12 ms·

Anyone who thinks Trump is the problem is missing the mark: An imperial presidency with an unchecked intelligence apparatus is a systemic problem that inevitabl

by alrs 10y ago

Anyone who thinks Trump is the problem is missing the mark: An imperial presidency with an unchecked intelligence apparatus is a systemic problem that inevitably led to this. If one person can pervert a system, that system sucks.

news_to_me 10y ago
If there's any silver lining in all this, it's that Trump and the alt-right aren't moving in the shadows anymore, and they're moving too quickly. If this keeps up, surely there must be a breaking point when Congress and the people are too alienated.
- amr 10y ago
  there is the possibility of the breaking point coming too late.
- civilian 10y ago
  Uh, that's not the silver lining from my POV. The silver lining is that liberals will realize that maybe limited government is a good thing, because they can't always rely on their person being in power.
  - smcg 10y ago
    Bigger government works when the systems of checks and balances work. In this case the courts failed to uphold the constitution and strike down the expansions of unlawful surveillance powers.
    - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
      >the courts failed to uphold the constitution // USA has elected and politically appointed judiciary doesn't it? If so then is that at all unexpected, which politicians would put their guy in the judges seat if they thought they'd then have to obey the law.
    - steamer25 10y ago
      > Bigger {organization} > checks and balances I'd say the two are mutually exclusive.
  - metaobject 10y ago
    I think conservatives could stand to learn a few of those lessons as well. I'm referring to the massive amounts of spending and the creation of the TSA and the DHS under Bush.
    - CalChris 10y ago
      That massive amount of spending on DHS, TSA, ... amounts to right wing social welfare. Conservatives are not going complain.
      - twothamendment 10y ago
        "Conservative" politicians or conservative voters? I'm not sure they are they same. Every conservative I know has no love for the TSA or DHS, but I'll agree, politicians are not going to complain.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        You are confusing conservatives with libertarians (a confusion facilitated by the manner in which conservatives have—especially over the past ~50 years, though obviously the "states rights" line goes back much further—selectively adopted libertarian rhetoric to rally opposition to policies that they disagree with for other reasons.)
        CalChris 10y ago
        I written elsewhere that I don't see any distinction between libertarians and conservatives. Rather I see libertarianism as a flag of convenience, a pose. Gary Johnson was a Republican governor and ran in the 2012 Republican primary before running as a Libertarian in the general. Bob Barr was a Republican congressman and House manager of the Clinton impeachment trial; he is a Republican again today; he supported Trump. Ron Paul retired as a Republican. Zero difference. At best the LP serves as a safe and convenient parking place for quasi-protest votes.
        dragonwriter 10y ago
  - fictioncircle 10y ago
    > Uh, that's not the silver lining from my POV. The silver lining is that liberals will realize that maybe limited government is a good thing, because they can't always rely on their person being in power. Conservatives are the ones that created this nightmare in the days after 9/11. "Liberals" simply did not remove it. When it comes to civil liberties, smaller government is always a good thing but literally no party supports that. :/
    - aero142 10y ago
      I went through several version of this response full of profanity, but I'll trim it down to be appropriate. Absolutely not, and it's really harmful to think this. Hillary Clinton was a full supporter of the active military intervention, overseas CIA action, and domestic spying programs. Delusional tribal politics is a big part of the problem.
      - kbenson 10y ago
        I'm not sure Hillary Clinton is a good stand in for "liberals" in this argument, for the same reason (if not to the same extent) that I think Trump wouldn't be a good stand in for "conservatives". To clarify, your point may be entirely correct, I just don't think using Hillary Clinton advances your argument usefully.
        btilly 10y ago
        Well, think on this. The last President to shrink the NSA, CIA, etc was Jimmy Carter. Every other one increased it. Reagan got them into arms deals with Iran. Bush Sr, former CIA director, was a staunch ally. Bill Clinton expanded ECHELON, tried to regulate cryptography (remember the Clipper chip?), Bush Jr passed the Patriot Act, Obama expanded the NSA and in pursuit of leakers filed more acts under the Espionage Act than all previous presidents combined. At what point can we conclude that the problem is bipartisan? Of all prominent nominees this time around, only Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz said anything against the continued expansion of the surveillance state. Of all prominent nominees for 2012, only Ron Paul spoke out against the surveillance state. For 2008, only Kucinich and Ron Paul spoke out against the surveillance state. If Hillary Clinton were an isolated example, then your point would be good. But she is not. She squarely represents the political mainstream.
  - jdc 10y ago
    The trouble is that both parties seem to view an overreaching executive branch as a feature of the game, not a bug. This is similar to how powerful market incumbents prefer a winner-takes-all economy. After all if you have a 50% chance of taking the whole pot you, do you want to change the rules?
    - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
