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Investors' faith in US bond and equity markets is, unironically, the most powerful immediate-term check on the current administration. The longer-term check is

Investors' faith in US bond and equity markets is, unironically, the most powerful immediate-term check on the current administration. The longer-term check is the midterm elections in 2026. If they really screw things up, as they appear to be doing, that's their deadline for fixing them.

bloopernova 2y ago
The republicans purged a lot of people from voter rolls. They're going to do the same in 2026. If you want to vote, anticipate dozens of hours over several months making sure you weren't removed from the register. Why are they so against people voting? The number of actual fraudulent vote cases prosecuted was very, very small, but the measures taken against voter fraud have been disproportionate.
- sanderjd 2y ago
  They benefit from more people voting, not fewer. The valance of that issue flipped over the last few cycles.
  - kccoder 2y ago
    Then why did they purge a lot of voters in 2024? And take other actions to suppress voter turnout?
    - mostertoaster 2y ago
      Does blocking non citizens from voting count as “suppressing voter turnout”? It’s all just politics and words, and we’ve picked our side and so we use the language that best supports it. Is someone pro-life, or are they anti women’s rights? Is someone pro-choice, or are they pro-baby-murder. How does one actually convince someone of the “rightness” of their side? It somehow starts with love your enemies, though if I say that to my more right wing friends it means capitulate to whatever the progressives want. All I know is the spirit of the age is evil.
      - qqqwerty 2y ago
        That is not what they did: https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/ https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/ Passing laws to make it harder to vote, and easier to challenge a persons voter registration and ballot, and then running an operative campaign to specifically target voters on the other side of the political spectrum is a bit different than "just politics". Legal, sure. Ethical, moral, fair, absolutely not.
        mostertoaster 2y ago
        Eh, it’s all politics. I’m sure they are trying to win however they can, don’t sit there and be so naive to think the other side wouldn’t be perfectly happy to let illegal immigrants vote if it benefited them. I’m all for fairness. For example I think we should weight votes, where everyone gets one vote for each dollar of taxes they pay. I also want to see all landlords structure rental contracts so that the renter pays the property taxes, if rent was 2k a month but there are $500 in property taxes a month, rent would become $1500 plus $500 property taxes. That way the immediate effects of voting for tax increases is felt acutely and their blame can go on themselves instead of their “greedy landlord”.
        qqqwerty 2y ago
        > I’m all for fairness. For example I think we should weight votes, where everyone gets one vote for each dollar of taxes they pay. You are joking right? Honest, question, what life experiences have you had that make you think that this would be a good idea. It would effectively mean a handful of billionaires would control the country. > I also want to see all landlords structure rental contracts so that the renter pays the property taxes It is a free market. Outside of a handful of places with rent control, nothing is stopping them from doing that. And if you think splitting out property taxes as a separate line item will somehow make tenants think that landlords, the vast majority of whom increase their rents to the absolute maximum that the market will bear, are somehow not greedy, I think you have a pretty bad handle on what it is like to be in the renter class.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > why did they purge a lot of voters in 2024? Because the GOP isn't a monolith. Lots of them are still operating under a playbook 2024 proved obsolete. Race is no longer an almost-perfect proxy for partisan affiliation [1]. [1] https://www.npr.org/2024/11/22/nx-s1-5199119/2024-election-exit-polls-demographics-black-latino-voters https://www.npr.org/2024/11/22/nx-s1-5199119/2024-election-e...
  - rtpg 2y ago
    There's a good amount of evidence that more turnout would help Republicans in general, even before (at least if you applied the "socio-economic voting preference determinism" logic that one tends to apply). It's good to be against voter suppression because voter suppression is bad, even if in theory it doesn't help "your side". One would hope that doing that work would convince some people you're on "their side", but it's quite nebulous.
    - sanderjd 2y ago
      Agreed.
  - robinei 2y ago
    The question is who is suppressed.
  - bagels 2y ago
    There was an effort to purge minorities from rolls in swing states. It matters where the more votes come from.
    - sanderjd 2y ago
      I think that's bad, but I also think it is less likely to be an effective strategy for the current regime than a lot of other things.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - pchristensen 2y ago
    They're not removing people randomly.
- yellow_lead 2y ago
  Is there a source on this? I haven't heard of it and it sounds undemocratic
  - qqqwerty 2y ago
    This is a link I stumbled on earlier today: https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/ https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/
- batushka5 2y ago
  Just voter ID finally and lets forget this blame game.
  - ddulaney 2y ago
