passing some good legislation unrelated to ICE, or never being able to pass any legislation. Obviously the former is better.
At the end of the day it's a democracy. The people vote for what they want, and then get it. The people originate the ideas that are available to be implemented. The notion of a democratic representative refusing to do what is needed to get votes is meaningless. It's the notion of a political idea that is refusing to be believed in, so must become irrelevant.
Anyway, your whole train of thought presupposes correctness and righteousness and that change to certain things is not on the table. If somehow the Democrats shrunk to the size of the Libertarian party because they held onto all that, you could keep voting for them, but real politics continues without you. I am suggesting they change before that shrinkage occurs, not after or never.
being against abortion is equivalent to condemning women to death when their pregnancy is going wrong.
you see how moral absolutes (don't) work?
That was the point. democrats often point out those rare cases where the womens life is in danger and then use that as the absolute we must allow all abotions. Nobody will argue for the compromise and so you lose a lot who won't acpept the absolute.
>rare cases where the womens life is in danger
well you saying this shows just how ignorant people are on pregnancy. I guess that's by design to pitch to people that "Abortion kills babies".
We had a working compromise for decades.
any bill to ban abortions (because "muh sacred life") should include funding for childcare, medical coverage, and school lunches. Pro-lifers are unfortunately only pro births when it comes to voting.
That does not follow. That you think it does shows how little you understand the complexity of what people think.
Oh yeah, the people of "my God says it's murder, therefore you can't do it" are well known for subtlety and complexity of thought.
It isn't just God says so. There are moral arguements against murder other than God.
it's not murder. it's a ball of cells. they only call it murder because their god allegedly grants a soul upon masturbation or something.
So many people didn't vote for the Democrats in 2024 because they didn't support Palestine and they lost as a result. If the Democrats become identical to the Republicans then why would any non-Republican even bother voting?
You are so correct in your first statement yet imply something in your second I think is so incorrect in a wider context that it strikes me like whiplash.
Paying lip service but not addressing that friction was a significant part of what killed the Harris campaign, IMO.
well yes. That's the big issue. Trump didn't get more votes, Harris got drastically less than Biden. People didn't come out.
She had a bad hand needing to start out 6 months into an election cycle, and she played it poorly to boot. That's why this "we need to appeal to moderates/right wing" narrative is so frustrating. That's exactly what Harris did by trying to downplay Palestine/defend Israel and refusing to talk about the tensions in the job market. She established herself as "more of the same". That doesn't win votes in increasingly bad times.
Where "the same" meant "who knows who's actually running the country". Let's at least be honest about that part.
They were generally good at making sure whoever is "really running the country" stayed in the Lawful Evil alignment. If the trump regime was smarter we may have been truly cooked.
Instead we have cartoon supervillains trying to pick fights with our allies in the open, and police openly shooting citizens. Pretty hard to defend that.
Trump still has plenty of support from large swathes of Americans despite his increasingly more overt actions.
For many, he _is_ doing what he was elected to do. This _is_ what the American voter wants. The American voter wants illegal immigrants out, does not care how it happens. They also want cheap oil and are willing to overlook the implications of international military action if it means they get it. They also don't care about the environment enough to curb their consumption or invest in alternative energy sources.
These preferences are all aligned with Trump's actions.
All true but what about his proposal to increase defense spending by a Whopping $500 Billion?
Are his supporters 'down' with that?
His supporters are down with whatever he says needs to be done. It's about him--there's no ideological consistency at all. As long as he's for it today, his supporters are for it today. If he's against it tomorrow, they will immediately fall in line and be against it tomorrow.
This is why he's a Republican. He said it in his book (who knows if he actually wrote it) that if he ever ran, he'd run as a Republican because they don't think, they just fall in line.
Is Congress down with that? Down enough to actually pass a budget that contains it?
Immigration, no. Oil, maybe. I don't think any of congress wants to risk escalation to a war on top of all the situations stacked up today.
As long as it hurts "those people" more than it hurts them... hell, yeah!
MAGA is not about policy, it's about stigginit. To borrow a line from Anthony Burgess, it's old age having a go at youth.
... and many just post-hoc rationalize their already irrational decision to vote for him. If you would ask them, illegal farm workers are still very welcome in red states, i guess.
Minnesota occupation is not about illegal immigration. It is about terrorizing a blue city. It is about terrorizing non whites regardless of citizenship.
I agree that Trump voters want that. But, we should not lie about them caring about illegal immigration or "not caring about the method".
They care. If Trumps thugs murder, beat or kidnap people, if non whites and suspect liberals suffer, they actually prefer it. Trump voters prefer it when an agent throws a tear gas into a car or on the crowd just as a goodbye package.
> They also want cheap oil
Oil is so cheap, oil companies are slightly at loss when producing it.
>> This is the political will of a plurality of American voters.
> This fallacy gets repeated over and over, but it's obviously false.
And it's used to condemn and justify. Most politicians, including Democrats, like to pretend that winning means the unpopular policies they happen to like are the will of the people. They will constantly gaslight you on it.
In reality, American politics gives people coarse choices that few are entirely happy with and many are very unhappy with. It's really hard to justify radical partisan action without denying that fact.
It's true that partisan politics provides only coarse choices. That's true of America's bipartisan system as well as multiparty parliamentary systems. But the parties are still dynamic coalitions that can change dramatically over time. Just look at the difference between the 1950s Democrats vs the 2000s Democrats, or the 2015 Republicans vs the 2020 Republicans.
The coarse options that are available at election time can be massively influenced in the years leading up to the election.
> It's true that partisan politics provides only coarse choices. That's true of America's bipartisan system as well as multiparty parliamentary systems. But the parties are still dynamic coalitions that can change dramatically over time. Just look at the difference between the 1950s Democrats vs the 2000s Democrats, or the 2015 Republicans vs the 2020 Republicans.
You're missing my only point, which is how (say) a coarse 51% victory for a coalition gets frequently and deliberately misrepresented as "the American people" wanting that coalition's unpopular policies.
American politics isn't really about representing the American people, it's about minority ideological factions jockeying for power to subject the American people to their vision. Hence the rise of campaigning that's mostly attacking the opponent. A recent example is the Democrats vis-a-vis Trump: despite all their rhetoric, their behavior over the last decade belies an attitude that they think they use the repulsion he generates to avoid moderating themselves and still win.
>which is how (say) a coarse 51% victory for a coalition gets frequently and deliberately misrepresented as "the American people" wanting that coalition's unpopular policies.
I think the larger point is "we have 2 bad choices, but we chose the worse one". Because "both sides are the same".
> it's about minority ideological factions jockeying for power to subject the American people to their vision.
Yeah, the current vision unfortunately sucks much worse than status quo neoliberalism, though. But we overall chose that. People ignoring the issues with Trump only reinforces how bad things have gotten.
No matter who u vote for u always get a Neocon. - George Carlin
...and a neoliberal.
Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with?
I'm having a hard time thinking of things this admin and their party has done but hasn't directly campaigned on, directly praised someone else doing, etc. On the flip side of that, which empty promise, if fulfilled, would be worth the situation we're otherwise in?
well they had quite a few contradictions. They campaigned on "No new wars" and meanwhile the US hit Venezuela and might be trying to do the same on Greenland and Mexico. Campaigned on jobs but manufacturing has been plummeting all year. Campaigned on cheaper groceries but things are more expensive.
It's a big maybe, but maybe if Trump actually managed to end the Ukraine War and push out Russia the chaos would have been a net benefit (from a utilitarian POV). Instead, he berated Zelensky on camera.
Trump campaigned on "No new wars", but given Trump's history in his first term, his party's history in general, you'd have to have be a rube to believe this. Also why does this earn Trump a vote when his opposition was also running on the status quo in this regard, especially the considering the historical US uniparty approach to foreign affairs?
But, go ahead, set that aside. You think that is a worthwhile tradeoff for Trump sending federal agents to gun down his political enemies (US citizens who hurt their feelings)?
I think we can both admit there's a lot of rubes in this country.
>why does this earn Trump a vote when his opposition was also running on the status quo in this regard, especially the considering the historical US uniparty approach to foreign affairs?
To be frank, because we're applying logic to irrational actors. It shouldn't change anything, but Trump yelled it louder, looked more like the people who voted for him, and it's just one of the many ways they rationalize what they already wanted deep down (but need the not say out loud).
>You think that is a worthwhile tradeoff for Trump sending federal agents to gun down his political enemies (US citizens who hurt their feelings)?
Hard to say, I'm not a utilitarian. But I can see it from that lens. You'd save hundreds of thousands of lives, further constrain Russia on the global level if Ukraine can get into NATO, and even curb off other tensions like China vs Taiwan and Israel v. Palestine. That's a lot of good.
These aren't good directly reflected in the US economy nor jobs, though. That's the issue with utilitarianism in that it ignores the micro socio-economic situations, and those can build up into even worse timelines.
> It shouldn't change anything, but Trump yelled it louder,
No, he did not. This is simply not true. The thing about Trump being pro peace was just one more pure bad faith lie. And people who voted for Trump did not believed in Trump for peace thing.
Maybe we should stop projecting positive motivations on people who were about something else entirely
>The thing about Trump being pro peace was just one more pure bad faith lie.
Okay, the reverse logic works as well. People didn't trust either candidate so it came down to all the above, superficial factors or much deeper, unspoken motivations.
My main point is more on "people already knew who they wanted" more than whatever their outward facing words say.
> People didn't trust either candidate so it came down to all the above, superficial factors or much deeper, unspoken motivations.
They liked trump, because he promissed to harm trans, liberals, dominate women, dominate international politocs and because he is proper masculine per conservative outlook.
Nothing unspoken about that.
> Okay, the reverse logic works as well.
It does not. You need to ignore what candidates said, what people supporting them said, what poloticians said and what people wrote on social media.
You need to literally ignore what republicans, conservatives and were saying praising and doing, just so you can whitewhash and sanewash their choices and opinions.
> My main point is more on "people already knew who they wanted" more than whatever their outward facing words say.
They wanted to cause harm to people they dislike. They want to liberals others suffer as they watch how "proper manly men" mistreat people.
If it's obviously false, can you show research that proves it?
Because from what I see most of this was part and parcel of a published plan. [1] People on both sides either bragged about executing Project 2025 or tried to warn their base about it. People still voted for this, and those who didn't vote at all, by staying home, also voted for it.
This move slots in well with the overall exploration of eliminating the fed completely. [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
[2] https://blog.uwsp.edu/cps/2024/09/12/the-project-2025-moneta...
Isn’t their approval rating 40% or something?
As much as I hate what’s happening, that’s how democracy works. Sometimes the majority chooses to burn the house down and all you can do is sit and watch
That's not how parliamentary democracies work; they have a thing called a "vote of no confidence".
In this case the candidate they voted for was a convicted criminal and pathological liar.
Dishonesty is the through line of Trump’s entire life. There was no reasonable expectation his second term would bring anything else. Anyone expressing buyer’s remorse at this point is impossibly naive.
If there was ever a quintessential American quality, "impossibly naive" would be it.
Yes, Trump is now unpopular. But.
> Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with?
If we are talking about past culpability, this one does not works at all. Trump is being exactly who he was and what he campaigned on. This is not the case of someone switching up after being elected. This is case of who openly or tacitly supported Trump, because they thought they will personally benefit on top of having fun of watching liberals suffer.
By tacitly I mean all those bad faith "both sides" and "Trump is dove, Harris is aggressive". As an example, Latino Trump voting men were attracted by the misogynistic and male dominance content. They thought they wont be personally affected. Rural people still cheer to occupation and terrorization of cities ... and still think they are the only true Americans. They though they will be able to keep their farms like the last time. And so on and so forth.
People knew full well what is going on when they were hiding behind euphemisms about conservatives and blamed liberals when those said the truth. They just liked the project and thought they will be affected only a little.
The most compelling and resounding message of his campaign was that he promised to grief MAGA's perceived enemies.
Whatever stuff he said in his stump speeches about foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy, whatever, was largely ignored by his base. The real reason they voted for him (and the reason they still support him) was his promise of cruelty and to hurt people they didn't like, and that's the one promise he is delivering on and boasting about every day.
When brown immigrants' doors are kicked in, people are black-bagged and dragged away in an unmarked van, when families are torn apart, when "city people" get shot and are crying on TV, that's what really gets MAGA motivated and that's what keeps them excited about politics.
> Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? It's a quintessential fact of politics that voting for a candidate is not equivalent to an endorsement of everything that candidate does in the future.
You can look back on everything Trump said and campaigned on. He's a liar, a cheat, and a fraud but he openly campaigned on making people suffer, hurting specific groups and demolishing the government. The people either voted for him assuming he was blustering about his claims or liked what he was going to do. There's countless examples of people who when asked why they regret voting for Trump, they say because he's 'hurting the wrong people', while also saying that they would gladly vote for him again.
He is the most popular Republican president, among other Republicans, we have had in our lifetime. Anecdotal: I live in a red state with red friends and red family. They might not like this or that but they are unwavering in their support for Trump the man. It is still very uncomfortable to say even the most superficially negative thing about him or his policies. So, maybe there is some internal dialog going on there that I'm not privy to, but outwardly the support is 100% there, and that is all that really matters.
What you observe is cognitive dissonance resolved by ignorance. I dont have any advice for you, since i dont know your close ones, but a warning. When these conflicts dont get resolved in a constructive way, this behavioral conditioning might lead to repulsion targeting you. I have lost a long time childhood friend, even though my approach to him was always calm but persistent for over a decade.
Yes. The hardest thing about all of this is watching people I've known for years defend the indefensible. It is really difficult to stomach hearing your grandma call for the insurrection act.
What do you feel makes their support so unwavering? Are they fine with anything as long as they feel the "bad people" are hurt? Do they genuinely see themselves getting richer? Do they simply only watch Fox News and other conservative media and never consider what's happening in their neighborhood?
They built an entire identity around it. They're in too deep to just back off and admit to being wrong. It's the same reason why doomsday cults are stronger and more united the day after the predicted end of the world: It's too late to back off, the only solution is to dig deeper.
There are as many answers to that are there are Trump supporters I know. These aren't stupid or evil people, and I don't think its as nefarious the things you are suggesting, at least in most cases. On the other hand, as I sit here and try to answer your question, I can't come up with anything that paints anyone in a very good light and I just end up with more questions.
Ultimately I think there is a common personality trait that allows a person to rationalize pretty much anything. And I think most people have that personality trait. Maybe I do for all I know.
The exchange in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls always comes to mind:
I agree with your sentimen. I'll use a favorite quote of mine as well
Whether they know the evil or not, they will go out of their way to to find a way to justify it. That's why those scare news on networks works so well. It gives them "permission" to accept something they wanted to believe,and now they have "proof".Moreover, it's part of a core issue many in this society fall into (all across political spectrums) : it is shameful to be wrong. And apologizing makes you "weak". Even if you do change your mind, you can never admit it. And some people will be on their deathbed spouting a belief they changed on rather than "showing weakness".
I don't know how and if we can change that cultural element. That seems deeper than any billionaire regime.
We have to teach kids about cognitive biases, best by example or demonstration, and how you keep your sceptic guard up for life. We needed this even before the internet started to actively target these cognitive biases.
When you say "our lifetime" you must be talking about people who were born after 2004? Reagan was certainly more popular among Republicans, and I think W was at the end of his first term (he definitely was right after 9/11 when approval ratings for anything American were approximately 100% within America).
Your intuition about this is wrong. Reagan's approval among Republicans averaged about 83%, Trump's numbers are typically over 90%, although currently he's down to an all-time low of around 85%.
You are quite wrong about GW as well. While he had a mandate, at first, for Iraq, he was deeply polarizing in pretty much every other regard.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/699221/trump-approval-rating-dr...
seeing Dem numbers be in the single didgits and republican numbers in the high 80's really exemplifies how utterly divided the "United" States has become. I don't think any other president in the last century has been so divisive.
There's basically no more room for Dem's to disapprove, so I guess it's up to "Independents" to wake up.
My intuition is not wrong, and I am absolutely not wrong about GW Bush's approval ratings right after 9/11 (a peak of 99% approval among Republicans) and his approval ratings afterwards through the rest of his first term: https://news.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ra...
Concerning Reagan, I was looking at his 93% approval rating when he left office, and comparing it to Trump's approval rating at the end of his first term, but I am aware there are metrics where Trump would be seen as more popular than Reagan among Republicans, such as minimum approval rating): https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/ronald-reaga...
Trump's militant support among Republicans is irritating to say the least, but there's no need to rewrite history or double down on incorrect statements on your part.
Your own sources show that Trump is more popular than Reagan among Republicans. Just because there was a moment in history where his numbers were better than Trump's doesn't undo the fact that over the long term, on average, Trump is more popular with Republicans than Reagan was. Demonstrably. Is there a conservative left in America willing to have an honest conversation?
I explained why I mentioned Reagan and acknowledged that Trump is more popular by some metrics, but he doesn't matter ultimately because GW Bush was more popular than Trump with Republicans more recently by absolute highest level of support, an average over basically any time period over his first term, or the lowest level of support, which is why I said you must only be talking about people born after 2004.
You're just as bad as the conservatives you dislike, because the issue is that you're all ideologues, not the specific ideology.
All I have anymore is an undoubtedly flawed moral compass, but I know these things are wrong and, up until the last few years, they were not at all partisan. And this is just to name a few:
Anyone who violated any of these, regardless of party, would immediately lose my support forever. These aren't "mistakes", they are evil deeds. So, tell me who is an ideologue.9/11 doesn't count, for the perfectly-obvious reason that Trump has had no 9/11-scale event to compare to.
Yet.
How does downvoting this person's statement of fact help? Trump owns the Republican Party now. He's gone well beyond mere approval.
There are two reasons to doubt that. One is that people's opinions change after they have voted. The other is that there is enough evidence of 2024 election "anomalies" to consider the vote itself suspect.
The political will of a plurality of American voters elected this administration a little over a year ago. We don't have direct evidence of what the current political will of a plurality of American voters is. We have some indirect evidence via polls and off-cycle elections that this is not the political will of most Americans. We'll have stronger evidence after the vote for the full House and third of the Senate later this year.
Personally, I don't think we have evidence yet that the democratic process in the US is broken. I have concerns as many people do, but the recent off-cycle elections went off just fine.
> This is the political will of a plurality of American voters.
Trump has (amongst?) the lowest approval of any president at this point in his tenure, even lower than his first term.
* https://news.gallup.com/poll/699221/trump-approval-rating-dr...
* https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil...
> It is difficult to see how we can democracy our way out of this situation.
Assuming there is no martial law later in 2026, vote to give the other party more power in Congress so the Legislative branch can actually grow a spine and push back against Executive actions.
I'd love it if the other party would show evidence of being willing to elect vertebrates. Of course I'll still vote for whoever is most likely to win against the authoritarians, but at the moment that seems to be a bunch of worms.
This is disingenuous and a way to rationalise your feelings by blaming trump voters.
Firstly, it’s a two party state and choice is limited. People vote for the least worst option, or for a candidate that shares at least some of their values.
Second, many people did not vote.
Third, approval ratings show that many trump voters do not approve of his actions.
Fourth, where did “annex Greenland, abduct Maduro, remove independence of the reserve” appear on his manifesto?
These are all before the 2024 election:
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-could-try-buy-greenlan...
https://www.wired.com/story/trump-cia-venezuela-maduro-regim...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-trumps-wish-for-more-f...
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/publications/end-f...
Trump voters are either willfully ignorant or gleefully supportive. Maybe not the first time, but definitely the second and third time. There no longer exists other excuses.
Propagandized to by targeted media.
Are those links to a manifesto?
You haven't answered my other points.
It's just post-hoc rationalisation because you're angry.
It's not post-hoc if it was telegraphed before the election. I knew it then, as did everyone with a modicum of interest in current events.
Regarding your other points, I'm not sure I have to, but here goes:
1) I'd be keen to hear how they voted for the least worst option, on specifics.
2) Not voting is voting for whoever wins in the described two party system. At least that's how I see the trolley problem.
3) Then they weren't paying attention, but at least they can be honest when they're affected personally.
> Are those links to a manifesto?
Statements about policy goals can only debated if... they appear in a "manifesto"?
With all respect: WTactualF? Trump didn't even have a manifesto! This is just a license to excuse whatever vote you want.
The obvious truth is that the guy is an intemperate loon, has always been an intemperate loon, and is behaving like an intemperate loon in office, and along policy axes that you could absolutely see ahead of time.
Here's the manifesto:
https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeade...
It is totally ok to blame Trump voters. They literally wanted this to happen and it happened. OK, they did not wanted the "bad thing A" to happen, they only wanted the "evil things B and C" to happen. Usually based on what affects them personally.
> People vote for the least worst option, or for a candidate that shares at least some of their values.
Voting for Trump because you share his values is not exactly defense, something positive or even respect worthy. Yes, equally people voted for Hitler because they shared values. This commonality of values is why they are culpable and we can blame them.
This is what has been repeated again, again, again, again, and again since the election. Those other commoners did it. They wanted it.
So much effort spent talking about how democracy was so powerful—all the wrong commoners got what they wanted—right up until Trump and now it’s too late, no one cares about this one comment box.
I’m not an American. I just have a vested interest in the commoners of America getting their stuff together.
Frankly I don’t think Trump 1 vs Trump 2 admin wise are the same. Many people were duped. They’re idiots, but not malicious idiots.
Plenty of them are malicious idiots. See quotes of them saying "They're hurting the wrong people"
You mean Boehbert, a congresswoman? Yeah she’s pretty awful.
If food keeps going up, it might get there but in the affluent west we run on our stomachs and as long as most of the middle class can still afford bread there won't be enough of a mass mobilization to affect any meaningful change.
Most people, myself include, believe Powell has been a DNC puppet for his entire tenure. This has pretty much nothing to do with our republic.
For most of this countries history you would have been laughed at if you used the D-word, and that's when the quality of voters meant something.
Divide and conquer...
Stated differently, if things really are so bad (and I would be the first to agree that things are pretty bad), then why are so many comfortable people (like me) not out on the street every day?
