3 ms·

> the democratically elected president That doesn't trump (so to speak) all other considerations — Adolf Hitler was "democratically" chosen. (And yes, I'm goin

> the democratically elected president That doesn't trump (so to speak) all other considerations — Adolf Hitler was "democratically" chosen. (And yes, I'm going there.)

pcwalton 2y ago
Easier is just to point out that polls show that all of this DOGE stuff is deeply unpopular [1] (as is Elon himself, incidentally). We don't have to speculate as to which of the president's agenda items have a popular mandate; we can just ask the electorate. [1]: https://today.yougov.com/topics/economy/survey-results/daily/2025/02/03/1210d/3 https://today.yougov.com/topics/economy/survey-results/daily...
- rayiner 2y ago
  Racially discriminatory SBA loans and affirmative action in colleges also are deeply unpopular, but Democrats keep pursing those policies because they’re important to a portion of their coalition. Trump is the first Republican in memory that understands coalition politics (because he was a Democrat). Most republicans don’t like Gabbard and/or RFK Jr. But, like Musk, they were advertised as part of the package deal and Trump voters satisfied themselves they could live with it.
  - pcwalton 2y ago
    Gabbard's favorables are +43 among Republicans and RFK Jr.'s favorables are +71 among Republicans [1]. [1]: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_eAYQKbY.pdf https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabRepor...
rayiner 2y ago
If civil servants invoke Hitler to justify declaring “Resistance” to the democratically elected President, and said President turns out not to be Hitler, then they invite the reaction that results. I was promised Muslim internment camps in 2017. There having been none, I’m cheering on the DOGE strike teams.
- dctoedt 2y ago
  > I’m cheering on the DOGE strike teams. I'd cheer if the DOGE strike teams in OMB, etc., were to be arrested, indicted, duly tried and convicted, and imprisoned for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and possibly the Economic Espionage Act. But I'm under no illusion that this would ever happen with Trump controlling the DOJ. Maybe Maryland's Democratic state government can make some state-law crime stick if the DOGE people ever venture across the District line.
  - jalapenos 2y ago
    And only 4 more years of this. Enjoy!
    - dctoedt 2y ago
      Maybe less than four years. The mid-terms are next year, and I've been reading that a lot of GOP officeholders are terrified of what's going on but also terrified of opposing The Dear Leader — because of fears for their personal safety and that of their families.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    CFAA is predicated on “without authorization.” I’m pretty sure they all have Trump’s and Bessent’s authorization. It would be like prosecuting the IT guy hired by the CEO for going into the system. What am I missing?
    - dctoedt 2y ago
      > I’m pretty sure they all have Trump’s and Bessent’s authorization. From what I've (very-superficially) read, zero of the prescribed clearance protocols were followed before giving the DOGE Boys access to highly-confidential systems and data. Perhaps Trump has authority to waive those protocols — but did he do so? He seems to be letting Musk run wild. And when Trump was in trouble for taking classified documents with him to Florida, didn't he claim that he'd "mentally" declassified the documents?
jalapenos 2y ago
I think it's important that people go there too. It's better to live in a transparent society where everyone knows who has the mindset of "people I don't like are Hitler", so they can make efficient decisions on who they associate with and how they interact with certain types of people.
- rayiner 2y ago
  It’s also reveals civil servants that can’t be trusted to do the people’s business. I’m in DC—many people were crying in 2017. The people who voted for Trump have no reason to afford those folks the presumption of objective professionalism civil servants demand. The stories about civil servants just being terrible employees because they can’t put aside their feelings is sickening: https://x.com/restoreorderusa/status/1886771416235663833 https://x.com/restoreorderusa/status/1886771416235663833
- dctoedt 2y ago
  And the same is true about people who don't recognize blindingly-salient historical parallels with 1930s Germany.
  - jalapenos 2y ago
    Does the US constitution have an emergency decree mechanism whereby the president can effectively assume full power and suspend civil rights? Are the republican party committing acts of violence against their opposition, so as to push them out of Congress and establish a supermajority? Has the US come out of a major recession exacerbated by a harsh post-war reparations treaty, resulting in hyperinflation and an angry and desperate population? So what you really mean by "blindingly-salient historical parallels" is "there's an person in power who I don't like", so a typical leftist case of "everyone I don't like is Hitler". Bit emotionally incontinent isn't it, letting your understanding of history be distorted by your desire to call a president you don't like bad names
    - dctoedt 2y ago
      > Does the US constitution have an emergency decree mechanism whereby the president can effectively assume full power and suspend civil rights? It could well be in the offing: Egged on by Musk, Miller, etc. — and putting his people in position to give orders to the folks with badges and guns — Trump is seeing what he can get away with by way of executive orders. He's getting zero pushback from the governing GOP majority in Congress nor from any of his cabinet. That's Trump's long-established M.O.: Test the boundaries and guardrails, then go charging through the identified weak spots. > Are the republican party committing acts of violence against their opposition, so as to push them out of Congress and establish a supermajority? Pretty close: You might not have seen the news reports of GOP senators and representatives who've said privately that they oppose what Trump has been doing but they're afraid to cross him, out of fear of personal danger to themselves and their families from lunatic MAGA thugs who fancy themselves to be Trump's warriors — e.g., the January 6 rioters whom Trump whipped into a frenzy and then sent charging off to the Capitol. (GOP senators' fear of personal danger reportedly was also part of the reason there weren't enough GOP Senate votes to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, where conviction would have disqualified him from any office.) > Bit emotionally incontinent isn't it, letting your understanding of history be distorted by your desire to call a president you don't like bad names Call it what you will: I've been around for awhile and was long ago trained to look at trends, not just individual data points. (Life isn't a snapshot, it's a movie.) IMHO my take on events is sounder than what you've written; eventually we'll see whether one of us has his head in a warm dark place.