    When government IDs are universal, we can require them to vote. Here's a study from about a year ago: [0]. Upshot is that 21% of Americans 18 and older don't have an ID that matches their name and address. Disenfranchising a fifth of Americans isn't something I'd accept. Note also that it's 23% of Democrats, 16% of Republicans, and 31% of independents. You can see why Democrats are anti-ID-check while Republicans are pro-ID-check as a general rule. [0]: https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20ID%202023%20survey%20Key%20Results%20Jan%202024%20%281%29.pdf https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20I...
    - mkoubaa 2y ago
      I am totally fine with disenfranchising people who don't have up to date IDs. The cost of a perception of illegal ballot stuffing is high and the benefit of these voters is marginal at best.
    - golergka 2y ago
      I'm not from the US, but all the countries I've lived in require some form of ID. As far as I know, US is the only country in the world that doesn't. So, I have an honest question: why would you want people who don't bother to have a valid ID to vote at all? Do you expect them to be responsible people, good members of society? People who pay more in taxes than they receive from the government? I don't know enough about US to be sure. But in any country I've lived in, the answer would be no.
      - ddulaney 2y ago
        That’s a super good point. Part of the issue is that ID’s are expensive. When I moved from one state to another a couple years ago, a new driver’s license was $50. There’s a long history of poll taxes used for voting suppression in the US, so any kind of pay-to-vote concept is tough. (The easy answer, of course, is to make ID issuance free.) Then there’s the issue that states have widely different levels of competence regarding ID issuance. The REAL ID Act [0] required states to start issuing IDs based on more robust requirements by 2008. That deadline has been delayed through 2025, and is likely to get pushed back again. When I lived in Kentucky (stereotypically poor and rural), there was a major issue that birth certificates were handwritten and never digitized, and existing driver’s licenses had been issued based on what you claimed your name was. When they started validating birth certificates as a part of REAL ID, people ran into issues when the name they had been using for their whole life didn’t match what was handwritten on their birth certificate. Basically, identity documents are local (and often hyper-local; my own birth certificate is certified by my county, not even my state). Dragging the whole country into something resembling modernity is a major project that will exclude big chunks of people that are otherwise “responsible”. Making the right to vote dependent on that whole system happening to work out OK for you just doesn’t seem like a good idea. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_ID_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_ID_Act
bagels 2y ago
[flagged]
mostertoaster 2y ago
It’s all in the eye of the beholder. It appears to me that Trump is doing phenomenal, and my I didn’t like the other side vote for him, is turning into I kind of like him and would more actively support him. He seems like a strong president, especially compared to his predecessor, and the promise to “make America great again”, seems like it might becoming more of a reality. If he can negotiate an end to the Ukraine war, in a relatively soonish timeframe, I will be very happy. But it’s kind of a game of chicken, a high risk high reward type gamble, that could be very dangerous and lead to worse things, so I’ll just have to wait and see. Ultimately I read comments here and I think the “other side” is blind, which they likely think of me.
- aetch 2y ago
  This has to be a joke
  - Lerc 2y ago
    Because you found a person with opinions different to your own? I think most of what Trump is attempting will work out poorly, for America, Trump, and the world in general. I can't prove that and there are so many presumptions in my world view, my estimation might be incorrect. Trump was elected. I think a lot of that support came from people who had been voting for either Kang or Kodos for years and knew the outcome of that wasn't going to be what they wanted. I believe those people know exactly what kind of person Trump is, but that Trump acting in his own self interest might cause government action that is at least not-as-bad as the alternative of a perpetual status quo. I don't think that is the case, but I think it would be unreasonable to declare that someone who believes something different is wrong simply because I think my opinion objectively carries more weight.
    - RealityVoid 2y ago
      Disclaimer: not an US citizen. I appreciate your post, and I think there is some truth to what you're saying. The problem is that... It's hard bordering on impossible for me to process what these people see good in what he's doing. I've tried, mind you, I've really truly tried. But this whole thing sounds insane to me. There is no way for me to erase the bigger picture from my mind that I get to the point... "yeah, he's doing a good job." The second point is I feel a lot of these people are NOT arguing in good faith. If someone is not arguing in good faith, being "understanding" would just embolden them. Honestly, this whole thing makes my head explode.
DanielHB 2y ago
Imagine if the US misses bond payments and defaults because of bureaucracy problems (not lack of money). It would completely explode the interest rates of any loans they have and completely tank the US government for years.