There are a lot of reasons for that, of course, but the bottom line is that when things get bad enough -- much worse than they are today -- then more people will take to the street, along with whatever sacrifice that entails. We're just not there yet, because for many, there is far too much to lose.
People are (and have been) taking to the streets. Americans tend to think that a protest must involve everyone otherwise it’s pointless. They don’t realize that protests typically involve a tiny fraction of the population. The more, the better of course, but stop sitting around waiting for it to get big. Either get out there now or find other ways to contribute. There’s plenty to be done.
There was a study a while ago, analyzing previous events to estimate which percentage of a population needs to become active to effect meaningful change. The number was surprisingly low, I think less than 5%.
It's about 3%, and the study had major flaws in its context; large westernized countries are out of scope. I don't remember paper, but I just lost this argument to a lawyer.
I was just talking to someone close to me about what to expect if (when?) Trump starts annexing Greenland. I truly believe a national strike is our best bet. But the reality is many (most?) people are living paycheck to paycheck and can’t risk that. But knowledge workers and especially software engineers can probably fare much better in the event of immediate job loss.
Now that’s not to downplay or minimize that risk, especially if you have a family, dependents, or some unique circumstance. But I’d hope for the majority of workers in our profession, it’s the difference between “I can’t buy food next week” vs “I have about 4-8 months before I’ve drained my liquid / emergency savings”
The sad thing is I don’t know what to do. Would this make headlines? Would they cover it? Would it get condensed into a single sound bite “big tech goes on strike”?
I’m conflicted but I feel like the choice should be obvious and simple. Just do it.
I will say upfront that I do not condone or support annexation of Greenland, but I have to ask why on earth you or anyone else think that would inspire any meaningful portion of the US population to organize a general strike?
Whatever happens in Greenland has no impact on at least 99.99% of the US population, and a general strike will have no impact on the small fraction of the US population that would support annexation.
People are taking to the streets. People are getting beaten, their property destroyed, their homes invaded and even murdered in Minneapolis as a result. The problem is that the US is massive; most people don't live in an active ICE zone where agents are going door to door kicking it in and pulling people out.
But even then, people are getting angrier. The injustices in Minneapolis triggered waves of protests here in Seattle. Eventually these things compound and more people become aware that we're living in the Great American Collapse.
People are, yes, but I'm not. I'm looking inward and trying to be honest about what it's going to take to get me on the street.
Not sure being out in the street really does much. Gives the jack booted thugs an excuse for a little recreational violence.
A general strike might have an effect, but I'm not sure how you organize such a thing.
A general strike at the level required to change things requires roping in unwilling participants as well. Probably on the scale of breaking infrastructure like payment systems or over the road shipping. If nobody can ignore current events because it's not just impacting but impeding and quickly degrading their quality of life they'll get angry. However just so long as people can go home and play their videogames, or listen to their podcasts, or read their books, they'll be able to focus enough of their attention away from events and keep their stress below the critical threshold just enough that they won't do anything. Calhoun's Rat Utopia Experiment comes to mind in that the rats suffered any number of indignities, maladies, and stressors just so long as they had ample access to endorphin and melatonin sources in strong enough bursts to stave off the constant floods of cortisol and norepinephrine.
Political theory is that ten to fifteen percent of a given population needs to actively rebel in order to enact change in a nation. The U.S. is fragmented enough by distance that you would need at least thirty percent of the national population to reach this state in order to get the ten percent in each of the six regions. Currently the number of people protesting is thought to be around four to six percent nationally, meaning it's less than one percent regionally. Part of that is because it's January, and most large scale protests happen in late spring or in the summer because schools are out and the weather doesn't suck. But part of it is simply because not enough people are motivated to act. Either pessimism or lack of direct harm is keeping them from caring.
So no matter what you're going to have to piss some people off. But it'd be better to piss off the people who will share your goals and ask forgiveness, because the other group was pissed from the beginning and have no forgiveness to ask for.
The only option is to vote, if you block roads you will be labeled a domestic terrorist. Insurrection act? Things may get alot worse.
What are they going to do with all these holding cells when the immigrants are gone?
If you vote, the people you elect will ignore you. From your position as a private citizen there is nothing to hold your representatives responsible other than the possibility that their salaries and "campaign contributions" from lobbyists might stop. For many of these people they become incumbents because the voting population gives so little of a shit that they'll leave things as they are rather than spend the time and effort to research which candidate best aligns with their goals versus the incumbent. In actual use the only punishment mechanisms that exist have to be enacted by these representatives' direct peers rather than the people they represent, and as there are self levels of self interest that will dissuade them from doing so.
As for being labeled a domestic terrorist, the fools within this administration will use (and have used) any excuse to label someone as a domestic terrorist. In their view you are an enemy of the state regardless, because you are not the state. We are all in jeopardy no matter if we comply or not. If we will be labeled a threat because of any action we take, benign or malicious, then there is no practical fear of being labeled, only being captured and punished.
You can't, because everytime that happens, a group comes out of the woodworks that says X, Y, and Z need to be done before a general strike can even be considered.
X, Y, and Z usually involve community building, mutual aid, strike funds, housing security, and other precarity reducing actions.
If protests worked better than the alternatives then that's what megacorps and multinational corporations would be doing instead of bribes and lobbying. 'The people' still dont understand they're playing an entirely different sport.
> Not sure being out in the street really does much. Gives the jack booted thugs an excuse for a little recreational violence.
"Let" them do the violence. And let the violence be filmed. And let the (currently) indifferent / apathetic folks see the violence being done.
This is one way to enact change: most folks have no interest in violence and abhor it. By showing that one side is 'pro-violence' in their policies and actions you give more power to the side(s) that are not violence.
Shawn Fain, head of the UAW union, has already started calling for a general strike—in (IIRC) 2028.
Because that's how long it takes to organize one.
> Not sure being out in the street really does much.
I agree; this phrase was just a stand in for doing something -- anything -- about the state of affairs I don't like. Other than things I can do from my couch like commenting on HN.
>then why are so many comfortable people (like me) not out on the street every day?
because a lot of people have a kind of built-in main character syndrome and believe they're the protagonists of the world and things can't really go bad. They haven't internalized that there isn't some god behind the curtain that saves them.
That's how it goes in every country that ends up in the dirt, they all thought they were special, they all thought "surely we're not there yet" and you can pick their remains out of the rubble.
relevant piece from a few years ago: https://indi.ca/i-lived-through-collapse-america-is-already-...
A protest is meaningless without the implicit threat of violent revolution behind it. Trump et al can just ignore your protests, unless he thinks you might break in and start killing.
Today's protests have no teeth. Nobody is uncomfortable enough to risk prison or death. Seriously, if you turn off the TV and the Internet, what is wrong with your life? Is ousting Trump going to fix that? Is it worth dying for? Nope.
I feel like you shouldn't get to criticize protests for not being violent enough if you're not already performing sufficiently-violent protests. "Firebombing a Walmart" meme really is evergreen.
> That belief isn't the consequence of the situation, but the cause. There is ample ability to change events, but people must believe they can act and act together, as they have for centuries of democracy and for all human history.
True. But it’s very overwhelming since we are so democratically inept right now.
> They do it in Iran.
We know this because the local elites underlined it for us.
Curtis's HyperNormalisation, a BBC documentary, for those unfamiliar:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation>
Video, at BBC Online: <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b183c>
HyperNormalisation is one of many great documentaries by Adam Curtis, many of which are available on archive.org [1]. Specifically, I can recommend The Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares. No need for YouTube :) FWIW, these used to be able on Google Video back when that still existed. And via torrents.
[1] https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Adam+Curtis%22
HyperNormalisation (2016) 2h:46m for those outside the UK https://youtube.com/watch?v=Gr7T07WfIhM
And for anyone who is nervous about clicking that video link at work: BBC in this context stands for British Broadcasting Corporation, which is a fairly well respected news group.
No one was nervous. That might be just you. You might want to spend a little less time online.
When I first watched a bunch of Adam Curtis stuff I thought it a long winded way of stating bad things have happened and have resulted in these bigger, overarching, bad things.
Thinking about it now 10 years later it feels alot different. The pervasiveness of tolerance of lies and fakeness has gone so far past anything I could have imagined being a big contributor to that.
For me, the key lies in the "We know they lie. They know we know they lie.". I'd argue that the transparency of lies is a fairly immature theme, relative to the long arc of history. Probably post-Iraq WMD is where I think it really started to ramp up and the emergence of virality/segmentation aspect of social media has really revved it up.
I would view that kind of lying as show of force: "Everybody knows it, but nobody can do anything about it, we are above even these rules."
Worse still is when it's an "affirm the falsehood to show you have been dominated by our threat of punishment" scenario:
> 'The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.' He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: 'How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?'
> Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.
> 'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.'
-- 1984 by George Orwell
Perhaps post-Iraq in the west. It was that way behind the Iron Curtain long before then.
I have to say, I'd never heard of Adam Curtis or the HyperNormalisation documentary.
I just watched the first ~30 min and I'm not seeing the "bit picture". Hopefully, it won't take me another 10 years to achieve enlightenment.
Curtis tried to make these statements on the downside of neoliberalism + postmodernism but I don't think he did a very good job based on the discussion on these films.
I think his work is just too stylized. He has such an interesting style that it overwhelms the message. I barely remember what his messaging is in films. Just the interesting visuals and ominous music.
If you read Undoing the Demos by Wendy Brown and Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition together you will understand exactly what he is going for. As a film it doesn't really work that well though beyond a kind of depressing entertainment. The themes are too subtle and philosophical along with most people don't have the background knowledge to really make sense of his points.
Hasn't this always been the case, what is different right now is that the tech enables to do this at scale, at much higher frequency that makes them more audacious, since no regular person can keep up with it. The over saturation of lies/fake news has lead to numbness and the hyper-normalisation. So, unless something directly is affecting us currently, we won't care
No. The modern Republicans want you to believe that because it’s an easy path to despair and inaction, which means they win, but the magnitude and degree have varied significantly in the past. Where we are now is something living Americans don’t have experience with unless they escaped somewhere like the Balkans in the 90s.
People do nothing because they believe others are doing nothing and it's a suppressive feedback loop that's exploited. Repeating that people know and do nothing reinforces it and falls into the broad category of criticism for the the sake of social flagging and not towards actual growth.
Who is "we"? I'm not doing nothing. Why are you doing nothing?
Nothing that effects real change.
Evidence, the lack of change.
Nothing that has worked yet. to say it hasn't worked yet is very different than saying nobody is doing anything. All we can do is try to figure it out. If you aren't doing something, look for something to do. Everyone I know is doing something. How are you going to figure out what will work except for trying things and seeing what you learn from that?
"Blaming" people for not being successful yet is very different than blaming them for not doing anything at all.
I think the real test will be, not whatever this administration does, but how much of that survives into the next one - how much is the new normal versus how much is a temporary aberration.
That’s true even if the next administration is Republican (Vance or whoever), but especially true if the next administration ends up being Democratic instead-which while not certain, has decent odds-the more Trump defies norms, the more voters who will wish to go back to a “normal” Presidency
> I think the real test will be, not whatever this administration does, but how much of that survives into the next one - how much is the new normal versus how much is a temporary aberration.
A reminder that this is the second time that Trump has been elected.
(People were saying what you're now saying after he was kicked out—an event that he says was rigged—the first time.)
Exactly: there was a brief moment when it looked like Republicans were willing to hold him accountable after the January 6th insurrection but that faltered and they circled ranks, especially when Roberts signaled that Trump had the support of the Supreme Court to the extent that they were willing to concoct a new constitutional doctrine to shield him.
A lot of people were hoping he’d just go away without them having to do anything difficult, but it’s clear that the next government has to reestablish the United States as a constitutional republic with the rule of law, even if it means hard things like trials for officials who abused their power. This kind of slide into authoritarianism isn’t an accident, and without consequences the people pushing it will keep trying.
What makes you think he is not going to pardon every single person in his administration, every single loyal Republican?
The presidential pardon is clearly something that needs to either be heavily reined in or removed. How you do that I don't know, but turns out the US Constitution is something you can ignore, so...
The entire system of checks and balances needs some rethinking because it's clearly not as "perfect" as we've been told over and over again.
ex post facto can be ignored, and a new law of the land passed voiding pardons during 47s term. Because repealing pardons isn't weaponizing the person pardoned's behavior after the fact, it's against Presidential authority, so isn't ex post facto when it comes to the person who's behavior was legally determined to be criminal. Voiding a commutation for cause would be tougher and potential ex post facto, but not a pardon. We can void those without violating our ex post facto standards.
What are the odds the current Supreme Court majority are going to uphold voiding Trump's pardons? Pretty to close to zero.
The only way you could do this would be if you changed the SCOTUS composition through court packing or impeachment or constitutional amendment.
If you wait for the conservative justices to retire and be replaced through death/resignation – by the time that happens, the issue of voiding pardons will likely be mostly irrelevant, because most of the pardonees will be already dead. And that's assuming the political fortune to be able to replace them with justices of a different persuasion, as opposed to just more of the same.
We will see what comes out of this. Might be relevant
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/dc-pipe-bomb-suspect-voted-trump...
A lot of us are really, really hoping that there is something unique about Trump that cannot be easily reproduced by the next MAGA leader. That the movement will fragment into irrelevancy as the usual elites regain control.
This is what Wolff, who has written 3-4 biographical books on Trump, thinks:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wolff_(journalist)
He used the term suis generic in a (PBS?) interview to describe Trump:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis
It may be that I'm a naive optimist, but I agree with him. When I look at who the hard core believers envision as the next torch-bearer, none of them have what it takes. Not Vance, not Rubio (Rubio! Suddenly he is 'strong'?? When was that ever a widely held opinion??), not the Trump kids. Trump has a way of defying political gravity and repeatedly escaping the consequences that take down every other politician. In this case the liberal consensus that it's a cult may not be that far from the truth -- maybe that's a loaded term, but how else do you describe a group of supporters whose faith is so strong that their ideology changes by the day to match whatever their leader currently says, even if it is diametrically opposed to what they said last week?
> > not the Trump kids. Trump has a way of defying political gravity and repeatedly escaping the consequences that take down every other politician
Look at Trump's interviews from the 80s and 90s.
He was not always like this.
If he learned his ways, others also can
In what way was he not like this?
I think the test beyond that is how willing the next government will be to codify meaningful changes into law. After Trump’s first time it’s as if there was a big sigh of relief and a notion of “well, we just won’t do that again”.
It’s very clear now that we need a lot more regulation of what presidents can and cannot do. Not to mention judicial reform. But if you’re a democrat theoretically getting power in 2028 you’re going to have immense pressure to move forwards, focus on kitchen table issues, yadda yadda.
Not sure how regulation helps when you have a Congress and/or Supreme Court willing to ignore it, alas.
Both institutions, and those who've failed them, must of course be addressed directly.
And extremely severe punishment as a deterrent against future efforts. Instead of a bunch of slow-rolled court cases and deferral back to the political process.
What's the point of law if no one is willing to enforce it?
One thing I think is sometimes forgotten about shifting the overton window is that it sort of doesnt matter what political leaning has their hands on the lever. When it serves a purpose, which is not always a public first purpose, people in power will leverage any lever possible. Shifts in the overton window, just add more levers and it comes down to benevolence or luck that those levers aren't used incorrectly
I'm not sure?
Some things, it just doesn't matter what the next administration does. The people of the US may, at any time, elect an administration that continues the course of breaking norms. The fact is that businesses, industries, banks, and nations have to guard against that possibility more than they need to cooperate with the next administration.
I think it's a bit fanciful to think you can take all the policies back to normal and have, Europe for instance, say "Oh good! Everything's back to normal!" I could be wrong, but I think that ship has sailed. Europe will work towards a new normal that looks to their own interests. And no action the next administration can take will change Europe's determination in this regard.
I think this will be as true of actors in the financial and industrial spheres as it will be of Europe in the security sphere.
>Europe will work towards a new normal that looks to their own interests. And no action the next administration can take will change Europe's determination in this regard.
1) Europe will do whatever is easiest at the time relative to the comfort of the people. Meaning they will have very short memories if enacting some change makes people worse off.
2) If the EU does make change with regard to increasing military spending, that is good either way for the US. Less US involvement in conflicts on a different continent.
This is clearly a fraudulent criminal investigation. Classic dictator strategy of charging opponents with trivial crimes to achieve political power grabs. US futures in stock market are way down.
But I bet a third of the country will blindly support it. They will see it as a just investigation into a crime. And they won’t care about the consequences. Or connect cause and effect. And with that much support the administration can get away with anything.
As for their various unconstitutional and illegal acts - what method is there to hold the executive branch accountable? It’s not like there’s a police force to arrest them right?
If I might add a couple of quotes:
"What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience of the ever-growing masses of our century. The merciless process into which totalitarianism drives and organizes the masses looks like a suicidal escape from this reality."
"Politically speaking, tribal nationalism always insists that its own people is surrounded by ‘a world of enemies,’ ‘one against all,’ that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man."
"Society is always prone to accept a person offhand for what he pretends to be, so that a crackpot posing as a genius always has a certain chance to be believed. In modern society, with its characteristic lack of discerning judgment, this tendency is strengthened, so that someone who not only holds opinions but also presents them in a tone of unshakable conviction will not so easily forfeit his prestige, no matter how many times he has been demonstrably wrong."
"Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness."
"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (that is, the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (that is, the standards of thought) no longer exist."
-- Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
Also Arendt: "The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world — and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end — is being destroyed."
At least some selection mechanisms are still working. Every time he does something like this, the world dumps a bunch more US currency.
> We say we care but do nothing.
Historically this is always the case until it absolutely isn't. And things just boil over.
Rupture -- often revolutions -- are entirely unpredictable, and cascading. They often occur after several failed attempts make it seem like the discontent has been at least partially contained (e.g. Russia in 1905 vs Russia in 1917). Maybe we're seeing this in Iran right now.
The kind of governance that Trumpism is attempting is inherently unstable. My guess is its higher level adherents know this. They just want to get theirs while they still can. Should be obviously the case as its very figurehead is obviously not thinking long term as he only has a few years left to live.
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Posting online literally is political activity.
You think the hordes of young men who put Trump into power were convinced by mass public demonstration? No: posts on the Internet.
Elections are a thing, they are marketing.
I'm talking at expressing dissent. On that, internet achieves little.
A little known fact is that the best way to have political power is to acquire it via the political process.
More like convinced by podcasts whispering in their ears.
Which is… people posting online…
> Posting online literally is political activity.
This guy's book convinced me otherwise: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/political-...
"Political hobbyism" is things like commenting on the internet, as distinct from going out and convincing people to vote differently or running for offfice.
Sure, there are more and less effective ways to engage in politics. But given that people spend nearly every waking moment now staring at information-on-screen-piped-through-internet, it's frankly ridiculous to keep up this "Internet isn't real life" charade.
Perhaps things were different in 2020, but today the United States government considers online commentary a key input to its decisions. The President of the United States, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had Twitter on a big screen in their war room for the Venezuela operation.
Young men put Trump in power? Afraid not. The demographic data shows that if it was narrowed down to one group, it was poorly educated white Christians over the age of 50.
I mean election victories are typically both multicausal and overdetermined. Poorly educated white Christians over the age of 50 form the GOP base, but especially a GOP win in the popular vote requires far more than that.
Parties focus so much on swing voters for a reason, and a lot of these swing voters are in fact swung by what they see online.
It's called 'kitchen table politics' (we used to just do it around the kitchen table) and is kinda a core Americanism. Welcome to this cultural insight about us.
non americans call it a normal discussion about the events affecting our lives
He certainly doesn't beat around the bush here. Very nice too see someone of his stature stand up and call out these shenanigans for what they are.
His term ends on May 15, 2026, so it's almost pointless to file these charges now.
I see what's happening now as game-theory signaling, not as a real threat to Powell. I would suggest that this action is better seen as a latent threat to the next Fed chairman to let them know that they will either enact Trumps desired Fed policies or they will be prosecuted for anything that the administration can manufacture.
It's also important to remember that Powell is not the only Federal Reserve Board of Governors to have very odd accusations of wrongdoing and investigations launched. He's also done this with Lisa Cook. It seems pretty blatant at this point what's really happening.
Remember early in his first term when he tested waters but the governmental system pushed back and kept him in check? It feels like an out of body experience to look at this and contemplate how much he’s changed about how the U.S. government conducts itself.
In his first term, he probably didn't yet understand how much power the office truly holds and how to wield it and just how far you can go with that. Because the main restriction on all of that power has always been convention rather than any actually robust guard rails. But no one, not even someone like Nixon, has ever dared to truly test that out.
He knew how much power he had back then. The difference was that the government bureaucracy worked hard to counter his agenda throughout his term. It’s why The Heritage Foundation came up with Project 2025: an organizated and cohesive plan to dismantle the bureaucracy and consolidate power. And it is working.
The first term laid a lot of the groundwork for this term as well - had he not appointed three SC Justices, things would look very different. This court has said basically that all executive actions including pretextual investigations via the DOJ are legal and that there is no such thing as agency independence, even when written into the laws that created the agencies.
Yes, too much emphasis is put on Trump. He's just the President. This crisis has been 80 years in the making.
It's the Supreme Court that has expanded the powers of the President, and previously of the Federal government, far beyond what was ever intended.
By allowing the federal government to dominate the states, the Supreme Court created a position of unrivalled power.
Trump may be an evil narcissist by the standards of normal people, but there's plenty of those sorts of people in politics. That's why you have a constitution.
> It's the Supreme Court that has expanded the powers of the President
Sort of, but Congress also wrote a bunch of pretty broad, vague laws, delegating a significant amount of power to the executive via agency rulemaking, and it turns out the agencies are part of the executive branch and have to do what the head of the executive branch says they have to do (within the limits of those broad, vague laws). If Congress can't get back to smaller, simpler, more specific laws, and they continue to pass the burden of this complexity over to the executive branch to figure out, the executive branch will continue to wield outsize power.