      > After all if you have a 50% chance of taking the whole pot you, do you want to change the rules? If your choices are to have a 99% chance of taking 50% of the pot or to have a 50% chance of taking 100% of the pot and a 50% chance of someone else taking it and you being imprisoned or murdered by them, you pick the one that doesn't involve a significant risk of catastrophe. The problem is you don't get to pick before the election, you get pick after. And then it isn't a 50% chance anymore. If you won the pot you have no incentive to change and if you lost then you don't have the power to change. This is one of the problematic consequences of the 17th Amendment. Originally US Senators were chosen by the state legislatures. The purpose of the US Senate was to represent the states in the federal government, so it was inherently a check on federal power. States don't want too strong a US President. But we got rid of that in a fit of populism in the 20th century. Meanwhile it's still the case that only a third of the Senate seats are on the ballot in a given election. And consider what the circumstance is when you simultaneously want to limit the executive and have the power to do it: It's the lame duck session. To do it you need a) to currently have control of government (Presidency + House + a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate), and b) to not control any of those in the incoming government, so you fear what the new government will do, enough to pass laws to limit their power. But since only a third of Senators can change at once, and it's unheard of that all open seats switch from one party to the other, that never actually happens. So the President gets stronger but never weaker, because we decided to dismantle a check on federal power and replace it with nothing.
    - int_19h 10y ago
      To be more specific, they see it as a feature when they're in a position of power (where they can actually do something about it), and a bug when they're not (where they can't fix it).
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    The silver lining is that liberals will realize that maybe limited government is a good thing, because they can't always rely on their person being in power. Yeah I've really enjoyed the last several weeks' display of disrespect for democratic results and the office of the executive. Very refreshing! If only we could convince people to hold on to this feeling!
  - scholia 10y ago
    The Liberals have frequently not been in power, as Nixon, Ford, Reagan and two Bushes show. However, Trump broke all the rules when running for President (by, for example, crudely insulting opponents and by being a pathological liar) and he seems to be keen to break all the rules now. The system worked when both Republicans and Democrats had a similar view of the democratic process, even if they differed on policies. Trump is systematically wrecking the process. Plenty of people are theorizing about this turning into a de facto coup, including Michael Moore. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-michael-moore-coup-us-steve-bannon-sally-yates-rule-of-law-a7554556.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trum...
    - jack9 10y ago
      > Trump is systematically wrecking the process. Systematic how (what's the system, so far)? Wrecking how? What process? Talking in vague codewords without meaning (except in your head) does not tell me anything about what's wrong. I cannot agree with this kind of babble.
  - unclebucknasty 10y ago
    People need to stop viewing government as the third party it has become and remember that it is supposed to be an expression of their own voices, then fight like hell for its restoration as such. Because, there will always be someone jockeying to rule over the masses (financially or otherwise), whether it's moneyed corporations and individuals directly or those who manipulate a government, irrespective of whether they claim they want it to be small. The idea behind a democratic government is simply self-rule. As such, advocating for its weakening is advocating a silencing of your own voice. And where does that lead? A strong democratic government is a good thing for "the people" when it functions properly and protects the less powerful. But, it doesn't. Our government has long been captured by those who are in position to bend it to their will (i.e. those same parties who would rather you dispense with government so they can rule more efficiently). So, that is the trick: subverting government, then convincing the weak that the only fix is to dismantle it. But, the solution is to get the money out and return it to the people, not do away with it altogether and invite a small minority to rule over the masses with impunity.
- nickff 10y ago
  That's exactly what I thought about 6 years ago, when the Republicans took over the Congress, and had every incentive to hold Obama to account.
  - AckSyn 10y ago
    We can see how well that went, can't we?
  - DrScump 10y ago
    Republicans took over the Congress only the House.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  The problem, as history amply demonstrates, is that the "breaking point" is often reached after the means to coordinate an effective resistance are destroyed, leaving the population complying out of fear until the regime is stopped by an outside force.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
burkaman 10y ago
One person cannot pervert the system. One person, 63 million voters, lots of members of congress, lots of federal employees, etc. can. Not that the system doesn't have problems, but the people that make up the system are voluntarily giving Trump power. It's not possible to design a system that the participants themselves can't destroy if they decide to.