bloopernova 2y ago

The republicans purged a lot of people from voter rolls. They're going to do the same in 2026. If you want to vote, anticipate dozens of hours over several months making sure you weren't removed from the register. Why are they so against people voting? The number of actual fraudulent vote cases prosecuted was very, very small, but the measures taken against voter fraud have been disproportionate.

sanderjd 2y ago
They benefit from more people voting, not fewer. The valance of that issue flipped over the last few cycles.
- kccoder 2y ago
  Then why did they purge a lot of voters in 2024? And take other actions to suppress voter turnout?
  - mostertoaster 2y ago
    Does blocking non citizens from voting count as “suppressing voter turnout”? It’s all just politics and words, and we’ve picked our side and so we use the language that best supports it. Is someone pro-life, or are they anti women’s rights? Is someone pro-choice, or are they pro-baby-murder. How does one actually convince someone of the “rightness” of their side? It somehow starts with love your enemies, though if I say that to my more right wing friends it means capitulate to whatever the progressives want. All I know is the spirit of the age is evil.
    - qqqwerty 2y ago
      That is not what they did: https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/ https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/ Passing laws to make it harder to vote, and easier to challenge a persons voter registration and ballot, and then running an operative campaign to specifically target voters on the other side of the political spectrum is a bit different than "just politics". Legal, sure. Ethical, moral, fair, absolutely not.
      - mostertoaster 2y ago
        Eh, it’s all politics. I’m sure they are trying to win however they can, don’t sit there and be so naive to think the other side wouldn’t be perfectly happy to let illegal immigrants vote if it benefited them. I’m all for fairness. For example I think we should weight votes, where everyone gets one vote for each dollar of taxes they pay. I also want to see all landlords structure rental contracts so that the renter pays the property taxes, if rent was 2k a month but there are $500 in property taxes a month, rent would become $1500 plus $500 property taxes. That way the immediate effects of voting for tax increases is felt acutely and their blame can go on themselves instead of their “greedy landlord”.
        qqqwerty 2y ago
        > I’m all for fairness. For example I think we should weight votes, where everyone gets one vote for each dollar of taxes they pay. You are joking right? Honest, question, what life experiences have you had that make you think that this would be a good idea. It would effectively mean a handful of billionaires would control the country. > I also want to see all landlords structure rental contracts so that the renter pays the property taxes It is a free market. Outside of a handful of places with rent control, nothing is stopping them from doing that. And if you think splitting out property taxes as a separate line item will somehow make tenants think that landlords, the vast majority of whom increase their rents to the absolute maximum that the market will bear, are somehow not greedy, I think you have a pretty bad handle on what it is like to be in the renter class.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > why did they purge a lot of voters in 2024? Because the GOP isn't a monolith. Lots of them are still operating under a playbook 2024 proved obsolete. Race is no longer an almost-perfect proxy for partisan affiliation [1]. [1] https://www.npr.org/2024/11/22/nx-s1-5199119/2024-election-exit-polls-demographics-black-latino-voters https://www.npr.org/2024/11/22/nx-s1-5199119/2024-election-e...
- rtpg 2y ago
  There's a good amount of evidence that more turnout would help Republicans in general, even before (at least if you applied the "socio-economic voting preference determinism" logic that one tends to apply). It's good to be against voter suppression because voter suppression is bad, even if in theory it doesn't help "your side". One would hope that doing that work would convince some people you're on "their side", but it's quite nebulous.
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    Agreed.
- robinei 2y ago
  The question is who is suppressed.
- bagels 2y ago
  There was an effort to purge minorities from rolls in swing states. It matters where the more votes come from.
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    I think that's bad, but I also think it is less likely to be an effective strategy for the current regime than a lot of other things.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- pchristensen 2y ago
  They're not removing people randomly.
yellow_lead 2y ago
Is there a source on this? I haven't heard of it and it sounds undemocratic
- qqqwerty 2y ago
  This is a link I stumbled on earlier today: https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/ https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/
batushka5 2y ago
Just voter ID finally and lets forget this blame game.
- ddulaney 2y ago
  When government IDs are universal, we can require them to vote. Here's a study from about a year ago: [0]. Upshot is that 21% of Americans 18 and older don't have an ID that matches their name and address. Disenfranchising a fifth of Americans isn't something I'd accept. Note also that it's 23% of Democrats, 16% of Republicans, and 31% of independents. You can see why Democrats are anti-ID-check while Republicans are pro-ID-check as a general rule. [0]: https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20ID%202023%20survey%20Key%20Results%20Jan%202024%20%281%29.pdf https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20I...
  - mkoubaa 2y ago
    I am totally fine with disenfranchising people who don't have up to date IDs. The cost of a perception of illegal ballot stuffing is high and the benefit of these voters is marginal at best.
  - golergka 2y ago
    I'm not from the US, but all the countries I've lived in require some form of ID. As far as I know, US is the only country in the world that doesn't. So, I have an honest question: why would you want people who don't bother to have a valid ID to vote at all? Do you expect them to be responsible people, good members of society? People who pay more in taxes than they receive from the government? I don't know enough about US to be sure. But in any country I've lived in, the answer would be no.
    - ddulaney 2y ago
      That’s a super good point. Part of the issue is that ID’s are expensive. When I moved from one state to another a couple years ago, a new driver’s license was $50. There’s a long history of poll taxes used for voting suppression in the US, so any kind of pay-to-vote concept is tough. (The easy answer, of course, is to make ID issuance free.) Then there’s the issue that states have widely different levels of competence regarding ID issuance. The REAL ID Act [0] required states to start issuing IDs based on more robust requirements by 2008. That deadline has been delayed through 2025, and is likely to get pushed back again. When I lived in Kentucky (stereotypically poor and rural), there was a major issue that birth certificates were handwritten and never digitized, and existing driver’s licenses had been issued based on what you claimed your name was. When they started validating birth certificates as a part of REAL ID, people ran into issues when the name they had been using for their whole life didn’t match what was handwritten on their birth certificate. Basically, identity documents are local (and often hyper-local; my own birth certificate is certified by my county, not even my state). Dragging the whole country into something resembling modernity is a major project that will exclude big chunks of people that are otherwise “responsible”. Making the right to vote dependent on that whole system happening to work out OK for you just doesn’t seem like a good idea. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_ID_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_ID_Act