> the democratically elected president That doesn't trump (so to speak) all other considerations — Adolf Hitler was "democratically" chosen. (And yes, I'm going there.)

pcwalton 2y ago

Easier is just to point out that polls show that all of this DOGE stuff is deeply unpopular [1] (as is Elon himself, incidentally). We don't have to speculate as to which of the president's agenda items have a popular mandate; we can just ask the electorate. [1]: https://today.yougov.com/topics/economy/survey-results/daily/2025/02/03/1210d/3 https://today.yougov.com/topics/economy/survey-results/daily...

rayiner 2y ago
Racially discriminatory SBA loans and affirmative action in colleges also are deeply unpopular, but Democrats keep pursing those policies because they’re important to a portion of their coalition. Trump is the first Republican in memory that understands coalition politics (because he was a Democrat). Most republicans don’t like Gabbard and/or RFK Jr. But, like Musk, they were advertised as part of the package deal and Trump voters satisfied themselves they could live with it.
- pcwalton 2y ago
  Gabbard's favorables are +43 among Republicans and RFK Jr.'s favorables are +71 among Republicans [1]. [1]: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_eAYQKbY.pdf https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabRepor...

rayiner 2y ago

If civil servants invoke Hitler to justify declaring “Resistance” to the democratically elected President, and said President turns out not to be Hitler, then they invite the reaction that results. I was promised Muslim internment camps in 2017. There having been none, I’m cheering on the DOGE strike teams.

dctoedt 2y ago
> I’m cheering on the DOGE strike teams. I'd cheer if the DOGE strike teams in OMB, etc., were to be arrested, indicted, duly tried and convicted, and imprisoned for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and possibly the Economic Espionage Act. But I'm under no illusion that this would ever happen with Trump controlling the DOJ. Maybe Maryland's Democratic state government can make some state-law crime stick if the DOGE people ever venture across the District line.
- jalapenos 2y ago
  And only 4 more years of this. Enjoy!
  - dctoedt 2y ago
    Maybe less than four years. The mid-terms are next year, and I've been reading that a lot of GOP officeholders are terrified of what's going on but also terrified of opposing The Dear Leader — because of fears for their personal safety and that of their families.
- rayiner 2y ago
  CFAA is predicated on “without authorization.” I’m pretty sure they all have Trump’s and Bessent’s authorization. It would be like prosecuting the IT guy hired by the CEO for going into the system. What am I missing?
  - dctoedt 2y ago
    > I’m pretty sure they all have Trump’s and Bessent’s authorization. From what I've (very-superficially) read, zero of the prescribed clearance protocols were followed before giving the DOGE Boys access to highly-confidential systems and data. Perhaps Trump has authority to waive those protocols — but did he do so? He seems to be letting Musk run wild. And when Trump was in trouble for taking classified documents with him to Florida, didn't he claim that he'd "mentally" declassified the documents?

jalapenos 2y ago

I think it's important that people go there too. It's better to live in a transparent society where everyone knows who has the mindset of "people I don't like are Hitler", so they can make efficient decisions on who they associate with and how they interact with certain types of people.

rayiner 2y ago
It’s also reveals civil servants that can’t be trusted to do the people’s business. I’m in DC—many people were crying in 2017. The people who voted for Trump have no reason to afford those folks the presumption of objective professionalism civil servants demand. The stories about civil servants just being terrible employees because they can’t put aside their feelings is sickening: https://x.com/restoreorderusa/status/1886771416235663833 https://x.com/restoreorderusa/status/1886771416235663833
dctoedt 2y ago
And the same is true about people who don't recognize blindingly-salient historical parallels with 1930s Germany.
- jalapenos 2y ago
  Does the US constitution have an emergency decree mechanism whereby the president can effectively assume full power and suspend civil rights? Are the republican party committing acts of violence against their opposition, so as to push them out of Congress and establish a supermajority? Has the US come out of a major recession exacerbated by a harsh post-war reparations treaty, resulting in hyperinflation and an angry and desperate population? So what you really mean by "blindingly-salient historical parallels" is "there's an person in power who I don't like", so a typical leftist case of "everyone I don't like is Hitler". Bit emotionally incontinent isn't it, letting your understanding of history be distorted by your desire to call a president you don't like bad names
  - dctoedt 2y ago
    > Does the US constitution have an emergency decree mechanism whereby the president can effectively assume full power and suspend civil rights? It could well be in the offing: Egged on by Musk, Miller, etc. — and putting his people in position to give orders to the folks with badges and guns — Trump is seeing what he can get away with by way of executive orders. He's getting zero pushback from the governing GOP majority in Congress nor from any of his cabinet. That's Trump's long-established M.O.: Test the boundaries and guardrails, then go charging through the identified weak spots. > Are the republican party committing acts of violence against their opposition, so as to push them out of Congress and establish a supermajority? Pretty close: You might not have seen the news reports of GOP senators and representatives who've said privately that they oppose what Trump has been doing but they're afraid to cross him, out of fear of personal danger to themselves and their families from lunatic MAGA thugs who fancy themselves to be Trump's warriors — e.g., the January 6 rioters whom Trump whipped into a frenzy and then sent charging off to the Capitol. (GOP senators' fear of personal danger reportedly was also part of the reason there weren't enough GOP Senate votes to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, where conviction would have disqualified him from any office.) > Bit emotionally incontinent isn't it, letting your understanding of history be distorted by your desire to call a president you don't like bad names Call it what you will: I've been around for awhile and was long ago trained to look at trends, not just individual data points. (Life isn't a snapshot, it's a movie.) IMHO my take on events is sounder than what you've written; eventually we'll see whether one of us has his head in a warm dark place.