Absolutely! The U.S. is defacto a Russia or China with a lower 'government expenditure/GDP ratio'
But that is not that much of a consolation if the government is allowed to pick winners and losers for kleptocracy or there is strong central planning and oversight on what should independent institutions
> He knew how much power he had back then. The difference was that the government bureaucracy worked hard to counter his agenda throughout his term.
He did not know. He was also not expecting to win, and so had to scramble to get people appointed.
He asked around and got people who were experts in their respective fields. The problem is that those experts (a) knew his ideas were bad, and (b) had integrity. It was, by and large, Trump's appointees that worked hard to counter his agent and not the government bureaucracy.
Trump did not make the same 'mistake' this time around: he appointed folks not for their competence but for their loyalty to him. That was and is the only criteria for serving under Trump.
> He was also not expecting to win
He wanted his run to allow him to start his own tv channel: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/donald-trump-tv-netw...
well it tried to be organized, "cohesive" is a stretch.
And it's really fumbling as of now. The tarrifs were 100% on Trump and it's clearly thrown a monkey wrench in everything. the federal judges have slowed everything to a crawl, and these spectacles with immigration have activated American eyes in ways we haven't seen in decades. These kinds of plans work in the shadows and as of now it's all out in the open.
It will reverse in November at this rate, but even a few more reisngations or deaths in the house can dramatically shift plans.
I hate to assign him so much agency. The man seems a complete buffoon who lacks the ability to plan anything beyond real estate fraud. Instead, I look to all of the people in his orbit who can orchestrate long term goals. Sure, he will self sabotage many schemes, but will directionally go where the handlers want. Vance, Miller, Heritage Foundation, etc are the ones guiding most policy decisions.
That tariffs have been so absolutely scattershot, says Trump actually is the one calling the shots there.
His orbiters/handlers are totally throwing all kinds of stuff at him to see what sticks to his cooked brain. It's clear he's barely aware what's happening anymore. The only coherent things he can focus on are things from the 80s and 90s heydays and old and recent grudges.
It’s clear that he’s very easily persuaded on many topics that he already has a slight bias towards, but that he also has his pet projects that his handlers don’t want to mess with because that would jeopardize their political capital (ball room).
Quick heuristic I have is: vanity project = Trump; neocon pet project = Heritage Foundation; anything related to racial purity = Stephen Miller; quackery = RFK and other grifters.
The tariffs are partially his bias, but also Navarro who lost his mind somewhere around 2015 and became an economics pariah.
I'm not sure that the tariffs are just bias plus bad economic theory. I think it's that Trump sees tariffs as a source of revenue under his personal control - that is, not subject to the congressional budgeting process.
It remains to be seen whether the courts will agree with that. Last I saw, they didn't, but it wasn't a final decision.
More directly, Tariffs are something he can threaten and then ignore with the right "fees" paid.
It's just grift.
Cause most of the capricious use of power is expensive and people used to care about the budget.
No? Because most people who have held POTUS aren’t malignant narcissists.
He still doesn't understand, I think anyone that sticks all of this to Trump is playing exactly in the hands of the powers behind him: The Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, billionaires like the Koch, Stephen Miller, Bannon, so on and so forth, they would love to have Trump as the scapegoat for all of this.
Trump is not a smart person, he doesn't know much aside from what he's been told, and the people playing him to further their agendas would love more than anything to be kept in the shadows in case it all comes crumbling down to just pin it all on Trump, the moron.
He was rewarded with full control of every branch of government. What did we expect?
And that happened even after they arrested him and tried to put him in jail. What's happening now might be shocking but not unexpected at all.
>tried to put him in jail
They really didn't. It was a dog and pony show under the belief that he would not make his way back into power. The dems/reps did not want to set a precedent of holding a president to account for doing terribly illegal things. They didn't intend to actually do anything to prevent this.
And so here we are.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. I wonder if the Democrats didn't delay prosecution until late 2023/early 2024 in order to have it be a headwind against Trump running again.
If so, they have been well-paid for that bit of "strategy". Trump was able to delay the cases long enough that the election came first, and now he has immunity at least while in office.
> I wonder if the Democrats didn't delay prosecution until late 2023/early 2024 in order to have it be a headwind against Trump running again.
I think they didn't realize the moment the country was in. They put a judge in charge of the justice department when we needed a bull-dog prosecutor. It was a bad choice.
Through what mechanism is he controlling the other branches of government?
The GOP in Congress abdicating its role and deferring to the executive, as well as SCOTUS continually using the “shadow docket” to rule in his favor with little to no explanation provided.
Congress: anyone falling out of line will lose his support in midterms.
Judiciary: appointments and ideological alignment with some of the Supreme Court. Thomas and Alito are fully controlled, Kavanaugh just loves a powerful executive, the rest aren't controlled but often in agreement.
Then there's his use of executive power to punish his adversaries, e.g. Perkins Coie.
The question is through what mechanism are other branches curtailing his power? It seems to be limited to strongly worded letters and speeches, indignant comments and scathing news reports but nothing real.
The execution of the Unitary Executive theory, a clear ideological descendant of Carl Schmitt’s Decisionism. Carl also had some beautiful prose describing the weaknesses of liberal democracy and how to exploit them that are very relevant to today as well.
Through the flawed primary system. Relatively few people vote in the primaries, which means they skew towards extremists. Trump can motivate MAGAns to vote in Republican primaries, which makes MAGA essentially a gatekeeper to Republican seats even in districts where the electorate at large is Republican rather than MAGAn.
He's not directly controlling the judiciary yet, but he has appointed wildly extremist judges and threatened judges who rule against him with impeachment, so he's certainly making an effort.
He's also appreciably more senile now, and a common manifestation of that is lowered inhibitions. I'm not saying that Trump was great at 70, but now that he's 80 he's considerably less in control of himself.
(If you doubt this, go watch some clips and compare how he talks now to how he talked during his first administration. If you were concerned about Biden's state in 2024, you should be concerned about Trump now.)
Trump #1 came unprepared, that hasn't repeated.
I think it’s more like the opportunists weren’t prepared. Now they’re feasting, and Trump is easily exploited.
So I'm sitting here as a Canadian wondering what the American people are going to do? I understand a lot of what the President of The United States says - I even agree with some of it, the problem is I don't feel like we're engaging with the American people anymore. I really wonder where you guys are headed and what it means for the rest of us, I spent 15 years in the states, built a public company there, I really like the Americans, but I don't want annexation. I wonder where you guys are headed.
> I wonder where you guys are headed.
You need to know only two facts about America to guess that:
* Fifty three percent of Americans now read below the sixth grade level.
* As (ostensibly) a representative Democracy America's fate is dictated by the majority of it's citizens.
Our future is to become a broken nation governed by middle-school student level thinking. The only way to build a better America is to build a better populace, and that would be contrary to the interests of the angry, spoiled, children who seem to hold all the power now.
> * As (ostensibly) a representative Democracy America's fate is dictated by the majority of it's citizens.
No, it's determined by the people who actually go out and vote.
Bizarrely, voter turnout among younger people remains low. It's beyond frustrating to work with large groups of young people who are seemingly always talking politics and angry about something political, then to watch as half of them either forget to vote or act like they're too apathetic to vote.
The craziest part was seeing this apathy play out in states with vote-by-mail systems that required as little effort as possible. I still don't get it.
In defence of young people, it's "determined" by the people who actually go out and vote the same way a child "determines" what's for dinner when asked "would you like broccoli or brussels sprouts?"
American democracy is broken. Not in an abstract, hand-wavy feelings way but a hard, numerical, mathematical way. A two party system results in no real choice. First past the post results in a two party system. America uses first past the post. Therefore, Amercian democracy gives voters no real choice.
Margins in recent elections have been thin enough that higher voter turnout among young generations could have easily changed the outcome.
Blaming broken democracy is just a cop out. Youth voter turnout for primary elections, where there are many candidates, is also low. More parties isn’t going to change anything.
You're missing the point. There were only two possible outcomes: Democrats or Republicans. Both were bad and unappealing. Both are too dependent on the status quo to serve as vehicles for real change (so primaries are pointless too).
"More parties", through elimination of first past the post, absolutely changes things. It allows you to vote for someone who truly represents you and your interests without "throwing away" your vote. That's impossible today.
Dems didn't really get primaries in 2024, so that certainly didn't help.
>"More parties", through elimination of first past the post, absolutely changes things.
Indeed. But that's the one single thing D's and R's can agree on not doing. It'll need to be done state by state to get any real leverage.
Well we are getting some "real change" now, so I guess the monkey's paw works.
There was a real choice in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Trumps opponent was every single time very different to him.
Democrats continue to offer up horrible candidates, and their idiotic primary system confirms those horrible candidates every 4 years. A slice of cheese could have beaten Trump, but somehow the DNC managed to offer up the most boring, milquetoast, unlikable, uncharismatic, centrist candidates they could find and beat him once out of three times. They're just kicking own-goals over and over, and they're not learning which direction to run down the field.
Biden was not centrist he was left. He was a good president I do not understand why Americans complain as if the choice between the two was so hard.
His policies were tempered, image-wise and often in substance, by his affinity for Joe Manchin alongside his disdain for Bernie Sanders. Balanced alongside the middle eastern foreign policy, he comes across as centrist despite the BBB.
Look up the build back better act that Biden proposed and tell me if you think that was centrist. It originally proposed extending the child tax credit (basically basic income for people with kids).
The Inflation Reduction Act, the negotiated paired down version was still the biggest climate bill in history.
He also attempted to cancel 10 to 20k each of student debt, a progressive priority. That was blocked by the Supreme court.
The list goes on.
If the electorate had given Biden a bigger majority in Congress he would have passed much more progressive legislation.
The self reinforcing prophecy of “somebody else’s job”.
It’s the job of politicians to pander to us, the good voter. Since they didn’t offer us something good, we didn’t vote, and that results in this current situation.
Politics is not my job, being aware of how politics works is not my job. My job is just to let them know they aren’t good enough. It’s because they aren’t good enough, that we landed up in this situation.
I remember watching a clip from Jimmy Kimmel on YouTube where they asked people on the street in LA whether they planned to vote in the 2024 presidential election. The twist was that they were doing this one day AFTER the election. It was so disappointing to see that many young people had no idea that the election was over and yet they said they planned to vote. One guy even asked who was running.
I would envy the person who can live in the US and be unaware a presidential election was yesterday...
Like, they start running ads 18 months ahead of it... How do you miss all of those ads
Presidential ads run in swing states. Not in California, whose delegates are a foregone conclusion.
Californians are hassled for political donations, not votes.
There are more of them in swing states.
But the internet is full of them for quite some time, I would expect them to see some of those
This is likely because for many young people the only source of news is social media. And they are unlikely to be targeted to see the political ads.
Interestingly, occasionally I see political ads on Willow.tv which I use to watch Cricket. And most of these ads have Noem threatening to deport people ("if you are here illegally, we are coming after you..."). I am a US citizen.
on top of that, you need to register as a voter in many places and that process ends months before the actual ballots come. These aren't things they teach in most schools (nor their parents, apparently).
Yeah totally bonkers. In general, most people severely underestimate how long the government agencies take to process something.
>Bizarrely, voter turnout among younger people remains low.
in the grand scheme of history, it's not odd. Voter turnout correlates decently with age. It's an anamoly when they do get out and vote, like in 2008.
That's partially an effect of
1. not having compulsory voting
2. needing to actively register in order to be viable to vote, as opposed to simply being delivered a ballot like many other countries
3. the decades of "no politics at the table" policies to help expose the civic duties to the youth. And since it's not a flashy topic to talk about, they won't really bring it up themselves, or simply have non-informed views.
4. careful strategies to try and disenfranchise voters who may otherwise oppose a party. This is what "both sides are the same" does in a system without #1.
Not to mention the proliferation of social targeted media ads changing the landscape and active loopholes used to try and de-register voters. These all hit youth the most to vote a certain way (or not at all).
Hoping this might help you find a way to reach to the young people you have to work with: I remember my young self being primarily concerned with being right about the world rather while also believing nothing I could do at my level could matter. Maybe it's just me but something about small incremental betterment was uncredibly unsexy to me. I would rationalize voting as "participating in the system" that was rigged anyways.
Somehow it changed after I watched CGP Greg's "rules for rulers" videos
It was determined by voters. Pretty sure that's over now too.
It's not too late. But it will be too late as soon as too many people think it's too late.
And those young people are manipulated by the older part of population.
There were millions of voters who refused to vote for Harris because of the Gaza situation -- oh, the irony.
https://www.imeupolicyproject.org/postelection-polling
That's half the problem. Democrats aren't offering much.
This is utterly delusional. I can’t comprehend of whatever mind virus made it so far into the American political discourse for this BS to still be parroted in 2026. I am blessed to be born in and to reside in a country with a comparatively much better-functioning government and voting system. You better believe that if I were American I’d be voting for the dems in a heartbeat. I’d be endlessly annoyed about it, especially compared to the vastly more palatable options where I live, but there’d be zero doubt about my decision. The culture of not voting is the biggest unforced self-own the American public has inflicted upon itself. You all get what you deserve with that one.
I think it’s reasonable not to vote for a candidate that supports genocide.
Maybe that’s not a line for you but surely you have a line that cannot be crossed somewhere
Neither candidate was ever going to push back against Israel's genocide of Palestinians.
While it was very disappointing the Democrats weren't exerting significant pressure against Israel, and Kamala gave no indication she'd act any different, it was delusional to believe Trump was going to be any different. He was very clear that he supported Israel as well, and he went as far as to claim he'd support Netanyahu even more strongly than Biden. Sure, he sabre-rattled a bit about wanting the war in Gaza to end before he took office, but he also indicated he'd support residual IDF actions (i.e., continued killings of Palestinians) within Gaza afterward.
There was never a candidate who was going to push back against Israel, no matter how much you or I would have liked for there to have been one.
AIPAC has a terrifyingly strong grip on American politics.
The only way to address this and other similar problems is through campaign finance reform, which the incumbents will never allow. It doesn't mean we shouldn't stop pushing the issue though.
What do you think would be "much"?
Because even just the boring sanity of Biden Harris was leagues better than what we all saw coming in 2024. (Putting aside that whole constitutional amendment about insurrections.)
Maybe they could promise to make the rent lower. Or to make abortion legal. Or to stop bombing 2 million brown children in the Middle East. Or literally anything people actually want, instead of running on the singular platform or "obviously they'll vote for us because we're not the Republicans". People are getting really tired of the latter. Notice every time a candidate comes out who actually promises things people want he wins by a landslide?
They actually have offered policies along this line but their messaging is weak at best.
It also competes with an opponent (the GOP) that is more than willing to outright lie to sway voters. This isn't to say that the DNC is beyond reproach but we're way past "both sides" at this point.
> Bizarrely, voter turnout among younger people remains low
I understand why my age group has low turnout. It's a disgusting chore that I force myself to do.
In part, it might be a chicken and egg situation. My age cohort doesn't vote because candidates suck. Candidates suck because they pander to those who do vote.
Now to show my political biases:
In 2016 Sanders had a huge amount of support from young people but the DNC did everything it could to tilt favor away from him. He ran a hugely successful grassroots campaign taking small donations from individuals. Where did it get him? On stage with Biden - the anointed candidates with SuperPAC money. That is no small feat. His campaign ended only after the DNC guilted him into quitting as to "not steal votes". That's my perception at least. I temporarily changed my registration from unaffiliated to Democrat to vote for him in the primaries. Young people put in effort and showed up. It bought them exactly one legally rigged primary.
So every election I put on my clown makeup [0] and pretend like any of this is actually real democracy.
[0] https://rimgo.privacyredirect.com/ZUiVLyz
> Young people put in effort showed up. It bought them exactly one legally rigged primary.
It is certainly wise to give up after one failed effort. Never try again. /s
Oh I agree and I vote. More people need to vote. But I understand why people feel little motivation to.
Maybe ask the young people if they actually wanted to vote for the options they had, before jumping to them being apathetic or hypocritical. And yes, I know the adult-in-the-rooms will be quick to point out that its simply rational and responsible to hold your nose and vote for the lesser evil, and the kids should know that, etc etc. But while it may be a good prescription to people, it doesn't actually address the problem. Maybe we should, but still, if you just want to scold people into voting for you, then you probably don't have a good platform and you probably don't deserve the support you do get.
The fact is, it would of been already incredibly hard for someone to be enthusiastic voting for Dems last presidential election; frankly even without even considering the utter and pointed moral failure with Gaza.
You want young people to vote, you can try to tut-tut them to vote for literally whoever, or you can, you know, listen to what they are saying, what they feel passionate about, and try even just a little bit to address it or, heck, put it on the platform. Its supposed to be a political party, something that unites people under some shared vision.
You want every single young person in the US to vote? Just say: free healthcare.
I mean, they tried that in the primaries and young people still stayed home. If they actually came out in force for Bernie like you said they would, he would have won every primary. Young people simply don't vote because of a lot of different reasons. Probably some of the reasons are immaturity and a lack of belief that they have agency, which is understandable given how society works in the US. You have basically zero rights until you turn 18, at which point you are magically able to vote! Do you believe you have the ability to affect the world at that point? Of course not.
"Put up candidates that don't suck" in this context is basically "put up candidates who will cater to young voters at the expense of literally every other constituency", which is exactly the reason Bernie lost in 2016, and lost even harder in 2020. You can't focus only on one group of people, even if that's the only way to drive their turnout. It's just a losing game, clearly not one worth playing with a group of people who don't yet understand that other people exist, with other priorities.
I guess I just didn't realize that was the settled reason why Bernie lost!
I just think even granting this framing, what is the point or the lesson here? Is the idea that Clinton in 2016 was more well-rounded, had broader appeal as a candidate and young people were too immature to realize this?
The lesson is that making your sole priority driving youth turnout is a losing strategy, for reasons that are not that confusing. The Bernie lamenters would do well to learn lessons from his failures, rather than blaming everyone else.
Sure, but what does this mean? Like ok we know not to solely cater to the youth vote, great. That wouldn't imply to me then that the correct thing to do instead is alienate or anger that same vote, right? Shouldn't we see nominees that cater to all of them, or a lot of them at least? Or, what's wrong with wanting that?
We do not need to start from the point of view that each given interest or group is totally opposed, that we are locked in some zero-sum death spiral where "the youth vote" shares absolutely no overlap with anybody else. Politics is possible at all because we believe in something else. You could decompose everything down into a list of people to blame with stuff like this, but it won't tell you what to actually do!
That's the thing - we already know that each given interest group has common interests. That's how you build coalitions, by finding those common interests and tamping down on the differences. The problem with the youth vote that we know, is that if we cater to anyone other than them, or god forbid have any opinion they disagree with, they get disillusioned or even outright hostile (very much to their own detriment), for reasons I speculated on above.
So it's better to treat them as a totally unreliable voting bloc that is nice to have, but in no way should be treated special. They are fickle, impossible to corral, and make particularly awful coalition partners.
Bernie, for one, would have done well to use their energy to launch, as he did, but then switch to broadening his coalition, rather than doubling down on catering to their every whim and attempted browbeating. That rigidity and tunnel vision is what sunk him, and is what would have led to total electoral collapse if he had somehow made it to the nomination.
Ok well then I guess there really is no hope here for this. I guess it's just a shame it's such a helpless case with the kids here!
But really, if you have a democracy where there seems to be one uncompromising bloc that no one can really satisfy, that too is democracy in action in a way! Or rather, it maybe says something about the state and the parties that this is the case with regard to the youth. Given all of history, we can't just say in general "kids are intrinsically uncompromising, short term idealists fundamentally incompatible with democracy." Right?
By the way, I Googled for the equivalent stat about Canada: "48-49% having skills below a high school level". I'm not here to bad mouth the Canadian education system, but I think you will find fairly similar stats in most highly developed nations.
I've been reading this topic for years. It is very common with a certain party that the other side votes against their interest, or is too dumb to vote (literacy).
You can also see it in race voting, where people will say a certain race is voting against their interest just to vote for someone with the same skin color.
It's actually a talking point that actively pushes people away from their cause.
Does this type of voting happen? Sure, but not enough to push elections. IMO it's people who are confused on why others don't think the same way as they do and try to justify why anyway they can, usually through derogatory remarks.
datsci_est_2015 explains it better than I would just a few comments down, but this isn't what I mean. I mean that people who are semi-literate or illiterate are terrible thinkers. They are, in fact, fundamentally incapable of understanding the modern world they find themselves in and are CONSTANTLY taken advantage of.
Bad thinkers make bad decisions, and are vulnerable to being manipulated in ways that good thinkers aren't. Try getting a mortgage or a car loan when you can't read complete paragraphs. Try investing your retirement properly. Try doing just about anything that modern adults are required to do. You're definitely going to pay a "stupid tax" throughout your entire adult life if you lack the ability to read critically.
People bemoan the death of journalism, but it's not the journalists fault. Did you know that USA Today was intentionally invented to be an alternative news source for people who couldn't read well? At the time it was bemoaned as the end of western civilization. Now it requires more of it's reader than the places people actually get their news from (Tik-Tok and Bathroom wall graffiti presumably).
FWIW - One side is objectively worse than the other, but it's not by a wide margin (a few basis points if I remember correctly) and it's probably just because one side lives in states that love to take the education budget and blow it on "more important" things.
> people who are semi-literate or illiterate are terrible thinkers. They are, in fact, fundamentally incapable of understanding the modern world they find themselves in
It is always funny to me that the people making this argument are usually also the people who would view a voting literacy test as abhorrent (not you, necessarily). To me, if we're assuming a large amount of people are too stupid to understand information or know what is good, then it follows that we oughtn't let them decide the direction of the country.
I am genuinely in favor of a brief standardized test in the voting booth, but I think most aren't, especially those who are the most vocal about voter illiteracy/ignorance/stupidity. Follow through with your beliefs, readers. Pick one: are they too stupid to vote, or aren't they? If they are, support a literacy test. If they aren't, stop the ugly rhetoric.