bagels 2y ago

[flagged]

mostertoaster 2y ago

It’s all in the eye of the beholder. It appears to me that Trump is doing phenomenal, and my I didn’t like the other side vote for him, is turning into I kind of like him and would more actively support him. He seems like a strong president, especially compared to his predecessor, and the promise to “make America great again”, seems like it might becoming more of a reality. If he can negotiate an end to the Ukraine war, in a relatively soonish timeframe, I will be very happy. But it’s kind of a game of chicken, a high risk high reward type gamble, that could be very dangerous and lead to worse things, so I’ll just have to wait and see. Ultimately I read comments here and I think the “other side” is blind, which they likely think of me.

aetch 2y ago
This has to be a joke
- Lerc 2y ago
  Because you found a person with opinions different to your own? I think most of what Trump is attempting will work out poorly, for America, Trump, and the world in general. I can't prove that and there are so many presumptions in my world view, my estimation might be incorrect. Trump was elected. I think a lot of that support came from people who had been voting for either Kang or Kodos for years and knew the outcome of that wasn't going to be what they wanted. I believe those people know exactly what kind of person Trump is, but that Trump acting in his own self interest might cause government action that is at least not-as-bad as the alternative of a perpetual status quo. I don't think that is the case, but I think it would be unreasonable to declare that someone who believes something different is wrong simply because I think my opinion objectively carries more weight.
  - RealityVoid 2y ago
    Disclaimer: not an US citizen. I appreciate your post, and I think there is some truth to what you're saying. The problem is that... It's hard bordering on impossible for me to process what these people see good in what he's doing. I've tried, mind you, I've really truly tried. But this whole thing sounds insane to me. There is no way for me to erase the bigger picture from my mind that I get to the point... "yeah, he's doing a good job." The second point is I feel a lot of these people are NOT arguing in good faith. If someone is not arguing in good faith, being "understanding" would just embolden them. Honestly, this whole thing makes my head explode.

DanielHB 2y ago

Imagine if the US misses bond payments and defaults because of bureaucracy problems (not lack of money). It would completely explode the interest rates of any loans they have and completely tank the US government for years.