- benevol 10y ago
  > It's not possible to design a system that the participants themselves can't destroy if they decide to. Enter systemic, omnipresent, pervasive mass-surveillance. Tables turned 180°.
  - burkaman 10y ago
    I guess by participants I was mostly referring to actual government participants. Trump can't pervert the system if Congress doesn't approve his nominees or pass legislation he wants, and federal agents don't follow his orders. A small group of people can control a large group of people, but one person can't really transform a government without its consent.
    - tluyben2 10y ago
      Hypothetically speaking, one person can if the other persons are of the greedy kind and believe that blind obedience will get them more green now and/or in the future. Not saying it is so but as Trump still has his companies he can (try to, but most people have their price) bribe whoever to do whatever. Especially if he picked them for that reason. Just in person over a few beers and pay out in 4 or 8 years when he is just a business man again.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > It's not possible to design a system that the participants themselves can't destroy if they decide to. You can raise the bar arbitrarily high, though. Make the destruction of the system require lots of coordinated effort, and then make coordination difficult. Coordination is hard for humans as it is, even without a system that actively subverts it. That's why we have lots of issued labeled together as "tragedies of the commons".
okreallywtf 10y ago
I would argue that paranoia about the intelligence services and spying helped create the situation we're currently in. We feel like we're living in a police state and that feeling is going to cause us to sit back and watch a true police state be implemented. That isn't to say that spying and warrentless wiretapping isn't/wasn't a problem, but I think we'll come to realize that it was nothing compared to what we've done now.
- wahern 10y ago
  s/paranoia/cynicism/ and you explain everything that's wrong with the current political atmosphere. And why it's not going to get any better. If you have no trust in government, nor even any faith that a non-corrupt, functioning government is a practical possibility, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We're spiraling toward the state of affairs in Russia and Venezuela. People don't see widespread government surveillance as a policy failure which requires increasing one's civic participation. They see it as a validation and even vindication of their cynical view of government. The problem with the latter is that it excuses them from doing anything about it. Worse, it excuses them for voting for "anti-government" politicians. Chavez was and Putin still is radically anti-government. That's basically like 80% of their political messaging.
pklausler 10y ago
I agree that Trump is not the problem, but only because it's Trump voters who are the problem.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  You think that the FBI acquired these powers (under both Bush and Obama) because of Trump voters? Seriously?
mikeash 10y ago
It's not one person. Trump wouldn't be nearly as much trouble if the other parts of government weren't his willing accomplices. Separation of powers can only do so much. Once all the various parts are controlled by the same party, it ceases to matter much.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  What we've seen in the past is the gentle swing of the pendulum. For a bizarre set of reasons, both parties are weakening rapidly. Effectively, Trump hijacked the Republican Party. That does not sound like a strong mechanism to me.
  - RodericDay 10y ago
    Trump did not hijack the Republican Party. Stop making him into some unexplainable force of nature, and letting this fantasy of "sensible republicans" take hold, letting them off the hook.
    - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      He's an extremely explainable phenomenon. Scott Adams has explained it multiple times. I'm just pointing out that the standard party mechanism was not even used in this case. I am sure there is a better term than "hijacked".
  - taxicabjesus 10y ago
    > Effectively, Trump hijacked the Republican Party. The Republican Party was hijacked by globalists a long time ago. G.H.W. Bush probably was very influential after Ronald Reagan was shot (1981?). Bill Clinton continued GHWB's globalization programs. G.W. Bush was mostly a figurehead. Like Clinton before him, Mr. Obama continued the globalization program, and transformed the globalists' boots-on-the-ground imperial war machine into a kinder, gentler aerial bombardment regime-changing machine. Señor Trump wasn't supposed to win. The hysteria exhibited by some in response to Señor Trump's opening moves [1] is certainly engineered by those whose globalization programs are now on the executioners' block. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/30/a-fascinating-theory-from-the-world-of-sports-about-donald-trumps-governing-style https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/30/a-...
InclinedPlane 10y ago
That's not an excuse either.
empath75 10y ago
I just gave up arguing over the surveillance state with people. People just trust that the government had their best interests in mind, or they think that they're too unimportant for anyone to care about them.
Terr_ 10y ago
My naive hope is that, post-Trump, we'll see a change in the relative-strength of the Presidency versus the Congress. Over the years Congress has given away a lot of cultural and practical power to the Presidency, partly because it allows them to look good in the short term, by pushing decisions over to the executive branch and then giving "oversight".