The problem with a test is whoever writes/grades the test can ensure people they don't like fail. Elections are often close enough that they only need to fail a few borderline (and pass on their sides) to control an election.
as such I'm forced to oppose all tests even though the idea isn't bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test
The problem (like with voter ID laws in the US) is that it's a very slippery slope to voter suppression, and in the US we have a very creative history when it comes to voter suppression. You'd have poll workers who would present incredibly hard passages to read to voters based on a personal judgement call (read: black voters).
I (not OP) agree that dumb people voting is a problem but the alternative is to have arbitrary suppression of votes, which IMO is worse.
I don't know why objections to voting tests usually pretend we're in 1850. We have standardized tests, already, nationwide. It's a solvable problem. We wouldn't contingent a vote on a random poll worker's choice of passage to read.
>We have standardized tests, already, nationwide.
And voting is legislated by individual states, that would theoretically implement their own standards though this may be intervened upon by the federal government). Heck, even standardized testing for students is done at a state level. The SATs/ACTs are privately administered. What example of a nationwide standardized test for literacy do you have?
A solvable problem, but someone chooses and implements the solution. Now imagine that person is from a party that you disagree with, and is highly motivated to find a way to tilt the playing field.
Ironic misuse of apostrophe's.
This talking point never contains international comparison nor historical comparison. Most people using it do not even know what "sixth grade level" actually is. They just know it means "a little".
Who cares how they're doing it in Albania? It used to be better in America, now it's worse and it's taken our entire society with it.*
I DO know exactly what sixth grade level is. It means they can read simple paragraphs, but not critically. These people lack the ability to think critically because they never learned it. They're the ones that open phishing emails and get taken by shady real estate con-men and Nigerian prince scammers.
You can be semi-literate and be a good person. You can't be semi-literate and make good decisions. Not in the modern world.
* To clarify - Reading levels in the United States have been declining at an alarming rate for a long time. They peaked in 1992 and have been steadily decaying since. You'll also note that 1992 was the year Dan Quayle was disqualified from the presidency because he couldn't spell potato. Imagine applying those standards to a modern politician.
> Who cares how they're doing it in Albania?
It would be interesting comparison, actually. As interesting as French, Germany or whatever.
> It used to be better in America, now it's worse and it's taken our entire society with it. [...] They peaked in 1992 and have been steadily decaying since.
I checked out tests and it is not true. Reading scores in 2022 were still higher then those in 1992. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=38
So, yeah, this would be an interesting historical comparison. It was worst most of the time.
> These people lack the ability to think critically because they never learned it. They're the ones that open phishing emails and get taken by shady real estate con-men and Nigerian prince scammers.
You are confusing two different things here. First off, highly educated people are in fact vulnerable to scammers ... frequently because of their own confidence.
> You can be semi-literate and be a good person. You can't be semi-literate and make good decisions. Not in the modern world.
But issue in modern world are not people just dont make good decisions. It is people who make immoral decisions. Vance have good reading skills, but he is still a fascist.
> You'll also note that 1992 was the year Dan Quayle was disqualified from the presidency because he couldn't spell potato.
This is not an example of mass of people using critical thinking and acting rationally. This is an example of blown up reaction ala Twitter mob latching on something trivial and making a big deal out of it. This is example of what happen when soundbite wins over substance.
I think it’s also important to talk about what it means to “read at a 6th grade level” when this is mentioned, because a lot of people (myself included) might assume that just means they could finish and understand a book intended for 6th graders.
But there’s actually meaningful criteria that sheds some light on the critical thinking capabilities of people who can or can’t read at certain levels, especially as it pertains to propaganda. Below a certain level, people are not well-educated enough to critically assess a text against the motivations of its authors (somewhere around 9th grade). Americans are prone to conspiratorial thinking so you might think that that’s alright because they’re often skeptical of any text, but it just seems like it causes them to dig even deeper into the propaganda that’s targeted to them.
It’s kind of like learning that some people don’t have an inner monologue, or that they aren’t capable of imagining shapes or objects abstractly in their mind. Except it’s a lot more serious as it deals with critical thinking directly: these people don’t understand that what they’re reading was written for a purpose.
This isn't accidental. Religious indoctrination literally teaches generations to make special loopholes in critical thinking and healthy skepticism to maintain their faith. And it has paid off in easy to manipulate masses for centuries.
The more religious people I know are some of the best critical thinkers. Especially those types who enroll their kids in the 'classical' education model. With the decline of religion in the USA, I don't think this is a very coherent scapegoat.
Religion isn't the only factor, nor did I claim it was.
But it's the only one I've seen convince PhDs to believe self contradictory "scriptures", cherry picked "evidence", appeals to authority, parrot useless platitudes, indoctrinate their kids, dismiss injustices, other people even for the most trivial differences in doctrine, and consistently vote against their own interests.
> Fifty three percent of Americans now read below the sixth grade level.
I thought this was a joke. Like, holy shit I regret looking this up and finding out it's not BS
https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/
Why is literacy so important? Wasn’t literacy lower in the US at other points in time?
The Lippmann school of democracy sort of predisposed that people were too stupid and that through journalists would emerge a reasonable set of choices. For the most part that matches the way politics worked in the USA and most democracies until recently. Unfortunately the internet disrupted things such that suddenly everyone needs to actually be democratically adept in at least some form more akin to the Dewey school of thought.
The combination of literacy and the algorithmic propaganda machine is a pretty big stumbling block.
Interesting comment. I haven't heard this problem phrased this way nor have I heard of these schools, do you have a recommendation for learning more about this?
See perhaps:
> At the turn of the 20th century, a crucial debate emerged between Walter Lippmann and John Dewey over the viability of democracy in an increasingly complex world. Lippmann critiqued democracy’s reliance on public opinion, arguing that citizens construct simplified “pseudo-environments” shaped by media and stereotypes, rendering them ill-equipped to make informed decisions on vast global issues. He warned that modern democracies are driven more by emotionally charged reactions than by accurate understanding, and that media, language, and time constraints further distort reality. Dewey responded not by dismissing Lippmann’s concerns, but by reframing democracy as more than a political system—it was, to him, an ethical ideal and a form of social cooperation. Viewing society as an interconnected organism, Dewey believed individuals flourish only through participation and education. He saw democracy as a continuous process of mutual growth, where every person contributes uniquely, and where the antidote to authoritarianism lies in cultivating thoughtful, empowered citizens—not in retreating from democratic ideals, but in deepening them.
* https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/dewey-lippman
Also maybe from The Atlantic (from 1919), "The Basic Problem of Democracy" by Walter Lippman:
https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arch...
Adapt! (Barbara Stiegler)
She puts it all together relatively succinctly if dense. You can just read Dewey too if you want to be closer to the source. He's a bit more interesting because it is more of the road not taken out of the progressive era.
Cool, thanks for the rec!
Truthfully I’m not familiar with any of this. I’m just curious how we managed a functioning democracy through the 1800s when literacy was certainly lower. And, how other democratic nations with similar literacy rates are doing.
Standards for "functioning democracy" were much lower then.
Most people were ineligible to vote in the 18th and 19th centuries. [1] Not even 20% of the US population voted in presidential elections until the 20th century. [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_St...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Vote_for_President_a...
In what language? 78% of Americans have English as their first language.
I don't think that's right - it looks like the stat is that 78% of Americans speak *only* English at home.
I'm not American, but anecdotally, a supermajority (like 80-90%) of people I know who speak multiple languages at home speak English at native fluency. (e.g. in my semi-extended family - parents/siblings/nibblings/partner/parents-in-law, there are 9 of us, and only 2 are more comfortable in French than English, but none of us would qualify as speaking *only* English at home.)
Also, look into how the statistic is gathered vs other countries.
There is no exact definition on this statistic and how to measure. There is also reporting biases. Single person vs household for example.
I don't care what language they read, just that they're capable of reading (and thinking) like adults.
> It's so simple: everyone is stupider than me. These are facts dontcha know. The science is on my side.
The problem is that a lot of what is happening is within the executive branch's power and/or democratic. A nontrivial number of Americans support everything that has been happening. The expectation at a time like this would be that you have checks and balances working, but all other branches have yielded their power. I find that jaw dropping personally, but it's where we are. Midterms are happening soon and are the right place to disrupt congress.
America has enough power to help someone else. No one has the power to save America from itself.
The cavalry is not coming, and this fire is going to take its course.
One day, maybe we will rebuild from scratch.
> No one has the power to save America from itself.
Wrong!! Please don’t say that! We all have power inside the US. Congress had the opportunity in 2021 to correct the wrong, but Republicans kowtowed and they are still doing so. That was the easy way. Now for the hard way, American people will have to do something about it.
Edit: Grammar
We don't disagree. It is going to be us and only us.
> One day, maybe we will rebuild from scratch
The current situation is bad, but this is just doomerism.
The current administration will end. Trump can't live forever. His approval rating is already low and falling.
We're in for a bumpy ride, but then it's going to start reverting toward the mean. Not necessarily back to the way things were, but periods of extreme like this are followed by a reversion to the mean more often than not.
> The current administration will end
They way the current administration act, I start to think that their plan A is to stay for a long long time. There is so much open corruption that half of them would land in prison really quickly and they don't seem particularly bothered by that fact.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-house-republicans-if-...
They know, and they will do everything in their power to stop the next presidential election from being a fair one.
You're thinking about it with the wrong basis. They will not land in prison because they broke enough enforcement mechanisms to escape punishment. The administration will end, but the regime will not. Even if Trump died tomorrow, enough people have followed him through the holes he created that things will continue. You will of course have factions form and have those factions fight amongst eachother as they head off in their own directions, but the factions will exist in the first place. There is no way to stop them from forming and pursuing their goals without building new enforcement mechanisms, which they will obviously and vehemently impede the construction of. These people will likely die of age before they spend even a second getting a burning hot de-lousing shower and an orange one piece. This has happened every two decades in the U.S. since Reconstruction was sabotaged and prematurely ended.
I don't think you can really state that right now as certainty, it's becoming part of the illusion of continuity, this administration has shown how fragile the institutions holding American democracy together are.
The Pandora's box has been opened, it's not doomerism to see how unprecedented actions have been taken by this administration and not be sure of what's come next, you've never lived through something like that.
I had much more trust in your institutions a year ago, after 2025 I really do not believe the USA will be able to revert toward the mean anytime soon. The ultimate test for it will be the midterms, if the election this year goes well without a hiccup it might signal there is some institutional power still left in American democracy; on the other hand if there are hiccups, meddling by the federal government, and its allies (including the rich elite behind a lot of these people), it will just cement my opinion that the USA's democracy is in a death spiral.
But don't be so trusting, the cracks are obviously showing and are being exploited, just wishful thinking won't help at all your society at this moment, it's better to be a bit more doomerist and act against these actions rather than just "trusting the process" because if you end up losing the process the bottom will fall out.
I hope the OC said that in good faith, but I have my doubts. I think it's just a gentle way to accuse people like you and I of having Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Five people are voting on what to have for dinner. Three people vote for pizza. Two people vote for "You three." Pizza has won, but there is still a massive problem in that room.
Gonna have to force-feed them enough pizza, maybe tricking them that it's causing the other three great pains to give it to them. Fortunately, it's been shown that these people are very easily tricked.
We're still fixing the problems from Reagan. The USA and the world will be feeling the aftershocks 100 years from now.
And the planet is still feeling the after affects of British colonialism. That's how the future works, it's affected by the past.
Always amusing. So sure. I like to imagine the conversations at the begining of the late bronze age collapse, or perhaps aristocrats of the western roman empire living in Gaul.
"To say anything that challenges the current trajectory is doomerism. We're in for a bumpy ride for sure, but this will all correct itself. _it has to_."
Trump is not the problem, he’s a symptom. The problem is the roughly one third of Americans who think he’s great, and to a lesser extent the roughly one third who don’t care.
After all that’s happened, his approval rating is still above 40%. Those people aren’t going away or changing their minds any time soon.
That is the truly scary thing.
And from what I've seen, the rest of 'the west' has similarly sized undercurrents of similar sentiment.
Strangely, that 40% will be made up of, largely, people whose grandparents lived through WWII.
'Oh gramps, for once, stop talking about the war'.
People really don't want to hear those stories because it makes them uncomfortable. I'm in an absolute minority in that I wanted to hear the stories even if they made me uncomfortable. But the vast majority of the people would love to get through life without learning history's lessons and as a result are much more likely to repeat them.
Probably the mantra Chuck Schumer recites before sleep every night.
> Trump can't live forever.
Trump is a symptom of the problem, not the actual problem.
> periods of extreme like this are followed by a reversion to the mean more often than not.
Cite evidence please.
I have no problem building from scratch.
Happy to show everyone how to do that.
There's basically nothing the American people can do short term.
The US government is entirely non-responsive and only nominally representative.
Barring a wave of Republican retirements in the House, the absolute soonest there are any guardrails are after the 2026 midterms when a new congress is seated in 2027.
> There's basically nothing the American people can do short term.
If there are ICE agents in your area follow and film them. Create evidence of their jackboot tactics.
Most folks do not like force/violence, and the more people see the jackboot policies and actions of one side, the more folks will lean towards the side(s) that are against those policies.
58% of Americans were okay with goverment shooting at protesting students at Kent State shooting.
53% of Americans say that the ICE agent for shooting the woman in Minneapolis:
* https://xcancel.com/YouGovAmerica/status/2010853750618063016
In a different poll 53% say Trump is doing "too much" to deport illegal immigrants (up from 44% in March):
* https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/12/15/growing-s...
The source for this [1] is more nuanced (someone can be both "not okay" with it while also blaming the victims), but it's true that survey respondents were five times more likely to blame the students than the National Guard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings#cite_note...
Gerrymandering, infinite lobbying corruption, and manufactured consent are supposed to keep the populace doing and thinking what the 1% want, and cheating to help them. They can't even do those properly anymore with vast resources. Perhaps billionaires and failed celebrity reality stars don't make the best public administrators.
There are still some things. A handful of court cases have gone against the trump admin and they have (in many cases) respected them. For example, the suits against national guard deployments in chicago. Donating to organizations using the courts to leverage the law against the trump administration does have material effects.
The senate can also still hold some things up. If you have a senator who keeps voting for trump's judicial appointments or you have a senator who is in leadership then yelling at them to stop letting trump's judicial appointments sail through is important. The fact that the dems are not using every procedural step to slow down the process is ridiculous.
Of course there’s, it’s just that anti-Trump people don’t care as much and are not as brave as the pro-Trump people. MAGA people stormed the capitol, anti-Trump people just write well thought concerns on the internet. MAGA people for years endured deplatforming and being outcasts but developed methods to deal with it, the anti-Trump people are scared to lose what they have and are too concerned about their differences within and they are unable to build anything. It’s people with nothing to lose and everything to gain vs people with everything to lose and nothing to gain from having a fight.
Those who stormed the Capitol did it because they were against the current course of affairs. Are the anti-Trump people ever going to do something like that if they are against the current course of events? I don’t think so.
Consequently, Trump will win. That’s why people who control the capital are aligned with MAGA.
People are out there protesting right now even though ICE and the police have a history of shooting unarmed protestors. Leftists protestors are and always have been more harshly treated by this government than the other side.
If anyone is doubting this, look at how the police treat "ecoterrorists" versus mass shooters. Ecoterrorists in quotes because the real ecoterrorists are those polluting and destroying the planet for money, not a group of people that stop a machine from raping the land.
> People are out there protesting right now even though ICE and the police have a history of shooting unarmed protestors
I never understand what's the point of those protests. They should be taking over power by force or GTFO. Notice that successful revolutions storm the HQ, destroy some building of iconic significance or kill/capture the leader, not just enduring the atrocities of the foot-soldiers of the people who they are against.
The peaceful protest thing works when the people in the HQ care about what you think about them, which means it only works if those protesting are their people and not the opposition.
The lefties should start taking notes on what works and what the far right did to gain so much power and start stealing their methods. Display of dissatisfaction isn't going to work, if anything that dissatisfaction is satisfaction to the right wingers. They feel giddy when see the people they hate protesting, their only complain can be that the protests are not big enough.
> I never understand what's the point of those protests.
For one, it's about showing politicians just how unpopular these policies are. If you can convince a large enough swath of Republican congressmen their seats aren't so secure, they may start to break with the administration.
On the more extreme end: I doubt many of the protesters are familiar with it, but there is a 3.5% rule[1] in political science that states when nonviolent protestors grow to about 3.5% of the population, authoritarian regimes become likely to fall from power.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3.5%25_rule
> destroy some building of iconic significance
I think you have the parties confused there.
The pro-Trump group don't think about consequences is the thing. The anti-Trump group do, and that's a big reason why they're slow to respond. Performing a siege on the Capitol was a stupid, angry, and impulsive reaction with no thought of the consequences afterwards. That's the way the entire pro-Trump group tends to act. Meanwhile the anti-Trump group think about knock-on effects and long term consequences because they understand that nothing is an island and that everything is connected to everything else, even through degrees of separation. It makes them hesitant to do anything right away because they first have to consider what the ripples are going to affect outside of the area of their immediate focus. One group is reactive and the other is proactive, and being proactive is always going to be slower.
I think it is much simpler than that: creation takes time, destruction is fast.
I don't think that's it. It has more to do with something to lose or not.
"The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose"
Liberals are generally more empathetic towards others and have good intentions when protesting. However if they have a comfortable life they will back down very quickly when faced with force. Just my opinion, could be wrong.
A big difference is that if anti-Trump protesters tried to storm the Capitol like MAGA did, they would be shot dead.
Not doing much. Playing PC games and watching the world burn. Not much I can do.
Just bought a new 5080 this week. Hoping I can hunker down in my cave for the next couple years and see what's left of the world in 2030.
Oh yea, beer, lots of beer.
39% of the country still approves of him and his fractal waterfall of disaster. So many people, and so many now gifted power and immunity to swing it at dissenting voices. That's a lot of inertia.
In the "First They Came" poem, we're already at white Christian mothers, and it's not moving the needle. I'm not sure why there isn't more talk of succession on the coasts but at this pace, it feels inevitable.
How many people have sat down and "war gamed" this out? e.g.
Let's say that opposition to... Trump's unilateral rule, disregard for the constitution, interference with free and fair elections, building a private army and using it increasingly against immigrants and citizens alike, as long as they are "opposition" to Trump, etc... decides to get as organized and impactful as possible? What does that look like?
Some kind of public, open communication portal? A closed sign-up portal where you have to put in your information?
Some kind of plan to put a lot of bodies in one place? Peaceful protest? Armed and violent protest? (Literally insurrection against the authoritarian regime.)
Even the peaceful protest option which is scattered across 50 states, hundreds of cities, has resulted in some violent reaction by Trump's army, National Guard, even local law enforcement.
What are next steps for the American people?
I think those that are protesting by trying to keep it peaceful are holding onto hope that power is still somewhat distributed, and that elections still function enough to displace Trump loyalists (MAGA / Republicans) with Democrats that have at least paid lip service to being opposed to Trump. And maybe given a majority in Congress, they could at least enact impeachment.
But what else are the American people meant to do?
I fear we are headed towards world war, something bigger than America.
Time to get your PAL buddy
Complain to our representatives who will do absolutely nothing because the system is ripe for abuse and we’ve put people who actively want to abuse and exploit it into office.
I keep telling everyone and have been for a year, it’s not just our problem, due to global US positioning it’s now a world problem. Just ask Venezuela. Regardless of what you think about the end result the ends did not justify the means.
I for one will be collecting my (completely legal) hunting rifles and weapons I’ve had in storage since I was a kid, have them professionally serviced and grab some ammunition, on the terrible case I need to defend myself which I thought I’d never ever have to consider and I’d just sell them some day. But alas we have a lot of really really stupid as well as downright toxic voters in this country.
You’re all tooling up to defend against your neighbours instead of the people causing the political instability.
The outcome of this is all too predictable.
Nothing? Trump is playing freeway chicken with Powell, he's driving a Pontiac Fiero and Powell is driving a bulldozer. The Supreme Court has already signaled that they're not on board fucking with the Fed. This will potentially cost Trump his next Fed nomination for awhile, because GOP Senators are putting a hold on his nominations until the legal stuff resolves.
It's nothing. In a sane country Trump would have been impeached many months (or even years) ago and would have never managed to get a second chance at this.
If the continuation of the USA hinges on Powell the man should be given a spot on mt. Rushmore, but I don't think that it is going to happen. Congress and the senate are for the most part filled with people that are too afraid to act. And in the meantime a lot of other crazy stuff will happen (just look at the last 30 days) to push this out of the public eye.
He was impeached years ago…
> He was impeached years ago…
"was impeached" means different things in context.
Sometimes it means "articles of impeachment were brought against an official". (1) i.e. that the process starts.
Sometimes it means a later stage in the process, such as those article not being voted down, and a trial proceeding.
In the strictest sense, it means that the process completes - "the official is found guilty, removed from office, and may never hold office again".
Parent comment seems to be using the strictest sense, due to "and would have never managed to get a second chance". You're not helping by using a confusing different meaning.
https://www.usa.gov/impeachment
If you're going to be nitpicky about definitions it helps to be correct. In this case, the person you're replying to is absolutely correct.
The government site you linked says the same thing:
> If the House adopts the articles by a simple majority vote, the official has been impeached.
Trump has been impeached twice. I think the confusion comes in when people misuse these terms, often when they want to say things like "Trump was never impeached!". He definitely was by the only definition that actually matters, which is that the House passed articles of impeachment. He was not found guilty.
Call me old fashioned, but I think these confusions are intentional and should be met with correcting the definitions - not making up new meanings of words - especially in this case where it's formally defined in the law.
OK, though I refer you to the sibling comment about the use of "and" in sentences.
I was just nitpicking the nitpicking, especially the implication that using a word correctly is confusing the issue. The sentiment in the original sentence is straightforward to understand, even if the sentence is a bit ambiguous.
impeached and acquitted at trial
When a sentence has two clauses connected by “and” both of them must be true for the whole sentence to be true.
We vote. That’s all we can do. 50.5% of the people voted for this insanity in 2024. We can only hope they see how this is going and vote differently in 2026 and beyond.
Was it not 49.9%?
