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I really wish I could say, "Let it happen and show people what they voted for". But that's abominable. So what we're going to get instead is adversarial: horro

I really wish I could say, "Let it happen and show people what they voted for". But that's abominable. So what we're going to get instead is adversarial: horrors are called for, everybody else has to fight to minimize them, and so only some horrifying things happen. And for a lot of people, as long as those horrors don't affect them directly, they'll say that everything worked the way it was supposed to. So, adversarial is what it's going to be, then. Onward.

TechRemarker 2y ago
Unfortunately, "letting it happen" other than of course many people potentially suffering or dying, it presumably wouldn't have much of an affect on voters, as it would simply be spun that it's somehow the previous Administrations fault, or the other parties fault etc. Thankfully we still have the courts, even as more bias judges get seated.
- jprete 2y ago
  I don't think anyone would not give the new administration credit or blame after they came out of the gate wrecking-ball style.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    The Daily Show's Jordan Klepper had a sad clip of a Trump supporter demanding to know where President Obama was during Katrina, and that he should be investigated for his failures. (The answer, of course, is "he was a state Senator in Illinois at the time".)
    - Freedom2 2y ago
      I'm on the fence about this kind of talk, to be honest. I ask myself sometimes, is it fair to demean those who have been let down by the state they were educated in? I know that generally Americans are uninspired and under educated, but a lot of that comes from systematic and cultural issues rather than it being a fault of the person itself.
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        This isn’t an issue of education.
legitster 2y ago
I'm on the fence. When it comes to economic matters and running the federal government, I say we should let them open the door. Americans desperately want to try dumb things and democratically voted for it, I say we let it happen and fail of its own accord. At the end of the day it's just money and they won the vote - let them smoke the whole pack. When it comes to political retribution, dismantling independent news, rewarding cronies, attacking democracy - we should personally oppose it whenever we can, but I cannot go into a room and be the only one who cares. I will not stop robbery on my own. When it comes to real matters - our friends and family who have lives here and may be deported back to hostile warzones because of racist BS - this is the hill I am dying on and for this I will keep my powder dry.
- pseudalopex 2y ago
  It's just money is something people with money say. Medical care can be the difference between life and death.
rich_sasha 2y ago
I think it's worth thinking about a long term distribution of outcomes in a democratic system. It's a dynamic process, how does it evolve, what are the summary statistics? Well, we know there is some autoregression, some reversion to the mean, some rich time structure. But crucially, it's an online learning system, with a decaying memory. Voters forget populists are bad, and vote for them from time to time. Then one of two things will happen: either we're all wrong and populists are actually ok, or they really are terrible, they do their terrible stuff and eventually get ousted, with voters memory refreshed. It's not that it's a good thing, rather it's baked into how democracy works. Same as winters are baked into the progression of seasons, and there's no point despairing about them every year. So it's a "let it rip", not as a vindictive response, but rather that's a sad but necessary part of democracy.
- archagon 2y ago
  Well, no, those are not the only two options. Another option that we've already seen play out in a number of democracies worldwide is that a radical populist embeds himself in the government together with some die-hard loyalists, then destroys all checks and balances against him and neuters the opposition by leveraging the executive like a scythe. For democracy to be preserved, political players have to have respect for democracy as a prerequisite. The Heritage Foundation and their oligarch friends have absolutely no interest in that, and the rest of the Republican party mostly just nods along while collecting their paychecks. "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."

TechRemarker 2y ago

Unfortunately, "letting it happen" other than of course many people potentially suffering or dying, it presumably wouldn't have much of an affect on voters, as it would simply be spun that it's somehow the previous Administrations fault, or the other parties fault etc. Thankfully we still have the courts, even as more bias judges get seated.

jprete 2y ago
I don't think anyone would not give the new administration credit or blame after they came out of the gate wrecking-ball style.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  The Daily Show's Jordan Klepper had a sad clip of a Trump supporter demanding to know where President Obama was during Katrina, and that he should be investigated for his failures. (The answer, of course, is "he was a state Senator in Illinois at the time".)
  - Freedom2 2y ago
    I'm on the fence about this kind of talk, to be honest. I ask myself sometimes, is it fair to demean those who have been let down by the state they were educated in? I know that generally Americans are uninspired and under educated, but a lot of that comes from systematic and cultural issues rather than it being a fault of the person itself.
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      This isn’t an issue of education.

legitster 2y ago

I'm on the fence. When it comes to economic matters and running the federal government, I say we should let them open the door. Americans desperately want to try dumb things and democratically voted for it, I say we let it happen and fail of its own accord. At the end of the day it's just money and they won the vote - let them smoke the whole pack. When it comes to political retribution, dismantling independent news, rewarding cronies, attacking democracy - we should personally oppose it whenever we can, but I cannot go into a room and be the only one who cares. I will not stop robbery on my own. When it comes to real matters - our friends and family who have lives here and may be deported back to hostile warzones because of racist BS - this is the hill I am dying on and for this I will keep my powder dry.

pseudalopex 2y ago
It's just money is something people with money say. Medical care can be the difference between life and death.

rich_sasha 2y ago

I think it's worth thinking about a long term distribution of outcomes in a democratic system. It's a dynamic process, how does it evolve, what are the summary statistics? Well, we know there is some autoregression, some reversion to the mean, some rich time structure. But crucially, it's an online learning system, with a decaying memory. Voters forget populists are bad, and vote for them from time to time. Then one of two things will happen: either we're all wrong and populists are actually ok, or they really are terrible, they do their terrible stuff and eventually get ousted, with voters memory refreshed. It's not that it's a good thing, rather it's baked into how democracy works. Same as winters are baked into the progression of seasons, and there's no point despairing about them every year. So it's a "let it rip", not as a vindictive response, but rather that's a sad but necessary part of democracy.

archagon 2y ago
Well, no, those are not the only two options. Another option that we've already seen play out in a number of democracies worldwide is that a radical populist embeds himself in the government together with some die-hard loyalists, then destroys all checks and balances against him and neuters the opposition by leveraging the executive like a scythe. For democracy to be preserved, political players have to have respect for democracy as a prerequisite. The Heritage Foundation and their oligarch friends have absolutely no interest in that, and the rest of the Republican party mostly just nods along while collecting their paychecks. "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."