by alrs 10y ago

news_to_me 10y ago

If there's any silver lining in all this, it's that Trump and the alt-right aren't moving in the shadows anymore, and they're moving too quickly. If this keeps up, surely there must be a breaking point when Congress and the people are too alienated.

amr 10y ago
there is the possibility of the breaking point coming too late.
civilian 10y ago
Uh, that's not the silver lining from my POV. The silver lining is that liberals will realize that maybe limited government is a good thing, because they can't always rely on their person being in power.
- smcg 10y ago
  Bigger government works when the systems of checks and balances work. In this case the courts failed to uphold the constitution and strike down the expansions of unlawful surveillance powers.
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    >the courts failed to uphold the constitution // USA has elected and politically appointed judiciary doesn't it? If so then is that at all unexpected, which politicians would put their guy in the judges seat if they thought they'd then have to obey the law.
  - steamer25 10y ago
    > Bigger {organization} > checks and balances I'd say the two are mutually exclusive.
- metaobject 10y ago
  I think conservatives could stand to learn a few of those lessons as well. I'm referring to the massive amounts of spending and the creation of the TSA and the DHS under Bush.
  - CalChris 10y ago
    That massive amount of spending on DHS, TSA, ... amounts to right wing social welfare. Conservatives are not going complain.
    - twothamendment 10y ago
      "Conservative" politicians or conservative voters? I'm not sure they are they same. Every conservative I know has no love for the TSA or DHS, but I'll agree, politicians are not going to complain.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      You are confusing conservatives with libertarians (a confusion facilitated by the manner in which conservatives have—especially over the past ~50 years, though obviously the "states rights" line goes back much further—selectively adopted libertarian rhetoric to rally opposition to policies that they disagree with for other reasons.)
      - CalChris 10y ago
        I written elsewhere that I don't see any distinction between libertarians and conservatives. Rather I see libertarianism as a flag of convenience, a pose. Gary Johnson was a Republican governor and ran in the 2012 Republican primary before running as a Libertarian in the general. Bob Barr was a Republican congressman and House manager of the Clinton impeachment trial; he is a Republican again today; he supported Trump. Ron Paul retired as a Republican. Zero difference. At best the LP serves as a safe and convenient parking place for quasi-protest votes.
        dragonwriter 10y ago
- fictioncircle 10y ago
  > Uh, that's not the silver lining from my POV. The silver lining is that liberals will realize that maybe limited government is a good thing, because they can't always rely on their person being in power. Conservatives are the ones that created this nightmare in the days after 9/11. "Liberals" simply did not remove it. When it comes to civil liberties, smaller government is always a good thing but literally no party supports that. :/
  - aero142 10y ago
    I went through several version of this response full of profanity, but I'll trim it down to be appropriate. Absolutely not, and it's really harmful to think this. Hillary Clinton was a full supporter of the active military intervention, overseas CIA action, and domestic spying programs. Delusional tribal politics is a big part of the problem.
    - kbenson 10y ago
      I'm not sure Hillary Clinton is a good stand in for "liberals" in this argument, for the same reason (if not to the same extent) that I think Trump wouldn't be a good stand in for "conservatives". To clarify, your point may be entirely correct, I just don't think using Hillary Clinton advances your argument usefully.
      - btilly 10y ago
        Well, think on this. The last President to shrink the NSA, CIA, etc was Jimmy Carter. Every other one increased it. Reagan got them into arms deals with Iran. Bush Sr, former CIA director, was a staunch ally. Bill Clinton expanded ECHELON, tried to regulate cryptography (remember the Clipper chip?), Bush Jr passed the Patriot Act, Obama expanded the NSA and in pursuit of leakers filed more acts under the Espionage Act than all previous presidents combined. At what point can we conclude that the problem is bipartisan? Of all prominent nominees this time around, only Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz said anything against the continued expansion of the surveillance state. Of all prominent nominees for 2012, only Ron Paul spoke out against the surveillance state. For 2008, only Kucinich and Ron Paul spoke out against the surveillance state. If Hillary Clinton were an isolated example, then your point would be good. But she is not. She squarely represents the political mainstream.
- jdc 10y ago
  The trouble is that both parties seem to view an overreaching executive branch as a feature of the game, not a bug. This is similar to how powerful market incumbents prefer a winner-takes-all economy. After all if you have a 50% chance of taking the whole pot you, do you want to change the rules?