You know what you are right. I think I was basing my numbers on old data during the election. The world, science, and reason was destroyed due to 49.8% vs. 48.3% in the popular vote.
It was a larger majority of electoral votes though, which is how we elect presidents
The comment was clearly about popularity, not electoral college votes.
They are headed for complete fascist take over. Going through a phase that Europeans went through a century ago, end up destroying themselves.
It’s very concerning that they have nukes. JD Vance said something about the risks UK and France owning nukes, I think he just wanted to start the conversation because I think he believes that it’s actually US that is the risk. We know that the guy is not actually a Trump ideology zealot from his pre-Trump alignment.
I think it'd be a mistake to assume that JD Vance is not exactly what he portrays himself as at this point. He certainly seems onboard with everything thats happening and is happy to defend it and push the boundaries for more lawlessness.
I agree but IMHO he is not in for the ideology of it, therefore he might prefer not to destroy the world for ideological gains.
I'm not sure...
My read is that Vance may be a pure opportunist. He may be doing what he has to in order to stay in Trump's good graces, because that's where power is right now. But I've seen him put out very quiet "yeah, that's the administration's position, but I don't actually agree with it" messages once or twice.
I don't think he's someone who is under sway of the Trump cult of personality. I suspect that Vance's agenda is Vance.
> Going through a phase that Europeans went through a century ago, end up destroying themselves.
That's not history as I've been taught it since grade school.
Many times I've disagreed with Powell, but major props for this statement.
I came in to say the same thing -- major, major respect to Powell.
I am not a big fan of his earlier policies (or of Greenspan's and anyone after him for that matter). His "unlearn the importance of M2" did not age well. He made the tail end of the ZIRP more painful than it needed to be. But those were honest mistakes from a public servant who did his best and believed in what he is doing.
And standing up for what he believes is right, against this insanity from the president is the gold standard of what we need from public servants. My 2c.
[flagged]
Courage in short supply, refreshing to see it flexed.
I hope that some heads of universities, CEO's and people running important journalism outfits are looking at this and feeling a deep sense of shame.
It's honestly depressing how little push back there seems to be.
Yes.
His statement is firm and well articulated. I have nothing bad to say about the man right now
I have bad things to say about him. But they're firmly on pause. What Trump wants for the Federal Reserve is far worse.
And anyone who is a hard-currency quantity-theory-of-money conservative, should also be appalled by it.
Trump is way worse than what the harshest critics of the Federal Reserve think about it. Nobody right or left should support it. Only the billionaires will profit off the monetary disorder.
> Only the billionaires will profit off the monetary disorder.
Maybe not even them. Certainly not all of them.
By design, kiss the ring. It’s a natural progression of the kind of grifting that has been occurring through 2025: shitcoin rugpulls, tariff announcements, etc.
Would love to hear what you've disagreed with because the man pulled off what can only be interpreted as a miracle in landing the economy nearly back on the 2% target with no massive economic problems after we went through an unprecedented pandemic, during which Trump printed $3.5 Trillion, causing massive inflation (yes, Trump did that, not Biden).
Its crazy how you can see where things are heading and still be surprised when they arrive there.
Everyone calling it out was named a doomer.
Well doom is here. Congrats.
Fundamentally, people don't like situations with no good answer. I see it again and again, present a problem with no good answer and most people will resort to the answer that aligns with their political leanings even when faced with clear evidence they are wrong.
Look how quickly big business rolled over for The Felon--because they saw what mot people have been denying since the election.
big business will always act in the interest of big business. Only a stupid business man will confront the full-might of the executive branch of the federal government heads on, particularly when the President is showing that he is willing to use that power against anybody
Big business will always side with the oppressors, it's like we learned nothing from history about colonialism, imperialism, or the history of european fascism. I mean FFS it was corporations that financed Mussolini. As you said they don't care, they just want to make money.
> Everyone calling it out was named a doomer.
Or labelled:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_derangement_syndrome
Gradually (last 3 decades) ==> Suddenly (we are here)
America has reached the inter-departmental warfare stage of failed states it seems. As an appreciator of all sorts of banana republics, kleptocracy and military juntas, this is a very familiar pattern of behavior.
Couldn't disagree more. Failed states normally have a single department (the military, often) dictating without opposition what other departments should do. Here we see a functioning system, the President presses, the Fed disagree and push back. The President weaponizes the judicial, yes, but it'll be a long shot. Nothing here smells to a failed state.
Shots fired. Even the republicans will not be able to ignore this and they know that if Powell caves in the American economy will likely collapse. So who will speak up in his defense?
> Even the republicans will not be able to ignore this
Oh boy would I love to join you in whatever alternate dimension you live in.
Money rules everything and if there is one thing the donor class will not lose is their money. They are willing to turn a blind eye to the ripping up of the Constitution but as soon as you rip up the money, phone calls will be made, meetings will be had, and Vanguard and JP Morgan and Walmart will get what they want.
And what is stopping the donor class from simply jumping ship, or at least moving portions of their assets into forms that are shielded from what is going on?
Republican representatives have been very much behaving like cattle, they're scared and they think that there are no other options but to cower and to jump to Trump's every whim. If one of them stands tall and survives (which remains to be seen) and speaks up then quite possibly others will follow.
Republicans are afraid of their base. This is what has been said by republican reps when asked why they don’t break with Trump. Even now, Trump has some impressive Republican approval numbers given the scenario America finds itself in.
He operates on a version of America that is a shadow of the old nation, and in that shadow, it doesn’t actually need the capabilities and complexities it had developed over the past century. It needs to be simple enough to get votes and conversation points on Fox, and everything else can be blamed on some meme of the moment. It’s insane to see, but apparently we have the technology to make Hallucination driven government work.
I think vast, permanent, unelected bureaucracies should be relegated to the shadows.
It's probably going to collapse anyway. He's been hitting all of the pillars of the economy with a sledge hammer.
I wonder how the stock market would look if AI wasn't such a big driving factor. Or how it would look if there was no sledge hammer. Insane times.
My working theory is that the ai bubble is caused by trump. People are too uncertain to want to invest in most industries, but they have to put their money somewhere, so they put it in ai stocks. Since the supreme court is likely to rule trump's tariffs illegal in a week or so, this may lead to a stock market crash. As people reallocate their portfolios, they will sell their ai stocks, which will pop the bubble and cause a crash. Something to watch out for.
Valid theory, and if you look at the prices of assets like gold, the reallocation is already happening. But I feel a near-term crash in AI stocks is just not coming unless we are headed towards catastrophic economic conditions. Lots of market forces are involved in AI now and even people selling stocks (or a major correction) will not pop the AI bubble since the major players have invested way too much cash to just let it go away at this point. (IMO)
I don't think so.
Remember the first time you wanted to buy a stock.
You used a product or a service that you liked immensely, realized it had a stock and wanted to be involved.
1 billion people are using AI, not dramatically changing their lives yet of course but for sure they go 'wow incredible I want to be part of this' when they make a video with Sora or generate a pamphlet without having to work
That's not why I bought stocks for the first time. I had extra money and wanted it to grow rather than sit around. I think the same is true of the majority of people.
I don't think we're disagreeing with each other in that we both think that ai will continue to be a successful industry, and furthermore that we both think that investors think the same. I'm simply hypothesizing an origin for the widely acknowledged bubble in ai stocks.
> 1 billion people are using AI, not dramatically changing their lives yet of course but for sure they go 'wow incredible I want to be part of this'
Subtract the part that doesn't know they're using AI or when they do know have mixed experiences.
Then subtract the vast vast majority of people who don't have the money to invest.
So you’re hoping for the ai bubble to be saved by naive retail investors? I mean, that can’t last forever.
Nor would it have much impact. Retail investors are a tiny part of the market. Sure, we all have 401Ks and IRAs, but are we collectively trading GOOG and MSFT? No. The people managing funds that go into those 401Ks are trading those stocks, but individually we aren't (generally speaking, of course).
Yes, but for now the USD has more or less survived. If Trump forcibly removes the FED chair on a pretext things could go downhill very fast. You can probably kiss the USD as a reserve currency goodbye overnight and China is going to have a real problem given the amount of debt they hold. This could easily knock the last pillar that holds it all up away.
> Yes, but for now the USD has more or less survived.
Excuse me? It lost over 10% in a year against the euro and almost 10% against the British pound.
https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=EUR
Republicans ignored a literal coup
I don’t believe this will cause the collapse in the economy (short to mid term) that you are expecting, where I am defining “this” as a federal funds rate that is politically driven and lower than what Chair Powell would have otherwise set. On the contrary, I think it will largely benefit the kinds of affluent asset holders that comprise the top say 5% of the country, which probably accounts for most members of congress and the senate. I think those people will look around them and think this is ugly but otherwise fine. The inflation that follows will be painful to the rest of the country and, with any luck, an opposition party will be able to create a political narrative out of some solution to that pain.
Uh have you met Republicans? Anyone not fully onboard that had even half a spine retired or got voted out. The rest either love it or just fall in line so they can collect paychecks.
> Even the republicans will not be able to ignore this
GOP: "Hold my beer."
Yes, there is a chance of that.
"The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President."
Thank you, Mr. Powell. We really want interest rates set to serve the people, not the whims of the President.
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This is an exceptionally poor take on the matter.
You had a comment to explain the poor take and instead do the equivalent of point and laugh. Can you help but wonder as onlookers question what your point might have been? People undoubtedly think this way, and to discount wholesale their line of thinking without engagement does not win hearts and minds.
why? asset holders in this country have a free fed put, wage earners get smashed in the face. you can make a solid case this institution is more harmful and free banking is much better for wealth equality.
This is... just crazy. One of those mostly boring bits of plumbing that has been left to professionals throughout the entire 50 years of my life - and they're trying to wreck it.
> One of those mostly boring bits of plumbing that has been left to professionals throughout the entire 50 years of my life - and they're trying to wreck it.
There is even a more boring and obscure bit of plumbing, the Treasury payment system, that they/DOGE went after last year:
* https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/musks-doge-clash...
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42904200
* https://hn.algolia.com/?q=treasury+payment+system
Every knee must (forced to) bend.
It's also completely in character with Trump's behaviour. He is a dictator who wants what he wants and can't abide anyone standing in his way. He wants absolute authority to do as he wishes. This extends to removing foreign heads of state so he can access their countries resources and also threatening 'allies' so he can take their territory. We're watching him systematically destroy any good will or moral authority that the USA held.
He was the owner and CEO of a private company — essentially a dictator without even a board or the SEC keeping him in check.
For decades he hasn’t had to tolerate “checks and balances”! Nobody could say “no” and retain their jobs under him.
The American public decided to put this type of person in charge.
The consequences were predicted.
It goes back before Donald was in charge of the Trump real estate business. It started with a really really shitty father who desired a “killer” business instinct in his children (read: cruelty) above all else.
Reading some of Mary Trump’s books will give some insight on the family that Donald grew up in. No love, all cruelty.
Donald is just a rich kid who inherited a big business and learned nothing but cruelty from his daddy.
I disagree, he’s more than that. Lots of people having shitty abusive parents, even lots of wealthy people. There’s something wrong with his brain.
I don’t think the main issue is that this type of person has been put in charge, it’s that the system can fail because of the will of one person. It kind of reveals that the guardrails were decorum and at its core Americans elects dictators that up until now chose to behave well.
More generally I think in an age of social media democracies will have to evolve to prevent leadership cults. Maybe something like the head of state being indirectly elected by local representatives.
“The system” includes the voting public. If a sufficient fraction of the population decides to override all common sense and vote a selfish conman into ultimate executive power then they can’t make the shocked Pikachu face when the rest of the political establishment fails to curtail his abuses.
There was an interview with an otherwise “intelligent” person in 2024 who admitted he knew Trump is corrupt and would mercilessly abuse the position of President but decided to vote for him anyway because he thought that checks and balances would be sufficient.
This is like putting a fox in charge of the chicken coop and hoping the neighbour’s dog will stop it eating your chickens!
Maybe… just… don’t do that?
Don’t knowingly vote for evil?
Remember back when he had a TV show and his catchphrase was the hilarious and creative "you're fired"? The entire concept of The Apprentice as it was pitched to him circled around Trump being the god of business. I wonder if having that kind of a personal brand, alongside the mountains of self-aggrandizing merch could in any way indicate a total unwillingness to exist alongside anyone but worshippers and yes-men...
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> US was let to accumulate immense wealth… with no pushback the last 35 years
Proceeds to explain how further exploitation of others will be beneficial to everyone
straw man argument
It's also for very stupid reasons: The fed dropping rates to the degree that would satisfy Donald Trump would greatly accelerate inflation which in turn would further upset voters, who would in turn blame Donald Trump (just like they did Biden before).
Is it just a cynical view that enough voters can be convinced it's the other side at fault?
Someone who supports trump, please let me know the logic on this. Genuinely. I'm trying to read other places about these charges but they're just so slanted that they're not really trustworthy. Is there anything to this, or is it really just to pressure the federal reserve?
I don't think it's that deep or that Trump is even thinking ahead. He just wants the rates to be lower.
Exactly. He thinks he knows better than the experts. He thinks lower interest rates are good and people saying they should be higher are just trying to make him look bad. Nothing he does is a clever gambit.
> He thinks he knows better than the experts
It’s a kleptocracy. He doesn’t care. He just wants cheap money from the Fed as patronage.
This model makes the most sense to me. If you just model it as: Trump wants to do things that make Trump look good, everything he's done fits into it quite nicely. If you want to predict his next move, think to yourself, what does Trump think will make him look the best to his adoring supporters?
Logically, conquering Greenland makes zero sense and is only damaging to the United States. But to his supporters, it will make Trump look powerful and good. Which is why he's talking about it, and why I think there's a decent chance that he's going to do it. I just hope there are enough sensible people left in his idiocracy cabinet to stop him.
I implore you to stop being credulous before it's too late. Trump supporters deeply believe, and are not shy about saying, that anyone who stops Trump from achieving his political goals should be imprisoned or murdered.
I have a family member like this who I interact with almost every day. When Renee Good was fatally shot in the face three times this family member said that she deserved it for "getting in the way" and that if she just ignored them she wouldn't have been murdered. With all of the video recordings that have come out and been extensively disseminated, pretty much everyone knows that she moved out of the way and stopped, and it was Jonathan Ross who initiated the encounter. There is no way to "get out of the way" and "ignore them" when armed figures enact force on whims. But people like my family member believe that these armed figures direct violence towards those who are dangerous rather than simply directing violence to anybody who is close enough to hurt. You cannot reason with people like that because they retroactively justify any harm in order to protect their belief in the systems of enforcement. To them order and structure are more important and valuable than agency and safety or in some cases even life itself.
Conservatives all over have 1 disease. They are incapable of abstract empathy. Until it personally happens to them, or someone very very close to them, they are incapable of noticing injustices or hurts.
That isn't true -- they just prioritize a different set of hurts. To be similarly reductive, leftists seem to only be able to sympathize with criminals and poor decision makers -- not crime victims, or hard workers. The leftist perspective just ignores individual agency.
Holy shit. If you believe even a small minority actually want that, please unplug and talk to real people in meat space.
They chanted “lock her up” en masse as a campaign slogan. The desire to imprison is quite evident.
Heh, some of them invaded Congress and were hunting down Mike Pence on Jan 6 2021...
And right now many have posted “lock him up” on Twitter in response to this news. Many of these users probably couldn’t describe the federal reserve or share anything at all about Powell. Their cult zealotry continues.
If citing the behavior of the most rabbid supporters is allowed (because that's who shows up to campaign rallies), then it's not hard to find an equivalent on the left. /r/all is full of people wanting various people in the epstein files, including trump, to be locked up on spurious associations.
Locking people up for crimes is different from locking them up because they are your political opponents. I don't think I've seen people on the left yelling about locking Mitch McConnell up, for instance, even if he bears much responsibility for all of this.
>Locking people up for crimes is different from locking them up because they are your political opponents.
I thought they were upset about her emails or whatever?
I think that's the point. None could name a crime, and that didn't matter.
Meanwhile, 34 actual felony convictions, court finding misuse of millions in charity funds, an attempted coup, being found liable for sexual assault, SCOTUS having to formally place the president above the law to avoid prosecution... none of it even moved the needle for those same folks.
None of it is about law and order.
>I think that's the point. None could name a crime, and that didn't matter.
From a 10s skim on wikipedia:
>Some experts, officials, and members of Congress contended that Clinton's use of a private email system and a private server violated federal law, specifically 18 U.S. Code § 1924, regarding the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or materials, as well as State Department protocols and procedures, and regulations governing recordkeeping.
I'm not saying those allegations are true, but to claim "none could name a crime" suggests you didn't even try.
>Meanwhile, 34 actual felony convictions, court finding misuse of millions in charity funds, an attempted coup, being found liable for sexual assault, SCOTUS having to formally place the president above the law to avoid prosecution... none of it even moved the needle for those same folks.
If you're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution_of_Donald_Trump_in..., that has the same air of credibility as him going after Fed governors for mortgage fraud.
It's clearly a rationalisation. Nobody is rabidly averse to private email servers and calling for prison for every politician who used a private email server. It's Hillary specifically.
Whereas everyone thinks that all child rapists should be in prison!
> It's clearly a rationalisation. Nobody is rabidly averse to private email servers and calling for prison for every politician who used a private email server. It's Hillary specifically.
I think the world would be a better place if politicians with access to critical information were held to suitable security requirements under threats of punishment for laxity.
This would absolutely also include Hesgeth inviting a journalist to an airstrike planning meeting on Signal.
And likewise Trump putting boxes full of state secrets in a disused bathroom and on a stage.
The Trump administration are clearly hypocrites, clearly trying to throw the book at everyone else while bemoaning even the slightest consequences for themselves. I wouldn't call for Clinton's arrest, but I will say that anywhere that would arrest her should've given a much more severe punishment to Trump.
Then again, I'm not even American so I genuinely don't actually care if y'all leak state secrets like a basketball net leaks water.
Is there some well of non-rabid Trump supporters that I'm not aware of? I'm always open to the idea that I'm in a bubble, but my experience is that even the least rabid Trump supporters are completely unwilling to criticize him or oppose something he wants. Did any Trump supporters, for example, criticize the prosecution of James Comey?
>Is there some well of non-rabid Trump supporters that I'm not aware of? I'm always open to the idea that I'm in a bubble, but my experience is that even the least rabid Trump supporters are completely unwilling to criticize him or oppose something he wants.
In the context of the previous comment, the "non-rabbid" (and probably median) supporter would be someone voting Trump because they think they trust him more on the economy/immigration or whatever. They might be indifferent to his claims that he'll lock up his political opponents, or think that they're actually guilty of something, but that's not the same as being "rabbid" (ie. showing up to rallies and chanting "lock her up").
There's a difference between supporters and "the people who, in a single election, voted for him". The former tend to be pretty rabid and unmovable. Some portion of the voters are less firm in their support.
Right! With a non-fascist politician, what you're describing would be extremely abnormal; the median Biden supporter, Obama supporter, or Bush supporter would routinely take positions their guy didn't agree with even though they supported him overall. But the range of Trump supporter opinions stretches only from "politely support everything he wants to do" to "be performatively mean about everything he wants to do".
>But the range of Trump supporter opinions stretches only from "politely support everything he wants to do" to "be performatively mean about everything he wants to do".
You're basing this off... what? You're missing the options of "I'm indifferent about this", or "I don't agree with him on this but still think he's better as a whole than the alternative".
I'm missing "I don't agree with him on this" because I don't hear Trump supporters say that. Trump doesn't allow them to - he thinks it's wrong for anyone to disagree with him and illegal for anyone to try and stop him from doing something he wants to do. Again, the whole context here is that Trump is trying to jail one of his own appointees for failing to enact his preferred monetary policy.
I hear that in a few examples, but they've been variations of "When I voted for Trump to deport migrants, I didn't think that meant my wife".
Usually followed by "... but I'd still vote for him again".
I know many. They’re good people. But they’re willing to be indifferent to violence if the perpetrators are not on their team. Everyone does this to some degree, but their tendency to align on messaging is much higher than e.g. folks going at each other about their pet war.
They put a great deal of effort into talking about political violence and implying that Democrats are a source of rioting and terrorism. The indifference is only to their own violence.
Even if one grants that it is a small minority, aren't they still voting for someone who advocates for jailing and killing political opponents?
>Even if one grants that it is a small minority
It is. What's more, such support is roughly the same across both parties, but both parties vastly overestimate the other side's support.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116851119
https://x.com/JustinGrimmer/status/1966997411060215960
> It is. What's more, such support is roughly the same across both parties, but both parties vastly overestimate the other side's support.
The difference between the two parties is that one elected a leader that agrees with that minority. This 2012 scene from The Newsroom outlines the difference:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGsLhyNJBh8
The GOP let (?) the inmates run the asylum.
I don't think this addresses the main point of my question, though. Do you know any prominent Democrats, e.g., representatives, senators, or presidents, who have called for a Republican to be killed?
Which republican called for a democrat to be killed?
> "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!!" Trump went on. "LOCK THEM UP???" He also called for the lawmakers' arrest and trial, adding in a separate post that it was "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/trump-says-democra...
So more broadly, calling for any sort of capital punishment is also "political violence"? Even if you're against capital punishment, comparing it to something like Charlie Kirk getting shot is disingenuous. When people think of "political violence" they're thinking of the former, not capital punishment. Lumping the two together is like "do you support criminals? No? Why do you support Nelson Mandela, a convicted criminal?"
> calling for any sort of capital punishment is also "political violence"?
No, of course not, but I'm sure you knew that, hence constructing this straw man so you can knock it over and claim victory.
However, and more to the actual point, calling for capital punishment strictly because you disagree with the factual words someone chose to write might reasonably be considered "political violence". Especially when the words in question clearly call out your potential political intentions and remind people that said intentions can be battled in a particular way.
I consider January 6 to have falsified all research along these grounds. I acknowledge, sure, that virtually nobody wants to see gun battles in the street. But if you can talk yourself into believing that a mob sent to overturn the election and install the loser doesn't count as partisan violence, you can talk yourself into believing all kinds of catastrophes don't count.
>But if you can talk yourself into believing that a mob sent to overturn the election and install the loser doesn't count as partisan violence, you can talk yourself into believing all kinds of catastrophes don't count.
How's this different than say...
>polls show 99% (or whatever) of people are against crime
>voters elect a soft-on-crime politician, crime goes up
>"I consider the fact that the soft-on-crime politicians got elected to have falsified all research that people are against crime"
It's not different. If my city elected a mayor whose buddies committed a robbery 4 years ago, and his first act in office was to parole the robbers, I would be incandescently furious and definitely say that anyone who supports him is pro-crime.
FOX News is workshopping/normalizing the murder of undesirables. Is FOX speaking to/for a small minority?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phYOrM3SNV8
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This response is funny to me, because there’s been a massive drop in rightwing violence in the US since Trump was elected… but that’s because state-sponsored violence isn’t counted towards the statistics.
Pretty funny how there aren’t any more Proud Boy marches, yeah? Couldn’t be that they’re all getting paid six figure salaries to round up brown people at Kavanaugh stops…
But yes. Most left wing thought leaders count state-sponsored violence as political violence, and that often includes the death penalty.
>This response is funny to me, because there’s been a massive drop in rightwing violence in the US since Trump was elected… but that’s because state-sponsored violence isn’t counted towards the statistics.
>Pretty funny how there aren’t any more Proud Boy marches, yeah? Couldn’t be that they’re all getting paid six figure salaries to round up brown people at Kavanaugh stops…
Yes, that's how protests typically work. If things are going your way, you stop protesting. Nobody is protesting for gay marriage in California because they already won.
I don’t want to assume your politics, but saying that the group of people calling for racial purity and ethnic cleansing don’t find it necessary to protest anymore because things are going their way is very much not a good sign.
Fucking wild. You can't get more mainstream opinion than this guy. Trump regularly has phone calls on air with this person, he's isn't a random someone on TV. He is one of the administrations goto mouthpieces for communicating this administration's policy on the largest news station. They are workshoping/normalizing MURDERING UNDESIRABLES on their MAINSTREAM MEDIA by hosts that the president ROUTINELY USE TO BROADCAST HIS MESSAGE. My point is THEY ARE OK WITH KILLING PEOPLE THEY DON'T WANT. A meak 'my bad' doesn't mean shit.
And you waive it away. 'Bro said my bad dude, what more do you want? You think he shouldn't be an administration mouthpiece just because he wants extra-judicial killing? Cancel culture'. You are literally Martin Niemöller:
"First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist" ...
He was literally you. He justified their calls for 'only killing Communists and only because they are bad and want to do bad things....' just like you.
Edit: oh you are just being disingenuous got it. I'm not burning another comment on you and getting throttled so here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=brian+kilmeade+...
>He is one of the administrations goto mouthpieces for communicating this administration's policy on the largest news station.
Source? Maybe you should update his wikipedia page because it doesn't even mention his involvement with the second Trump administration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Kilmeade
So for fun I looked up your comment history and you aren't this dumb.
You are smart enough to know that homelessness is a HUGE political issue in the USA, the calling for death of homeless people is EXTREMELY political.
You are smart enough to know that FOX News is mainstream for the Right, now a few randos.
You are smart enough to know that reporters that maintain direct lines of communication with the President and routinely have interviews with him on their shows are considered mouthpieces for an administration, even if not directly employed by the administration.
Why are you posting in such bad faith? Is your position just indefensible so you have to resort to propaganda style communication and pretending you are dumb?
Fox News, a major American media company, had one of their main personalities say that homeless people should just be killed by lethal injection on air. The desire for killing for random reasons is so mainstream to them that their media is comfortable stating out loud people they don't want/are undesirable should just be killed. Their media organs are workshopping/normalizing killing undesirables.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phYOrM3SNV8
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I don’t know if you truly mean that or you’re just being glib. But if you’re serious, I’d strongly urge you to get help or just talk to someone you know and trust; even if you disagree on a lot of things.
Look what's happening to real people in meat space in Minnesota right now
All of the Trump supporters I knew in meatspace reassured me that he would never do his insane tariffs, and then when he did insisted that it was a good idea and they never thought otherwise. So I no longer trust that they're telling me the truth about what they want or what they would support.
Maybe eight years ago. But in my experience, Trump supporters today have no line he can cross which will cause them to stop supporting him. They might claim to, but time after time, they just find a way to justify and double down.
If you genuinely believe that, then I have some hope that the very toxic messages I see daily in political social media, saying exactly what's being alleged here, aren't deeply held beliefs but a tiny fringe.
Have you actually unplugged and talked to people in meat space about the actions in Minneapolis?
I don't support Trump but I see the reasoning him and Bessent have. They want to lower the interest rate so that they can also drop the rate at which they issue debt/treasuries. They seem to think they are too financially constrained but will bankrupt themselves even faster if they hold big treasury auctions at today's rates.
It'll also lead to the general public feeling inflationary impacts. I think the government would cut relief checks to mitigate this and stir public sentiment their way, but it probably wouldn't be enough to maintain current standards of living.
Well, Bessent. Somehow I don’t see Trump reasoning like that.
> would further upset voters
I continue to be surprised by people who have seen things unfold as they have over less than a year of this administration and still somehow believe we'll continue to have "free and fair" elections anytime in the near future.
We have over, and over again seeing virtually all of the "checks and balances" we learned about as kids being overridden without consequence.
This community of all other should be aware of how easy it is to exert total control of information (I'm still surprised this article is on the home page). Everyone consumes almost all of their information through digital, corporate controlled means. Even people getting together a organically socializing in bars, something that was common 30 years ago, has been replaced with online interactions. Trump does not need mandate from the people to continue to rule the country.
News from today: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/us/trump-voting-machines-...
> Trump Regrets Not Seizing Voting Machines After 2020 Election: In an interview, the president said he should have ordered the National Guard to take the machines
We've had a number of free and fair elections in the past year, including some where the Trump-supported candidate lost. That doesn't mean we're out of the woods, but Trump has not historically been willing to go out of his way to protect the electoral fortunes of people who aren't himself, and at least some of his allies are well aware that the peace and security we presently enjoy is not guaranteed in a post-democratic US.
When it comes to harm on this scale, always expect the worst, because the harm will be generational. More importantly, Trump doesn't give a flying fuck about anything outside of the executive branch and below the federal level, because the federal level executive has control of the instruments of war. And he has already proven that nobody manning those instruments of war will disobey him. The Marines got recalled, but the National Guard didn't. This latest thing with Venezuela is just one more section of the window that's been wiped clear enough for him to see what he can do. The final bit that's still obscured is whether or not he can give direct orders to the military and security agencies to subjugate the state levels of government. I've got a large amount of certainty that within the next week or two even that bit of obscurity won't remain.
As I always tell people, if you're right there's no point in arguing about it, so the only thing I would say is that you owe it to yourself to check your predictions. Set a reminder for January 25 to confirm whether Trump has ordered the military and security agencies to invade any state capitols. I did this a few times last year, and immigration policy is really the only topic where the "expect the worst" heuristic has worked for me.
They are also going scorched earth on the other favorite bogeyman minority - trans people.
My personal belief is that he will try it and it will fail, but that will of course lead to the Coast Guard and the National Guard being rescinded from the DHS and governor's control by decree and being placed under the Navy and the Army respectively. Currently this power exists in theory, but it's never truly been implemented, even during World War II. This is something that Hegseth publicly considered when West Virginia's state Congress decided that the extended deployment of the state's National Guard troops to Washington D.C. was not within presidential power and ordered them back.
Im not convinced Trump cares anymore. For whatever reason that may be, he has decided there is nothing that can stop him at this point. There is no congress or court that will hold him accountable. His supporters are unwavering and drunk on unchecked power right now.
There's no inflation if they don't publish the data.
especially as if the risk premium for the US increases because of the methods used to challenge Fed independence, the rates that truly matter, treasury yields, will increase causing limiting how much consumers can actually benefit from lower headline rates
The MAGA crowd and their lickspittles/enablers are so far removed from reality that they only believe their leader.
And many others will vote for system-wreckers (broadly: conservatives) again, because the democrats cannot fix much of the damage done within the next legislative periods, let alone just one... even if the miracle of a trifecta happens and SCOTUS loses its majority on top of it. Rinse, repeat.
These are the very people who would help him rewrite history that yes he indeed did earn the Nobel Peace Prize as it is obviously and prominently displayed in his office, the words and records of the Nobel committee be damned.
blame Donald Trump (just like they did Biden before)
Respectfully disagree. Republican presidents get a lot more economic leeway than Dem presidents, especially from the media. This has puzzled me my entire adult life. Inflation will bother media and public, but not to the same extent it did 2021-22.
> This has puzzled me my entire adult life.
Big media works for the capital class, community newspapers and other forms of local news that are largely pro-public have been gutted. The remaining large-ish public media orgs (PBS, NPR) are currently under attack to consolidate corporate-friendly agenda-setting.
The last time inflation was that high was 1973-1982, and the incumbent lost both presidential elections within those years.
Sure, but the Republican president gets credit for economic good news thing is beyond just inflation.
Case in point, you’d think by how things are reported that Trump brought down inflation. But inflation was down when Biden left office and Trump has done nothing to improve it.
This week's episode of "Not the Epstein Files".
There hasn't been a single point in my shorter life so far where things have been this out of control. The fed is supposed to be as non-political as possible. I know politics and the economy are intertwined, but tell me how this won't end up a disaster please. How do we get back to the USA we had even 10 years ago?
> but tell me how this won't end up a disaster please.
Unless you want to split hairs and argue that "disaster" is really only in the middle of the spectrum of plausible outcomes... then there is no outcome here that isn't a disaster.
At *best* this only moderately raises inflation in the short-term and somehow the rest of the world isn't shaken too much and the USD somehow still remains a reserve currency.
I'm in the "USD looses reserve currency status in 6-48 months" camp but there are some reasonable arguments against this.
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This is the second or third comment I’ve seen online that says this. I’m curious how do you conclude the fed has “never been non-political?” Is this just a matter of using the right terminology? The term “non-political” (also “independent”) isn’t concerned with each board member’s individual party affiliation, or how they vote in elections. It just means that management of the fed and importantly its monetary policy I.e. the federal rate, be guided by data; not influenced by short term goals of politicians and especially not influenced by the President or his administration.
(Edit) all that to say, maybe that’s what you meant by “never at an individual level”?
I have looked at individual votes for far too many years, and they often are politically aligned as per the respective state of the voter. This is not a coincidence, and it's not something to overlook. If the votes were guided by data alone, this pattern would not exist, but it does.
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Jerome Powell is not a Democrat.
And it's pitiful that he has to be a Republican for people to credit him with sincerity. I think as much as partisanship itself, poisoning discourse by labeling appeals to evidence or procedural integrity as "partisan" proves too much and gets rid of objective reality entirely, creating space for bad faith actors.
And he was appointed by Trump during his first term.
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I always appreciate when people make comments like this. It helps identify the trolls or people so completely outside of reality you can mark them as untrustworthy and ignore whatever they say.
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Powell is a grifter? The guy who held the US economy together through a pandemic and subsequent inflation?
Trump appointed him. Do you put not blame on him for choosing "uniparty birds" and "shades of grifters"? Or do you live in his colon.
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There is absolutely nothing here to be amused about. If you are amused that is only because you are not thinking things through.
> I am not a USAian, thank goodness.
I didn’t say that you were. I said that you were a fool, which you are.
Powerful
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The career criminal and literal traitor donald trump deserved to be investigated and deserves to be imprisoned for his many, many crimes.
Bootlicking won't save you when Trump decides it's you he'd like to imprison next.
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I'm sure a lot of Indian exporters thought they were amused outsiders too, until he randomly applied a 50% tariff to their country. Nearly everyone who imagines that Trump is a sideshow who couldn't possibly affect them is wrong.
I can't say I'm the biggest fan of the financial apparatus in general but it is more than a little heartening to see someone in the federal government with a spine for once.
He's one of very few adults left at that level.
It might be childish, but I think the “act like an adult” (or not) is a good way to frame the bad behavior that’s been so present lately.
It encapsulates so much of how I want to describe things.
Selfish behavior - this adult is just a child who didn’t learn to share.
Mean and vindictive behavior - didn’t learn to empathize as a kid
Lying? You’re still a child. Grow up and then join the adults.
Very apt for the current moment.
Adults push back on aggressors when necessary. Children cower behind the adults.
you mean for not cutting interest rates, right?
Best of luck JPow - that was a perfect statement from the Fed.
It seems like theres a bit of an inflection point right now in the US. I wonder how much entropy the system can handle it has to be near a breaking point.
Observation:
> Some countries that have prosecuted or threatened to prosecute central bankers for the purpose of political intimidation or punishment for monetary policy decisions: Argentina, Russia, Turkey, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
* https://xcancel.com/jasonfurman/status/2010532384924442645#m
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Furman
And Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC)
> If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.
> I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed—including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy—until this legal matter is fully resolved.
* https://xcancel.com/SenThomTillis/status/2010514786467959269
who sits on the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (which oversees the Fed):
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Committee...
The "independence and credibility of the DoJ" line is quite something else.
There’s no question about the independence of the DoJ. Its independence is undeniably gone and it is full on working as Trump’s enforcement arm. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise is a clown.
Thom Tillis is a liar and will immediately confirm whoever Trump nominates. There are no examples of Tillis or other prominent republicans ever coming together to actually effectively oppose a Trump nominee (see the current secretary of defense, or leader of DHS for evidence).
Matt Gaetz didn't get the AG spot - there was at one point some kind of a line.
I wonder if we'll see another round of resignations at Justice like the Eric Adams thing.
Powell normally talks around the political pressure he's been subjected to. Funny to see him call it out right here.
I think that the President has too much power and should have only a symbolic role, limited to soft-powers
Well the power is limited but weve also allowed every check and balance to be given to sympathetic cronies.
What an unhinged moment in time. At some point, they'll need to be courageous people with the ability and funds to speak up and say enough. But will they? It does not appear so.
Here's Trump and Powell publicly disagreeing about these exact Fed renovation costs in July 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvYljCN970s
Powell corrects him in real-time. Worth watching given today's statement.
From an institutional engineering POV (warning- I am a grouchy old former political scientist), it would be interesting to come up with institutional solutions for some of the problems America is facing right now. Specifically I think I'd remove the Attorney General role from the President's authority and give it to Senate, to nominate & confirm exclusively. Let's say 51 votes to confirm and 55 votes to impeach. Even among presidential systems, the US cabinet is unusually presidential-centric. I'm not a big LatAm expert, but I think they typically separate the public prosecutor from the president's nomination capacity.
Of course I would strongly prefer to not be a presidential system at all. But if we're discussing post-Trump constitutional reforms that could plausibly pass, I think removing the Attorney General/DOJ from the president's purview and also placing some checks on the pardon power seem doable
>Of course I would strongly prefer to not be a presidential system at all.
Having grown up in the US and having blinders on, I always thought all those parliamentary systems seemed unstable and sometimes comical. But now I see the value in it. Once a leader has demonstrated he is not up to the task, has grown out-of-touch, or has descended into madness, he can be replaced by his party, and if that didn't happen, a no-confidence vote could trigger an election. No guarantee either of those things would happen, but the option exists. The fixed four-year term idea now seems artificial and inflexible.
I suspect the current US leader and maybe even the previous US leader (maybe in his 4th year) would have suddenly found himself a back-bencher.
Also, the ‘leader’ in a parliamentary system is simply a lot less powerful. The executive is the cabinet, not the PM. The PM usually appoints it, but the ministers don’t get to fall back on ‘just following orders’; they are very much using their own authority. And again there’s always the threat of replacement of PM and re-alignment. Realistically, the threat is more important than the thing itself.
I'm not sure if it's true that the leader is less powerful.
In many countries, it seems that the leader has near total control over candidate selection, and dissent is punished ruthlessly.
In the US, it's easier for a member of Congress to openly dissent against the President's agenda. This was a major thorn in the side for e.g. Joe Biden.
Some Republicans today fear dissenting (though of course, most are enthusiastically on board), but I'm not sure that it would be any different in a place like Canada or the UK.
> Having grown up in the US and having blinders on, I always thought all those parliamentary systems seemed unstable and sometimes comical.
There are so many different variables between countries, and plain luck, that it's tough to extrapolate too much, but this just jumped out a bit for me as a Canadian - the average Canadian PM term has historically been marginally longer than the average American Presidential time in office.
This would give congress much more power over the Executive branch. The justice department is run by the Executive branch. Congress's job is to legislate, not prosecute crimes. A president can be voted out or impeached if they do something bad.
It's not like campaigning and running elections are terribly hard these days. The AG (and other heads of independent executive departments) should be each their own races voted on by the public. (Yes, this obviously requires repudiating this new innovative brain damage called sparkling autocracy theory^W^W^W unitary executive theory.)
We also need Ranked Pairs voting so we end this two party duopoly bullshit. Primaries can remain, but voters should be able to vote in all parties' primaries (rather than having to pick just one).
We also need some sort of recall mechanism, either periodic option to vote no confidence (twice a year when elections/primaries are already held?), or something triggered when signatures/polling get high enough.
Since I'm making my Christmas list, we also need to drastically neuter sovereign and qualified immunity - remove their applicability for any action not explicitly authorized by the legislature (and Constitution). No more general "agents of the government" who unilaterally act with impunity, with only narrow legal ways of recovering damages.
But part of the difficulty that has precipitated our current situation is the absolute gridlock in Congress for the past twenty+ years. That's what pushed more and more power into the executive and executive agencies. I don't know if Ranked Pairs would be enough to fix that with fresh blood, or we need more direct democracy (voters can override their sen/rep vote on a bill?), or what. Maybe triple the number of sen/reps from each district so that voters won't feel they're losing their experienced politicians if they vote out the worst of the three.
I believe that if Trumpism is overthrown (because that's probably what it will take) there will be considerable effort to change the rules and set up strong constraints on the executive branch that cannot just be worked around by blowing past the guardrails. Trump exposed how weak the balance of powers actually is and how much it relies on (somewhat) good actors.
It seems like they learned a lot from the Letitia James and James Comey cases, which are going great (not in the way they intended).
I dislike the existence of the Fed, but I dislike the idea of the executive branch being in control of monetary policy even more. I'll be tuning in to see how the case progresses.
Do you have an alternative to the Fed? Likes and dislikes has nothing to do with it. Or let me ask you another way — why do you dislike the Fed?
You can dislike a solution but admit that you can't think of a better solution, or specify that it is better than an even worse solution.
I can see why someone would have a issues with "a bunch of rich bankers appointed by politicians" controlling American monetary policy. But I can't really see a better way at least, until we can achieve a post-scarcity economy or something.
> I can see why someone would have a issues with "a bunch of rich bankers appointed by politicians" controlling American monetary policy.
Yellen had a long academic career before going into public service (with various roles at the Fed before becoming Fed chair):
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Yellen
Bernanke had a strictly academic career before going into public service (and was/is probably one of the foremost experts on the Great Depression, something that was handy in 2008/9):
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bernanke#Academic_and_gove...
Greenspan was in the finance world pre-Fed. Volcker was in government for his entire career pre-Fed:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Volcker#Career
I think people over-estimate how many "rich bankers" are in the Fed, especially at the FOMC.
Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast with some Fed members in recent years, especially the more obscure regional ones, about their work, and how they often go out and talk to local businesses about what's happening 'on the ground'.
Fair. I don't really have a preference for government, academic, or banking industry veterans.
I’m not denying that, but that’s not how I read the comment. That comment comes across as a relief that the Fed is under attack, but is more upset that the source of attack is the executive branch.
> Do you have an alternative to the Fed?
The appears to be difficult for a lot of people to like, but the Fed still exists because the people who bitch and moan about the Fed can never voice an alternative that wouldn't immediately destroy everything if it were implemented.
Oh that's bothersome, and it's too late to edit. Above sentence should begin "The Fed."
The eradication of the Fed and fiat money. As others have expressed, I also think the interest rate mechanism is clumsy and that bailouts do more harm in the long term than good (see one of the most recent examples [1]).
[1] https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/the-fed-launched-a-bank-...
What are some of the problems with eradication of fiat currency?
Gold is heavy and difficult to verify it's purity and authenticity
The libertarian view is that interest rates should be decided by the free market and not a central bank. Mainly due to what we're seeing now (the executive trying to take it over) and that a small board of people can make bad decisions that have reaching effects.
Markets don't always seek equilibrium. Some aspects of the economy tend to be governed by vicious and virtuous feedback cycles. Always leaving everything to markets feels like more of a religion than a reasonable policy position.
I wonder if any libertarians have considered reading about the history of banking?
The Federal Reserve was not created “just because”. The US banking system was wildly unstable when run… largely as the libertarian view would have it.
This is actually quite correct. The Fed Funds policy interest rate is a clumsy instrument because it involves chasing the ever-shifting balancing point of an inherently unstable system. You "cut" rates to increase money creation, which actually pushes your long-term rates higher due to expected inflation and leads to even more money creation for a constant policy rate, and vice versa. This can all be fixed very simply by changing the instrument to a crawling exchange rate peg, which has an inherently stabilizing effect, as seen from the effectiveness of currency board systems - that system doesn't shift against you if you stick to a bad peg, whereas it very much does if you stick to a bad policy rate.
The long term policy goal (stability in the path of nominal incomes (prices + real activity) in the very short run, and prices in the medium-to-long run) would be unaffected, but the whole operational aspect would be simplified quite a bit.
> The Fed Funds policy interest rate is a clumsy instrument because it involves chasing the ever-shifting balancing point of an inherently unstable system.
I don't know about "inherently unstable system", given that as central bank independence has grown so has, generally speaking, monetary stability:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moderation
Great Moderation basically involved the adoption of price stability as a long-term policy target, as opposed to trying to keep long-term fixed exchange rates. There's no reason to change the policy target, the issue is wrt. the policy mechanism/instrument.
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I dislike that the Fed operates as if the happiness of the investor class is their number one priority.