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    > After all if you have a 50% chance of taking the whole pot you, do you want to change the rules? If your choices are to have a 99% chance of taking 50% of the pot or to have a 50% chance of taking 100% of the pot and a 50% chance of someone else taking it and you being imprisoned or murdered by them, you pick the one that doesn't involve a significant risk of catastrophe. The problem is you don't get to pick before the election, you get pick after. And then it isn't a 50% chance anymore. If you won the pot you have no incentive to change and if you lost then you don't have the power to change. This is one of the problematic consequences of the 17th Amendment. Originally US Senators were chosen by the state legislatures. The purpose of the US Senate was to represent the states in the federal government, so it was inherently a check on federal power. States don't want too strong a US President. But we got rid of that in a fit of populism in the 20th century. Meanwhile it's still the case that only a third of the Senate seats are on the ballot in a given election. And consider what the circumstance is when you simultaneously want to limit the executive and have the power to do it: It's the lame duck session. To do it you need a) to currently have control of government (Presidency + House + a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate), and b) to not control any of those in the incoming government, so you fear what the new government will do, enough to pass laws to limit their power. But since only a third of Senators can change at once, and it's unheard of that all open seats switch from one party to the other, that never actually happens. So the President gets stronger but never weaker, because we decided to dismantle a check on federal power and replace it with nothing.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    To be more specific, they see it as a feature when they're in a position of power (where they can actually do something about it), and a bug when they're not (where they can't fix it).
- jessaustin 10y ago
  The silver lining is that liberals will realize that maybe limited government is a good thing, because they can't always rely on their person being in power. Yeah I've really enjoyed the last several weeks' display of disrespect for democratic results and the office of the executive. Very refreshing! If only we could convince people to hold on to this feeling!
- scholia 10y ago
  The Liberals have frequently not been in power, as Nixon, Ford, Reagan and two Bushes show. However, Trump broke all the rules when running for President (by, for example, crudely insulting opponents and by being a pathological liar) and he seems to be keen to break all the rules now. The system worked when both Republicans and Democrats had a similar view of the democratic process, even if they differed on policies. Trump is systematically wrecking the process. Plenty of people are theorizing about this turning into a de facto coup, including Michael Moore. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-michael-moore-coup-us-steve-bannon-sally-yates-rule-of-law-a7554556.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trum...
  - jack9 10y ago
    > Trump is systematically wrecking the process. Systematic how (what's the system, so far)? Wrecking how? What process? Talking in vague codewords without meaning (except in your head) does not tell me anything about what's wrong. I cannot agree with this kind of babble.
- unclebucknasty 10y ago
  People need to stop viewing government as the third party it has become and remember that it is supposed to be an expression of their own voices, then fight like hell for its restoration as such. Because, there will always be someone jockeying to rule over the masses (financially or otherwise), whether it's moneyed corporations and individuals directly or those who manipulate a government, irrespective of whether they claim they want it to be small. The idea behind a democratic government is simply self-rule. As such, advocating for its weakening is advocating a silencing of your own voice. And where does that lead? A strong democratic government is a good thing for "the people" when it functions properly and protects the less powerful. But, it doesn't. Our government has long been captured by those who are in position to bend it to their will (i.e. those same parties who would rather you dispense with government so they can rule more efficiently). So, that is the trick: subverting government, then convincing the weak that the only fix is to dismantle it. But, the solution is to get the money out and return it to the people, not do away with it altogether and invite a small minority to rule over the masses with impunity.
nickff 10y ago
That's exactly what I thought about 6 years ago, when the Republicans took over the Congress, and had every incentive to hold Obama to account.
- AckSyn 10y ago
  We can see how well that went, can't we?
- DrScump 10y ago
  Republicans took over the Congress only the House.
dragonwriter 10y ago
The problem, as history amply demonstrates, is that the "breaking point" is often reached after the means to coordinate an effective resistance are destroyed, leaving the population complying out of fear until the regime is stopped by an outside force.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