Of the dual mandate, which would you say prioritizes the investor class, and how would you approach it differently?
You asked about which piece "of the dual mandate", but the OP said "operates as" which I am going to reply to.
Does the Fed can any data from labor sources or unions? I am asking in honest because the few reports from them that I have looked into(mostly around unemployment) all seem to be polls solely sourced from investor class assets like companies.
If they are only sourcing from one biased source for their data, they wouldn't have to have a bad mandate or manipulate it, to operate like it was for the benefit of the data source, right?
> promote maximum employment and price stability (low, stable inflation, targeting 2%)
The dual mandate says nothing about asset prices. The only prices it mentions are those involved in CPI calcs.
> if the happiness of the investor class is their number one priority
The investor class has capital, and America is capitalist. I’m not the biggest fan either but we gotta acknowledge the reality we live in.
> > why do you dislike the Fed?
It prevents banks from doing their job, so does the existence of t-bills.
They hinder the economy by suppressing creativity and ingenuity . Every time a person becomes an investor instead of an inventor the economy and prosperity of a nation falthers.
You just don't see it in stats because stats can't measure against hypotheticals but that doesn't mean it isn't true
I believe the fed replaced the gold standard.
No it did not. I don't know why people repeat this so often but it is very frustrating. Nixon unilaterally ended the gold standard because the US was printing money to pay for Vietnam and the rest of the world called the US on its bullshit. The end of the gold standard is relatively recent in history and the verdict is still out on the impact.
The post-World War II Bretton Woods system was a limited form of the pre 1920s depression gold standard.
Both the silver standard and bimetallism have been more common than the gold standard.
Tying complex multi faceted economies to the physical abundance of specific raw materials fails to capture the full value of activities and assets.
The true gold standard was a blip from the 1870s to the early 1920s.
I think your observation assumes that inflating the value of gold relative to the rest of economy is a problem - if you do not care about that I'm not sure it matters.
In any case gold served as a strong check on monetary policy even if it had problems. Certainly it is possible to have a "sound" monetary policy without gold. I'm just not convinced in societies ability to affect sound governance of monetary policy without some "stronger" guard rails. Especially not in today's climate.
>I don't know why people repeat this so often but it is very frustrating.
The Ron Paul fandom spread this myth around incessantly during the late 2000s.
The FED is much maligned, but has brought a lot of stability to the economy.
Monetary policy is actually under the purview of the legislative branch.
Section 8: Congress shall have the power ... To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof ...
You probably don't them in control, either.
Who should own the money printer if it’s not the feds?
No one. We should be on a hard money standard. The Fed shouldn't be able to socialize the impact of bad business decisions like what was recently done with Silicon Valley Bank using the BTFP. Sometimes consequences need to be realized, even at the cost of bad downstream impact to those indirectly involved. It's the only way for more resilient systems to arise since our current system interrupts important feedback mechanisms.
Threats like the ones Powell's receiving would be the end of any other presidency. Why tech elites continue to align themselves with this clownshow will be a source of incredible shame that I'll hold onto forever.
Mafioso politics
The tech CEOs will have to do a whole lot of explaining, relocating and, perhaps, other things once this clown show is gone after 2028
I really wish that were true but they won’t. They’ll just keep on keeping on.
As I've written in another post, everyone is doomed to either align or face his rage.
So, better face his rage then. If those are the options the choice is clear and easy.
I think a lot of largest tech companies feel that they'll face retribution from the current administration for not being supportive enough but would not from future admins.
For many of the smaller players I think there's unfortunately a lot of people who realized there's significant money to be made in grifting. Many of the largest crypto proponents have pivoted into endeavors, whether crypto or otherwise, that profit off of being rewarded for being part of the 'correct' tribe.
> I think a lot of largest tech companies feel that they'll face retribution from the current administration for not being supportive enough but would not from future admins.
Hopefully we get the opportunity to disabuse them of this notion.
> I think a lot of largest tech companies feel that they'll face retribution from the current administration for not being supportive enough but would not from future admins.
The Democrats should play hardball but the geriatrics can barely take a swing.
They don’t know where the plate is, what the game is, or what day it is. They’re just hoping for ice cream when the nurse comes around with the meds. Meanwhile they are retelling stories from the 1960s for the hundredth time.
Even the young ones act like this.
This is exactly it and parallels what happened with the end of the Wiemar Republic. There was an asymmetry in response between the Nazis and the government. You can see that in the limited prosecution and light sentences of the Beer Hall Putsch perpetrators.
The tech titans like Thiel see the Trump administration as a "big bet" a startup investment. They can "shoot for the moon" and try to realize the network state. If they fail, they figure they'll just toss the Democrats some campaign contributions and all will be good.
The scary thing is that they're probably right about that. You can buy your way out of treason now.
I would be heavily predisposed to vote for any candidate who had a public goal of breaking up the big tech companies and taxing their CEOs into oblivion. I want this primarily because of the immediate about-face they all had when Trump 2.0 was elected and them all contributing to and standing behind him during his inauguration. Had they not, mercifully, all shown themselves as the snakes that they are I probably would have mostly continued to considere them a-political-ish and not been strongly opinionated.
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this is a big deal, markets gonna tank tomorrow morning... and then realize AI is still a thing and recover
Or realize it means interest rates are sure to be dropping.
and remind themselves there is way too much cash sloshing about for a broad-based and lasting market retreat.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
AI is a bubble; well, the stock market as a whole is, being led by an AI boom. At the end of a bubble (and it's not clear if we're there yet) markets find ways to self-finance. A crash means not just that the value is lower, but that the leveraged bets are now due, and those have to be paid by selling more.
When it crashes (and it's not clear when that will be), it will crash back to a cash-value baseline. And, sigh, it's not clear where that is. But it won't magically start going back up. The cyclic reinvestment engine needs to be reinvented every time.
For those,like me, who do not wnt to go to youtube:
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/12/fed-jerome-powell-criminal-p...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/federal-reserve-chair-powe...
Official written statement (same as the speech given) for those who prefer https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20260...
(This comment was originally posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46582441, before we merged the threads)
The entire reason the markets give the response wanted after a rate cut is because of the decision being made independently of politics. A politically enforced rate cut may still boost the economy in the short term, over the longer term the interest rate mechanism will not be trusted. This will defeat the entire purpose for very limited gain.
Behind all of this is another fact that the conditions around the U.S. reserve currency are changing quickly. This is happening with just interest payments on existing debt being the largest cost every year.
No matter who controls the Government, soon they will all be forced to cut spending in a large way and be forced to try to inflate themselves out of this coming debt crisis.
For people who don’t know what this is about and why everyone else is concerned…me neither.
2025-10-03
"You Decide: What Does the Fed’s Rate Cut Mean?”: <https://cals.ncsu.edu/news/you-decide-what-does-the-feds-rat...>
2025-12-10
“A divided Federal Reserve cuts interest rates for a 3rd straight time”: <https://alaskapublic.org/news/national/2025-12-10/a-divided-...>
"‘Silent Dissents’ Reveal Growing Fed Resistance to Powell’s Cuts”: <https://archive.is/JDlB0#selection-1235.0-1235.64>
2025-12-30
"Fed Minutes Reveal Split on Interest Rates Headed Into 2026”: <https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/fed...>
"Deep Divide Inside Fed Raises Questions About Timing of Further Rate Cuts”: <https://archive.is/7XdPo>
"Trump says he will 'probably' sue Fed's Powell”: <https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/trump-says-he-will-probabl...>
HTH
And of course equity futures immediately dropped on the news
Yep, we’ll see how the free market responds. Wonder if it will be a TACO Tuesday (or even Monday)
Guarantee there are dozens if not more in the admin insider trading like they have on so many announcements. Market manipulation right out in the open.
The slimiest swampiest criminals, they need to be put on trial.
Unprecedented times call for unlikely youtube heroes.
The titanic amount of generational neglect that has allowed even a fraction of voters to look at Trump for more than a second and find him qualified for any public office is truly fantastic.
This is one of the clear examples that Trump is seeing Putin's Russia as a model for his vision for the USA.
Venezuela, Greenland, and this. Anyone notice how these extreme events all happened around the same time of the Epstein files getting released with highly publicized questions about all the redactions? It certainly seems like a distraction game.
Not to mention what's happening in Minnesota
The difference is that the actions and rhetoric around Venezuela and Greenland and the Fed reserve are direct actions by Trump. The thing in Minnesota is a tragedy but I don’t think he told anyone to go out and kill somebody on the street.
I ask you to look deeper into what's happening there and reconsider your stance. US citizens are being beaten up and harassed, as are non-citizens. ICE officers are using their cars to ram observers and then arresting them violently. They arrested a teenaged clerk at target and then threw him out of a vehicle onto the street upon realizing he was a citizen. A woman was filmed being taken into a portapotty in handcuffs by a federal agent. The violence is quite clearly systematic. Watch the videos.
Sure but all of that predates the Epstein releases and reactions, which is what this thread is referring to.
The stuff I mentioned, the clear escalation, happened over the last few days, starting on the 7th. Along with the USDA suddenly cutting off all funds to Minnesota (which includes SNAP benefits for > 100k people). I don't see how this is any different.
“I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters.” Makes it pretty clear.
Wow that's bold.
It is. It is also rare and late. Possibly too late. But let's hope it is not and that this will inspire some other people to draw lines in the sand.
Holy shit.
So our monetary policy will be just set at the arbitrary whims of the president if this new scheme works.
Why does all of this feel like it's just sliding completely out of hand? Am I just being a doomer?
I find myself seeking out non-doomer people to read, since the doom and gloom doesn't really help, it's just demotivating. "Look for the helpers" and all that.
This outlet has some good things from time to time, like https://www.liberalcurrents.com/we-are-going-to-win/
That said, yeah this is really bad.
Who are your favorite non-doomer folks to read?
I thought this post was a good one on why doomerism is just a waste of time - featuring Ken Jennings of Jeopardy fame:
https://bsky.app/profile/goldengateblond.bsky.social/post/3m...
Some accounts at random that tend towards "this all sucks really bad - however!"
https://bsky.app/profile/olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
https://bsky.app/profile/golikehellmachine.com
It's a particular and kind of peculiar attitude, because objectively "things ain't great" and it's really easy to dwell on that. But we also need some hope.
Not sure about that article. In the short term maybe you might get through this round, but the long term really doesn’t look good. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/how-stop-m...
I’m applying to jobs in Europe.
Lots of respected limits and lines on government power are just being casually broken, so I don't think you're wrong. Whatever's going to happen next it probably won't have the stability of the past.
Because it is, you are not. Checks and balances are at their limits (judicial branch), or non existent (Congress).
https://rall.com/2026/01/08/checks-and-balances-are-dead
I hope I turn out to be wrong, but the most convincing explanation I've seen for the "why" is that the 1945-2000 period was an anomaly, and now we're reverting to the mean: despotic governments, frequent wars for territory, and massive wealth inequality leading to powerful oligarchies as the only other important political players aside from the despot. This was the norm for the overwhelming majority of human history and perhaps it was massively hubristic to think we had escaped it for good.
Probably it coincides with the fact that the last people who remember WW2 are now gone.
None of us understand the devastation that a WW incurs.
It's not the only anomaly. There was a previous period of long peace between 1815 and 1914, between the Napoleonic Wars and WW1.
This balance of power was carefully set up in the Congress of Vienna following the (first) defeat of Napoleon, and was ended by the ambitions of a Kaiser who desired the prestige of globe-spanning empire yet couldn't diplomacy his way out of a wet paper bag to realize that empire without bumbling into war.
With the added fun of nuclear weapons!
It’s been completely out of hand for some time now.
Well, you see... he is part of the "un-elected deep state."
Clearly, that is a problem that needs to be solved.
I know you’re being sarcastic, but Trump was the person who nominated Jerome Powell as chair.
This move is public punishment for not falling in line.
Thank you for pointing this out. It is really interesting, the difference between Trump 45 and Trump 47.
I would like to add one quote to be logged on this website:
> "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler," he wrote privately to an associate on Facebook in 2016. [0]
- Trump's future Vice President, JD Vance
If we survive the fall of Pax Americana in the next few years, and journalists and historians are again allowed to operate in a free environment, I really hope that they get to the core of how we got from 45 to 47.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/jd-vance-once-compared-trum...
The only reasonable conclusion at this point is that the fascists in the white house see their deep unpopularity, obvious loss of power in the near future (they have lost nearly every election in the past year by a landslide), and the Epstein files closing in. The obvious outcome will be at minimum jail and ridicule due to their continuous and obvious corruption, high crimes and misdemeanors like invading Venezuela, trying to invade Greenland, and sexual crimes against children. So they have to accelerate chaos to try and destroy law and order before it catches up with them and destroys them.
Its time to put up or get put down by masked goons.
No, you’re correct. It’s more or less what happened in Turkey.
"Has been set," not "will be set". We've been operating under the new scheme for months. Despite Powell's protestations, there was no evidence for cutting rates, and lots of evidence for doing the opposite. Unfortunately he gave in to Trump... but that obviously wasn't enough.
It all started with all grants and department expenditures being tagged with the employee ID, of supervisory.
Latest 2024 budget expenses, a fairly good percentage were chocked with no ID, no supervisor or delgated authority.
Better now, no ID, no money from Treasury.
As a side note, is there a compelling reason why interest rates aren't set algorithmically? I assume human intuition isn't really a factor in setting them. This would eliminate concerns about political motivation.
Economic models are complex and far from perfect, and we're still waiting for Hari Seldon's psychohistory models to be created to tie together macroeconomics and macropsychology.
Are you saying that human intuition does play a role? I assumed it was all pretty mathematic and deterministic already.
But who sets the algorithm? Whichever department of branch of govt was in charge of that would become have the enormous power, and political motivation would then fall to that.
Equally the same for data that goes into the algorithm - if you can control that you control interest rates.
Agreed, but we're already living that reality. Moving to an algorithmic approach provides a layer of transparency that makes manipulation easier to detect.
There's some slippery feedback loops involved, even if the models were very good, the reflexive nature of doing something like this would be very hard to get around
The design of the algorithm, and the control over what data is fed into it, would be subject to political motivations.
> is there a compelling reason why interest rates aren't set algorithmically?
Can’t believe you are saying that!! Then anyone can manipulate it like they manipulate stocks by writing hit pieces one day and gushing articles a few days after,
Would that make it easier or more difficult to guide, I wonder?
One of the very few lonely voices.
It's quite impressive how scared everybody is of this administration. News outlets, international leaders even in face of threats, big tech, including the delusional Musk who thought he could've handled the president's rage.
Hell even his own party is scared of speaking up, you either fall in line or you risk falling victim of the most vicious direct attacks, even if you've been a huge and core voice for the president, see senator Marjorie Green.
From Russia, to Belarus, from the Philippines to Argentina, from Hungary to Poland it's crystal clear what a failure of democracy it is to have a presidential republic.
The turning point may have been when the Supreme Court decided a president couldn't be criminally liable for anything done in office. Having no fear of consequences is quite an enabler.
I’m aghast but numb to this now.
The biggest question for me now is how the usual defenders of this lawless administration will try to defend this or both sides it.
This will continue until people actually get hurt. Trump is exactly what decadence looks like: people willing to vote for "their team" against any better judgement because nothing really every happens to hurt them.
The defense is that the status quo has become archaic and self-serving instead of serving the public so the current operations people doing some house cleaning and tossing a few rooms to see what’s going on in there is overdue, changes need to happen and power structures need to be shaken out a bit to make sure they are not getting in the way of the people they were created to act on behalf of, and scatter the ones who are “helping themselves” to the public coffers.
This just needs to happen every across all government, it’s like brushing your teeth to kick out the bacteria, but each individual institution needs a different kind of “floss” depending on the nature of the ways they have strayed from their original purposes.
That sounds nice, but I don't think there is much evidence that the above is actually what the current administration is doing, or even attempting to do.
Having blatantly political messages blasted across websites for national parks and on airport security video screens during the shutdown, for example, doesn't seem like a move towards "serving the public", but rather a move towards consolidation of direct control to the politicians at the top of the executive branch.
It's a funny defense coming from the most corrupt administration since Nixon
Nixon looks good in comparison -- EPA, OSHA, Clean Air Act, etc.
He'd be called a communist by MAGA.
there’s just a lot of partisan media outlets that are trying to make it look this way because it’s the corruption paying to try and stop it so they can keep power
I don’t see evidence of corruption all I see is a system already heavily steeped in corruption and regulatory capture that is using fake and ironic anti-establishment narratives to try and keep it.
You are blind.
Easy, he committed fraud by blowing up the renovation budget.
Could you point me to the East Wing of the White House please?
Logic does not matter to alt-right.
What's a pleb supposed to do now? Convert every paycheck to BTC, gold, or EUR?
Toilet paper and ammunition.
I assume there are some stocks that would benefit this? Maybe foreign stocks if the dollar declines?
The most-unamerican thing you can do right now is HOLD bitcoin/gold/silver.
If you still want fiat — and they're available — Swiss Francs are deflating least-quickly.
Otherwise, as a fellow pleb, my best advice is to get enough bullets for occassional hunting (and other tax-free methods of living) and protection.
If you're of a draftable age/gender, I'd either get extremely fit or extremely disabled. If you're a lard-ass, I'd get to a state where you can live without medicines.
—fellow blue collar american
You might as well for the next 3 years.
I wonder if the fed's lawyers advise him on this or if he has to use his own lawyers
The only adult left in the room :(
Powell for president please
Nobody who takes money as seriously as either party to this case should be president. Leaders should be focused on outcomes not abstractions.
He printed way too hard when Trump asked him to in '20.
My understanding is the United States has one of the strongest post-pandemic recoveries, the printing was definitely a factor.
I'm not arguing against QE I am saying there was too much of it and we could have had recovered just fine without the severe inflation that landed us in the current predicament.
Lower inflation and higher growth than every peer nation?
The Fed absolutely crushed it. Totally unambiguous.
Here are some ambiguous things:
1. Inflation
2. Comparing peer economies
3. Counterfactual timelines
What country did better (other than the imaginary retconned one in your head), so we can discuss the comparison directly?
Please read the posting guidelines.
Plus a bit of minding the til, as the fraud involved was out of hand.
So this is the bar for the next country to surpass the US as the world's economic super-power, if this continues it's most likely going to be China to surpass the US.
An opportunity for the EU to stop its bureaucracy and cleanup its act. If it cannot convince anyone that they are next, then one can argue that democracy is completely finished.
If this nonsense continues it will be the UAE + Saudi Arabia + China, cutting off the west and that's that.
If that's the bar, well, China is not a sterling example of central bank independence and the rule of law either.
China hasn’t dropped bombs on foreign soil in 45 years. I think I’m ok with that situation.
They took Hong Kong over violently in 2019.
> stop its bureaucracy and cleanup its act
What does that mean? Do you have any idea what the EU is?
Economists: The interest rate on US Treasuries is often used as a benchmark for the “risk free rate”
Trump: Hold my beer.
Wild. Some kind of fucking banana republic.
Trump can’t tolerate anyone in government who isn’t a total Trump sycophant.
Terrible. Trump was even the person who nominated Powell in 2017, and now he’s being squeezed for doing the job of Federal Reserve Chair instead of bending to demands.
America needs more public administrators like Powell in POTUS, SCOTUS, and COTUS: seemingly boring, reasonable, decent, professional, and competent.
Thank God there's one important institution that can not be forced or bullied into compliance. Powell will go down in history as hero.
They're already pursuing a case against another Fed board member, and now this? I have a feeling these two cases are going to suffer the same fate as the Letita James and James Comey cases: thrown out due to incompetence and/or malfeasance. It's a disgusting, clear weaponization of the DOJ.
MAGA, of course, tried to accuse Biden of weaponizing them during his term so that they could justify the Trump 2.0 revenge tour. Now we're here.
What about another nice dinner with all the Silicon Valley CEOs paying their respect to the orange dictator? I'm sure that will appease him. What a bunch of spineless puppets.
(Boring, important thing that holds civilization together.)
Dunning-Kruger effect billionaire: We don't need that. What's it even for anyhow? I'm not paying for it. All these naysaying wimps and freeloaders say we can't live without out. I will use my unelected government position and bling chainsaw to cut fraud, waste, and abuse to eliminate red tape and unnecessary big government regulation. And I demand a negative tax rate, subsidies, and lucrative government contracts! Rawr!
If Trump does try to politicize the fed he is going to do the one thing that the American political system will not tolerate - messing with the money of the most powerful capital class in the world. Normally, the incentives of this class are most aligned with grinding the rest of us into a fine powder suitable for lubrication of the engines of commerce, but hopefully just this once they'll come to the rescue. My only fear is that the short term quarterly obsessions that we've built might actually lead to some business supporting this decision out of a suicidal drive for short term gains.
If Trump does try to politicize the fed he is going to do the one thing that the American political system will not tolerate
I've lost track of the number of times I, and others, have said that.
Turns out there really are no brakes on the Trump Train. In the parlance of the metallic-headgear fans, any other POTUS would have been treated to a nice convertible ride through downtown Dallas by now.
TLDR and context?
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https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fed-renovation-budget-balloon...
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/building-project-faqs.ht...
The point is better (and stands on its own) without treading into personal attacks. Don't let a throwaway account bait you into turning it into a battle of name calling instead of sticking to readily available facts as you link at the end, it's what they often want and if they were sincere it severely diminishes the chances they'll believe your links were in good faith anyways.
Facts matter, as does telling people it is on them to understand them. Otherwise, we will spin in perpetuity refuting people who are not discussing in good faith. I stand by my assertions. I do not believe it is impolite to call out a potential lack of education, or ignoring of facts and reality. Without shared facts and reality, discussion and debate is impossible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
This is every part I agree with, with none of falling for the trap of looking bad for doing so. They've already edited the comment and posted a new one. Now the insults stand rather than just what you've said here, which was perfectly even keeled and factual.
If you're going to put the energy into refuting something, why bother wasting it by using personal insults to kick it off instead? Uneducated is at least borderline, if a bit blunt, but unsophisticated just drains any value.