burkaman 10y ago

One person cannot pervert the system. One person, 63 million voters, lots of members of congress, lots of federal employees, etc. can. Not that the system doesn't have problems, but the people that make up the system are voluntarily giving Trump power. It's not possible to design a system that the participants themselves can't destroy if they decide to.

benevol 10y ago
> It's not possible to design a system that the participants themselves can't destroy if they decide to. Enter systemic, omnipresent, pervasive mass-surveillance. Tables turned 180°.
- burkaman 10y ago
  I guess by participants I was mostly referring to actual government participants. Trump can't pervert the system if Congress doesn't approve his nominees or pass legislation he wants, and federal agents don't follow his orders. A small group of people can control a large group of people, but one person can't really transform a government without its consent.
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    Hypothetically speaking, one person can if the other persons are of the greedy kind and believe that blind obedience will get them more green now and/or in the future. Not saying it is so but as Trump still has his companies he can (try to, but most people have their price) bribe whoever to do whatever. Especially if he picked them for that reason. Just in person over a few beers and pay out in 4 or 8 years when he is just a business man again.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
> It's not possible to design a system that the participants themselves can't destroy if they decide to. You can raise the bar arbitrarily high, though. Make the destruction of the system require lots of coordinated effort, and then make coordination difficult. Coordination is hard for humans as it is, even without a system that actively subverts it. That's why we have lots of issued labeled together as "tragedies of the commons".

okreallywtf 10y ago

I would argue that paranoia about the intelligence services and spying helped create the situation we're currently in. We feel like we're living in a police state and that feeling is going to cause us to sit back and watch a true police state be implemented. That isn't to say that spying and warrentless wiretapping isn't/wasn't a problem, but I think we'll come to realize that it was nothing compared to what we've done now.

wahern 10y ago
s/paranoia/cynicism/ and you explain everything that's wrong with the current political atmosphere. And why it's not going to get any better. If you have no trust in government, nor even any faith that a non-corrupt, functioning government is a practical possibility, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We're spiraling toward the state of affairs in Russia and Venezuela. People don't see widespread government surveillance as a policy failure which requires increasing one's civic participation. They see it as a validation and even vindication of their cynical view of government. The problem with the latter is that it excuses them from doing anything about it. Worse, it excuses them for voting for "anti-government" politicians. Chavez was and Putin still is radically anti-government. That's basically like 80% of their political messaging.

pklausler 10y ago

I agree that Trump is not the problem, but only because it's Trump voters who are the problem.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
You think that the FBI acquired these powers (under both Bush and Obama) because of Trump voters? Seriously?

mikeash 10y ago

It's not one person. Trump wouldn't be nearly as much trouble if the other parts of government weren't his willing accomplices. Separation of powers can only do so much. Once all the various parts are controlled by the same party, it ceases to matter much.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago
What we've seen in the past is the gentle swing of the pendulum. For a bizarre set of reasons, both parties are weakening rapidly. Effectively, Trump hijacked the Republican Party. That does not sound like a strong mechanism to me.
- RodericDay 10y ago
  Trump did not hijack the Republican Party. Stop making him into some unexplainable force of nature, and letting this fantasy of "sensible republicans" take hold, letting them off the hook.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    He's an extremely explainable phenomenon. Scott Adams has explained it multiple times. I'm just pointing out that the standard party mechanism was not even used in this case. I am sure there is a better term than "hijacked".
- taxicabjesus 10y ago
  > Effectively, Trump hijacked the Republican Party. The Republican Party was hijacked by globalists a long time ago. G.H.W. Bush probably was very influential after Ronald Reagan was shot (1981?). Bill Clinton continued GHWB's globalization programs. G.W. Bush was mostly a figurehead. Like Clinton before him, Mr. Obama continued the globalization program, and transformed the globalists' boots-on-the-ground imperial war machine into a kinder, gentler aerial bombardment regime-changing machine. Señor Trump wasn't supposed to win. The hysteria exhibited by some in response to Señor Trump's opening moves [1] is certainly engineered by those whose globalization programs are now on the executioners' block. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/30/a-fascinating-theory-from-the-world-of-sports-about-donald-trumps-governing-style https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/30/a-...

InclinedPlane 10y ago

That's not an excuse either.

empath75 10y ago

I just gave up arguing over the surveillance state with people. People just trust that the government had their best interests in mind, or they think that they're too unimportant for anyone to care about them.

Terr_ 10y ago

My naive hope is that, post-Trump, we'll see a change in the relative-strength of the Presidency versus the Congress. Over the years Congress has given away a lot of cultural and practical power to the Presidency, partly because it allows them to look good in the short term, by pushing decisions over to the executive branch and then giving "oversight".