I appreciate you deeply for standing up to it, I just don't want to see doing so made to look bad when the facts presented were so solid and good.
I don’t believe asserting that someone is uneducated or unsophisticated is an insult (if true); it is simply a fact and description, and stands regardless of the content of the post. Where you see malice, I see honesty and truth. “If this, then that.”
There are educated people, uneducated people, sophisticated people, and unsophisticated people (and overlap amongst). You will need to tailor your approach accordingly when dealing with each persona.
Hmm, I suppose people can see words in very different ways. If you're mother asked why the printer never works for her would you tell her she's uneducated and unsophisticated for not knowing before sending a link to the manual? It sounds like perhaps you would, but I wonder how many would really agree that's a neutrally worded approach.
Not for me to decide alone any more than anyone else alone I suppose. Thanks for sharing your perspective on it.
Yes, and she would understand why, but that is certainly different than a throwaway account making antagonistic, inflammatory political statements without citations and ignoring facts, no? Context, intent, and nuance, like facts, matter (imho).
It seems likely she would, and we are often similar to our kin I guess, but I still wonder if that's what the average person would consider neutral. I have no good way to answer that absolutely more than the next person though.
I tend to think that's because it doesn't matter who it is, it's always most productive to reply in a way which focuses on substance alone when one can't otherwise be positive. Particularly in pure text, it's so easy for things to come off worse than intended (something which has hit me quite well in the past as much as any). I've always assumed that's why the comment guidelines are so universally worded, mentioning what throwaways should be used for but with no mention of how they should be exempted from the usual approach. I.e. it's very easy for two people to feel like they are being neutral in text as the conversation escalates.
I've got to hop off for to get ready for work tomorrow. Thanks again for both taking the time to share your perspective as well as taking the time to respond to mal-intended throwaways with solid facts - it matters (thumbs up).
Thanks for telling me to do better. It matters too, and does not fall on deaf ears.
Thousands of days for you to join in the past but you did today.
I love how you put that! Suspicious is too gentle of a word.
lots of reasons, asbestos being one of them.
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Trump has partly himself to blame here. From https://fortune.com/2025/07/23/federal-reserve-renovation-co...:
“Trump appointees to the US Commission of Fine Arts, however, required the project use more white marble to align with a proposed presidential mandate from the president that all new federal buildings be neoclassical in style. This luxury white marble comes from Georgia and has been used extensively in the construction of national landmarks including the U.S. Capitol. Aside from Georgia marble, the materials used throughout the Fed’s renovation are required to be sourced domestically.
“And to match the original marble facades and detailed interiors, the Fed is required to use specialized processes more costly than those allowed in Washington buildings without historical significance or not on the National Mall.”
tree, meet the forest.
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You should read up on some market history, if you’re making ridiculous claims like this.
> The interest rate can be set via an algorithm.
Who writes this algorithm? Are algorithms without biases?
Do you know anything about how data science works? The algorithm is to be tuned over historical data to optimize for an unchanging reward function. The problem isn't that complicated if you think about it.
I do know how data science works.
> The algorithm is to be tuned over historical data
So you’re saying that historical data can’t have biases? Data cannot be collected and shared (or not collected a la jobs report) to manipulate the output? Seems a bit of a naïve take if you ask me.
If data is not collected, it is missing. A decent algorithm will be robust to missing data.
How on earth do you think the Fed sets the rate? Each board member probably has a simple spreadsheet, although they use their gut feeling in the end. It's markedly less objective and completely un-transparent.
People here are funny in that when I preach for transparency and objectivity, they preach for obscurity and individual board member bias. Their skepticism of data science shows how uneducated they are about defining and optimizing an objective function.
I’m not saying I’m against an algorithm. I’m saying that I’m against _only_ an algorithm. And we do want transparency and objectivity - nobody is denying this. I’ve worked with enough data to know that there are implicit biases, and just because data exists doesn’t mean it’s good. Let’s just say I’m skeptical that an algorithm alone can replace the Fed.
> although they use their gut feeling in the end.
That gut feeling check is pretty crucial, I think. Why not just work to make the Fed a more transparent org? And let’s say it is by an algorithm - will it be open sourced so it can be vetted?
Edit: also more crucially, who’s responsible when the algorithm fucks up?
> The algorithm is to be tuned over historical data
Because as we all know, when it comes to financial markets, past performance guarantees future results. Oh wait . . .
That's just something they say to scare the children.
In any event, the point of a decent algorithm is that if the result isn't complying with the action, upcoming updates to the weights will fix it. Moreover, changes to the weight would be such that they optimize for maximum learning.
It is so weird seeing people preach for an obscure entity to do something so basic, and being shut down when asking for transparency. Today's AIs could write good model-development algorithms for tasks that are a hundred times more complicated.
> upcoming updates to the weights will fix it
Oops, the unaccountable algorithm eased when it should have tightened and Volcker Shocked when it should have eased. No prob, the weights will get tweaked and all will be well. Once the economic crisis blows over, anyway . . .
> That's just something they say to scare the children.
Is that really your response to “past results aren’t indicative of future performance”? Honestly at that point why not just let ChatGPT run loose and set guidance? Please, I implore you to think about the issue a bit deeper.
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> I don’t get it.
Then you should have probably left it at that.
Criminal investigations in this administration are just a means of pressure and harassment, they have zero bearing on any suspicion of criminal activity. I predict that within a few days Powell will be the recipient of death threats. That's the second part of the pattern.
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This administration has not been operating the DoJ in good faith. One only has to look at the buffoonish attempts to push through charges on Comey, James and other political opponents to see that.
Treating the investigation in good faith is not being neutral or unbiased. Expecting more of the same is.
> One only has to look at the buffoonish attempts to push through charges on Comey, James and other political opponents to see that.
How so? Charges were dismissed on a technicality of on the US prosecutor who brought them, not based on evidence presented.
Have you seen all the evidence? You seem very confident that no crime has been committed.
I mean we've seen the declassified Obama memo on sicking the CIA on Trump. Seems like some smoke there, why not find out if there is a fire?
Because it is very clear to most people - you excepted, apparently - that this is not a normal case but one that is solely predicated on putting pressure on someone who is not acting on Donald Trump's whim but based on their job description. If Powell would have reduced the interest rates further this would have never happened.
The DOJ is now weaponized as a political tool, rather than that it is used for its real purpose. If you refuse to see this that's on you, not even on Donald Trump. The FED is independent for a reason, you are seeing that mechanism in action and so far no US president has every made a move like this.
How is it clear? Have you seen all the evidence?
I’m being serious. You seem quite confident of your opinion, so I’m asking what it’s based on?
> Should this administration NEVER conduct any criminal investigations
Probably, yes. At least until they reverse course and start enforcing our most basic fundamental laws like the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
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Definitely not his job and the renovation plans aren't a state secret.
Building is much cheaper than renovation which is much cheaper than preservation. Ambitious project goals preserving unique historical assets make this project inherently expensive.
From https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/building-project-faqs.ht... which includes much more detail.
> ... complete overhaul and modernization that preserves two historic buildings that have not been comprehensively renovated since their construction in the 1930s ...
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There are other boards for this nonsense like wsb.
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They literally have an entire web site dedicated to this that explains the reasons for the cost increase:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/building-project-faqs.ht...
Could it have been cheaper? Possibly. But let’s be real here. It’s blatant intimidation.
tds_is_real = "the deep state is real"
Enough to know we shouldn't bother replying
I thought it stood for Trump derangement syndrome, but you might be right.
Ah jeez, yours sounds believable too haha
Who appointed Powell?
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Without the Fed, how would you advise the nation deal with events like the Great Depression, the Great Recession, or COVID? Would you disagree that the Feds actions shortened these events and thus helped the public in the process?
Yes, I would disagree that the Fed has any positive influence whatsoever. It should be abolished and we should solve our problems with policy that relates to them and not pro-capital financial manipulation.
Have you read up on the wildcat banking era? The Fed, although far from perfect, was created to solve systemic problems with the decentralized American financial sector of its time. Chesterson’s fence is vital to discussions like these.
Doesn't the Fed do exactly that though? And without political influence? What would a different pro-labor system look like that could deal with national monetary crises?
I would argue that the Fed manipulating our financial system causes monetary crisis. The Fed is under the influence of capital which doesn't have the benefit of being even nominally checked by democracy. Were we (speaking as an American) to invest in our country and people we would have a healthier society and the means to deal with actual crisis.
> I would argue that the Fed manipulating our financial system causes monetary crisis.
Well, get ready because you aint seen nothin yet if you thought the Fed was manipulating our financial system. Do you honestly think a partisan system would be better?
That's a conspiracy I've yet to hear.
I have heard shadows of this theory a bit from Jon Stewart over the years.
https://youtu.be/tU3rGFyN5uQ?si=0387L1blOdW2Ttpe
He says it himself! His role its to induce "healthy" unemployment.
As opposed to unhealthy unemployment which means the system collapses. Zero unemployment is not going to happen in any normally functioning society, though in the former USSR it existed. That included a lot of busywork (changing traffic lights, for instance, and requiring three cashiers to buy a bread).
But that's not a conspiracy, that's built into the system. 2% unemployment is a number I remember from high school economics.
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One must ask, to whose benefit? On what side are they wagering?
You’re assuming they’re clever instead of mean and stupid.
Fuck. This blew my thinking wide open. Thank you but damn you but thanks.
Why not all three?
People with capital are always ready to buy the dip
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The US government entered a debt spiral a while ago (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A091RC1Q027SBEA), and needs lower interest rates to service its tremendous debt while trying to inflate it away by printing money. That's all it comes down to. For decades fiscal conservatives were warning about it and were laughed at. Now that we're are the end game the inevitable shitshow will become apparent. You can hate Trump (rightly so), but as much as he did contribute to the problem directly, the problem is larger and systemic, and anyone else in office would have the exact same problem now.
Exactly, interest rates must come down due to the government debt burden. This debt burden creates a strong incentive to force rates to zero, but we have to pretend the Federal Reserve is independent.
Separately, I think Jerome Powell is one of the worst Fed chairs as he is most (but not exclusively) responsible for what happened to the housing market by creating a lock-in effect and focusing on their CPI basket.
Or you know we could like tax wealthy people and companies...
Trump is, of course, wrong. But the independence of the Fed being at stake is a myth. Since the bursting of the dot com bubble, the Fed has operated as if the well being of the investor class is their number one priority.
This is logical end game of having these economic controls at all. Put a steering wheel on it someone will drive it.
A true free market isn’t at whims of any one person.
Monero up around 20% today.
As they say in Starship Troopers: "It's afraid." Good.
If you are a complete normie, turn back now, it's gonna get conspiratorial. Otherwise, read on for some insights.
First, one must understand that the Federal Reserve was the main trojan horse vehicle for the European banking families into America. Read any number of good books, starting with the latest edition of G. Edward Griffins "The Creature from Jekyll Island".
But all that is mostly known already to those who have payed attention and done the reading... so whats next?
My conclusion is that America is being setup, in multiple ways (fall guy for global empire, etc), but one major setup that is going on right now is a twofer: 1) Jack up the US economy at any time by raising rates and unraveling the ponzi scheme and 2) If you do 1), you have the perfect excuse to try to implement some CBDC-esque new system, but this time with much more surveillance tech, for example unified ledgers that merge digital identity with financial identity, with ESG and social credit style added on. Read Whitney Webb for more on the structures being put in place for this.
So what is happening is that Trump knows the people that control the Fed, for whom the Fed chair is a mere mouthpiece, really want to suddenly and unexpectedly hike rates and soon, but Trump doesn't want it to happen under his last term, so he has been doing major backroom maneuvering to influence the Fed every time a rate-change date is coming up. Essentially he wants to kick the can to the next POTUS, but since the Fed is technically independent, it really can do whatever it wants, all he can do is fire after the fact. My guess is they will drop it on him late term, a perfect excuse to usher in the political pendulum swing of the hegelian game they play with us.
To me, that this backroom maneuvering is becoming more public tells me they really want to do the sudden rate hike.
Want a decent intro to the real fed? Try this video from the great James Corbett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IJeemTQ7Vk
I’m a little shocked to see the quality of some comments here - I would expect a more grounded discussion. This is like Reddit / YouTube comment history. Someone please tell me this is a Wendy’s.
Sure the Fed isn’t perfect. But we don’t really have a better solution as of now because our financial systems are extremely powerful and anyone in office would love to abuse it if they can.
Sure, the renovations are ridiculous. But it’s not like this administration is austere in the slightest, so that’s a bit rich. Not to mention the cronyism prevalent across the cabinet.
HN has better baseline conversation, but Social Media is inane by its very nature.
There's also little genuine conversation to be had. The situation is bad, has been bad, and seems to only be getting worse. That's the only interpretation any rational person can hold. And, when everyone has the same opinion and that opinion is drastic, that creates a circle jerk.
Why are the renovations ridiculous?
Not the renovations themselves but the cost is supposedly at 2.5B. Personally I don’t really mind but I also don’t think government buildings need to be all that fancy with marble flooring.
It was budgeted at 1.9B (in 2019). Most of the cost overruns are from unexpected site issues like asbestos (more than thought) and water table problems. The buildings are historic, they already had marble. The marble was taken down and saved, this marble will be re-used. Some pieces are damaged, those will be new marble. These buildings are near 100 years old. I also don't think they have marble floors, but facades and other stonework.
I don't understand the cost either, apparently it only costs around a billion dollars to build a skyscraper? The Burj Khalifa only cost one and a half billion dollars when completed in 2010. I don't know that there's criminal activity here, but the cost of this is rather surprising to me. I knew the Federal Reserve was being renovated, but I thought it was something closer to a hundred million dollars.
> The Burj Khalifa only cost one and a half billion dollars when completed in 2010.
You have to consider labour costs are significantly cheaper in Dubai.
Exciting two weeks to start the year!
I don’t think “exciting” is the right word.
Where's your sense of adventure?
"And did you find adventure?"
"No. Neither does anyone else. Adventures happen to other people. When it happens to you, it just looks like trouble."
- The Ballad Of Sir Dinadan, by Gerald Morris, quoted from memory
There is a time for adventure, and this is not it.
You know this part of the problem!
Politics is now consumed as entertainment, and ask any writer of books or screenplays and they will tell you _conflict_ makes for good entertainment.
Politics should be _boring_. The fact that we demand to be entertained by our political system is a big part of the problem.
Far too many people decide to occupy the us vs. them part of their brain with National politics as opposed to sports.
Both are basically useless as it relates to your personal quality of life but at least with the latter you can see nice geometric combinations between players on a pitch and some incredible athleticism in between
The issue being that one actually impacts your life and the other is a spectacle.
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[...] send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.
This is just inflammatory
Does anyone have a steelman argument for this?
Do you think that criminal prosecution for Jerome Powell for maybe doing something wrong with some building renovations under timing that just happens to coincide with the President’s personal and public vendetta against this person is worth steelmanning?
At some point it stops being steelmanning and starts becoming an invitation for some propaganda to distract from the obvious.
The more obvious something seems the more valuable steelmanning becomes, precisely because if the only steelman arguments you get (if any) are propaganda at best (instead of reasons you just hadn't considered) then you can be that much more confident your outrage is based in reason rather than feelings. My guess is there won't be many coming up with steelman arguments for this one though anyways.
Inviting propaganda is good, let the obviously weak arguments come front and center to be logically considered and ridiculed rather than put in small private group chats where they seem to grow and grow. This only works, in any way, if people stop saying things aren't worth having consideration about because it's obvious to them.
I understand the theory of steelmanning, but in cases like this it's just an high-brow version of the "both sides" style of journalism where you pretend like both sides are similarly plausible and deserve equal consideration. At the extremes, the steelmanning can turn into a game of giving the other side more consideration.
> Inviting propaganda is good, let the obviously weak arguments come front and center to be logically considered and ridiculed
That's literally what I'm doing: Ridiculing the obviously weak arguments.
And do you know what's happening? My ridicule and dismissiveness are being talked down, while you invite someone to "steelman" the argument instead. This pattern happens over and over again in spaces where steelmanning is held up as virtuous: It's supposed to be a tool for bringing weak arguments into the light so they can be dismissed, yet the people dismissing are told to shush so we can soak up the propaganda from the other side.
An invitation for steelmanning isn't about setting aside equal consideration regardless of the quality of the arguments brought, it's about giving equal chance to even consider other ideas when one cannot seem to find any on their one. When the merits are poor, that leaves far less than equal consideration of them in the end. Making the consideration brought forth equal in total time spent regardless of quality has nothing to do with the steelmanning process. A weak steelman argument is precisely a confirmation the opposing view is not worth much consideration, if any.
> That's literally what I'm doing: Ridiculing the obviously weak arguments. > > And do you know what's happening? My ridicule and dismissiveness are being talked down, while you invite someone to "steelman" the argument instead. This pattern happens over and over again in spaces where steelmanning is held up as virtuous: It's supposed to be a tool for bringing weak arguments into the light so they can be dismissed, yet the people dismissing are told to shush so we can soak up the propaganda from the other side.
So far all I've seen in this chain is complaint of the possibility other arguments may be brought up for fear we'd have to consider them if they were. At no point is the goal supposed to be everyone ends up agreeing with how one particular person sees things, it's supposed to be that what everyone believes they understand is openly put on the table a given appropriate consideration for the merits of the points presented. There will always be someone upset their position receives ridicule, that's neither here nor there for those wanting to strengthen their understanding of the situation instead of demand any other discussion can only ever be propaganda and should not be given a single thought. Again, a lot of the time the steelman idea is still bad - and that's still a good signal which doesn't require one give that position equal weight in the end.
Have you considered that maybe you just want to live in an echo chamber?
As a casual follower of economic news and completely ignorant of politics, my guess is that the administration believes the fed isn't acting according to mandate of stability and jobs. I have no clue how valid that is
Trump thinks lowering the interest rates means market goes up before election. That's all there is to it everyone knows it's not about stability and jobs
I hate Trump but Treasury control over central banks and interest rates is not a particularly revolutionary thing. Independent central bank is a relatively new invention and a non-independently controlled central reserve bank did not always lead to immediate implosion in all cases. The concept of independent central bank only became popularized in the 1920s. The world existed before that.
The dire thing here is that Trump himself is a maniac, so him taking control is very scary, but a non-independent central bank itself is not as big a calamity as 1000 other problems we're facing in society.
History: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank_independence
You can find many criticisms of the job performance of many of the past chairs of the US fed, the Fed is not infallible. The current Everything Bubble / Too Big to Fail situation we are in is largely of their creation.
The interest rates? If you wanted to crash demand for dollar various things makes a bit more sense. Venezuela might be more about threatening BRICS if you squint at it. The EU–Mercosur agreement looks like it might pass - timing is kind of weird. There is maybe a kind of logic to it for exports but I think it lowers the standard of living for us plebs.
I like jpow so I’m biased for sure. But when I zoom out, I think the thing some people are missing is the arbitrage aspect. With US politics, we typically get a choice between two people. Often it’s a choice between the lesser evil. Many of Trumps voters were not people who liked Trump, but people who were horrified by Kamala. This means Trump can arbitrage that gap, and do all sorts of disagreeable things as long as he remains the lesser evil to his voters, those disagreeable acts will be ignored come election time. Many Trump voters will be aghast at him weaponizing the courts to chip away at the independence of the fed, but they’ll vote for him and his preferred candidates because they feel the alternative is even worse.
The important implication is that resistance or countering with extremism in the other direction only makes him stronger. To defeat Trump the left will need to move closer to the middle so he has less room for that kind of political arbitrage. Alas emotion seems to be in greater supply than strategic thinking so probably things will get worse before they get better.
I am surprised by the negative comments, the low interest rates = better thesis has always been somewhat popular on HN , now just because Trump is saying it (and operating to get there) it becomes an issue or something not to be aligned with.
There are countless comments and discussions on this board about how:
1) interest rates should be zero,
2) interest rates being non-zero create a misallocation of capital where there is a return on an investment without any ingenuity or creation behind
3) Banks are too risk averse to lending and their risk averse behavior is due to the risk free rate they enjoy when they park money at the Fed and when they buy T-bills
No matter how little ingenuity or creation is required to keep afloat a zombie company or a dubious startup, for sure it's a notch higher than what happens when that money is parked at the Fed or invested in t-bills...
the fed's goal is zero interest rate, it's not that people are negative because "tRuMp SaId So" it's because he's trying to influence the fed's decision with criminal prosecution of the chair and not through his economic policy. His policy is ass and that's why the fed can't get back to their ZIRP goal
The Fed's interest rate goal (which is half of their dual mandate) is 2%.
I believe that's the inflation goal, which is one of the two mandates. The other goal being maximum employment.
But I was wrong about ZIRP anyway. It's not a goal to get there it's what was used to strengthen the economy after 2008 and 2020 economic hardships.
The rate should be zero regardless of any other consideration.
The dismantling of the fed would be in order
Even if one disagrees with Fed policy, the way Trump is having the DoJ criminally prosecute Powell under unrelated pretexts is disgraceful and undermines the Fed’s independence.
"In every case, I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of price stability and maximum employment."
I take any claims of absolute neutrality with a huge grain of salt. Besides, he's an unelected bureaucrat. He can only pretend to represent the interests of the people.
Bureaucrats can do more than pretend: they can have a history of actions which reflect their representation of the interests of the people.
I’m of the opinion from the old Yiddish proverb: “when the cat and dog are fighting, the mouse is safe”.
If the admin is fighting with the Federal Reserve, it means they are not focused on figuring out how to further screw us over…
They have had no problem screwing people over on multiple fronts at the same time. This is wishful thinking.
> If the admin is fighting with the Federal Reserve, it means they are not focused on figuring out how to further screw us over…
Messing with interest rates for short term political gain would screw us over.
I don't think a fight with the Federal Reserve will stop ICE from murdering civilians.
Puerile and uninformative, unfortunately. I respect that each of us has their world view, but if the last decade has shown anything at all, it is that when you are in the public square, you are asking for interlocution, not for escapism to be indulged. And the best thing is to do as you implicitly ask, and interlocute.