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As far as I can tell, Trump is doing things he openly announced he would do for at least a year. So all of this is either a result of robust public support for

by xp84 2y ago

As far as I can tell, Trump is doing things he openly announced he would do for at least a year. So all of this is either a result of robust public support for his policies, or, (my preferred explanation) an even more robust public repudiation of the only alternative that was put forward by the other party, a candidate famous for dropping out before Iowa in 2020 but somehow was coronated the nominee without any voter input. The thing about democracy is, every person is going to sometimes wildly disagree with what the elected officials do. Declaring it a 'coup' is as silly as when Trump lost in 2020 and declared it a 'rigged election.' Now, you can make limited inroads to block executive actions with the courts, but even when SCOTUS was friendly to the anti-Trump cause, when that's done to advance an unpopular (majority-disapproved-of) agenda, it is usually a hollow and temporary victory. To get the policies you want, you need to win over voters. That's the part the DNC seems to be completely unaware of. You don't win by insulting, by dunking on the other guys on ~Twitter~ bluesky, or by protesting. You win in a democracy only by convincing the very reasonable middle that you share their values. The DNC has taken a position of "Everyone not already in our tent is evil, fascist, dastardly white supremacists," but to their chagrin, their current tent is under 50% of the voting public and it isn't growing.

ithkuil 2y ago
Trump said so many things, so many outlandish things that I think a sizeable percentage of the people who voted for him didn't quite believe he would do. I don't have hard data on that but I did speak with several repubblican voters who dismissed the worries saying that he was just joking to provoke the libs.
- troyvit 2y ago
  He did. I only hope next time that the people who voted for him because of the truthiness of what he said (vs the actual truth) will think twice the next time they vote.
scarab92 2y ago
Purity spiral. The left won't be competitive in elections until they learn what it is, why it results in alienation of people who would otherwise support them, and find a way to escape it.
- jimkleiber 2y ago
  In other words, the left needs to learn how to love the right (and many people within the left). But I don't know if that's the case. I think there are a lot of people on the right who want the left to love them but believe that the people on the left do not love them. I believe the problem is that people need to learn how to feel loved. To realize that even our enemies are trying their best and most likely care about us a lot more than they would ever admit. Both sides struggle with this. People on the current left tend to just resign and give up on the relationships. People on the right tend to seek vengeance.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - scarab92 2y ago
      Clearly you don’t really understand what a purity spiral is. Ultimately, the left numerically cannot win an election until they escape it. It’s up to them whether they do.
      - jimkleiber 2y ago
        Not sure if this was to me (I hate that HN anonymizes so much, it doesn't understand the importance of personal context in communication), but I just looked up purity cycle and didn't find anything but found purity spiral, is that what you meant? > A purity spiral is a theory which argues for the existence of a form of groupthink in which it becomes more beneficial to hold certain views than to not hold them, and more extreme views are rewarded while expressing doubt, nuance, or moderation is punished (a process sometimes called "moral outbidding").[1] It is argued that this feedback loop leads to members competing to demonstrate the zealotry or purity of their views.[2][3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_spiral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_spiral
0dayz 2y ago
You could have just condensed this down to: democrats bad and only their fault. Because if people in the middle can be so damn gullible to vote for a criminal who said: "I don't care about you, I only want your votes", like Trump because he promised good economy I don't know how anyone can conclude that the issue here is with democrats and not the people's lack of critical thinking. It's a bit late to correctly point out that focusing on demographics as you voter base is stupid and that it's interest groups you should focus on (as this should've been done in 2008 after Obama's victory), because this isn't a race between two sane candidates.
- scarab92 2y ago
  > a criminal, lie, swindle and rig puller like Trump > voter base is stupid > facist, nazi, coup Name calling typically results in people viewing you as immature. If the left ever want to reclaim the respect of voters, they need to lose this bad habit.
  - 0dayz 2y ago
    Those are descriptions not names. The left don't have to any soul searching to do when again the so called middle literally voted for a man who to their face told them that he doesn't care about them he just wants their votes, who yes is a criminal that has swindled, lied and now rug pulled.
    - jimkleiber 2y ago
      Well if the left wants to lead, it should never stop doing soul searching. Why not ask ourselves, "What have we done that may have contributed to people in our lives wanting to support such vengeful behaviors? How might have we and other people like us hurt these people over the years?"
      - intended 2y ago
        But name calling works goddamit! Why shouldnt everyone do that?? Trump is 100% about names, holy shit. I think the left needs to get better at name calling, and match the winning strategy. Maybe it needs to keep coming up with new funny names. TO be serious - nthing the left does will likely work, because they have to somehow appeal to everyone. Be polite and strong, firm and flexible, forgiving and retributive. Basically a unicorn.
realusername 2y ago
So first he did lie about that on record saying he had nothing to do with Project 2025. Then he certainly didn't say that he was going to dismantle the US government with Elon Musk outside of any legal framework (or I missed that). And even if he did, that wouldn't make it okay either. > You win in a democracy only by convincing the very reasonable middle that you share their values I feel like you haven't paid enough attention, this isn't a democracy anymore but a mixed regime, convincing opponents is still necessary but isn't enough to influence power anymore. Look at Hungary if you want some indication of how it's going.
dudefeliciano 2y ago
> Declaring it a 'coup' is as silly as when Trump lost in 2020 and declared it a 'rigged election.' Call it whatever you want, the fact of the matter is that you have an unelected private person, who happens to be the richest person on earth, taking control of federal agencies. I don't think anyone should consider this silly, as nobody thought it was silly when MAGA tried to actually stage a literal coup by force 4 years ago. > You don't win by insulting, by dunking on the other guys on ~Twitter~ The last years have made it very clear that's exactly how you win. You seem to be under the impression that the democrats, not MAGAs, are unhinged in their rhetoric.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- macinjosh 2y ago
  The only elected members of the executive branch are the President and VP. The president is employing Musk. Your claims of him being unelected is irrelevant. Valerie Jarret was UNELECTED. OMG OMG /s See how dumb it sounds?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
belter 2y ago
A simple mental exercise using analogies, might help explain why the current branch of the simulation should be backtracked asap... - Imagine if the president allowed Jeff Bezos to reprogram the Treasury’s payment system as if it were an online shopping cart. - Picture the president authorizing Sam Altman to treat the federal payment system maybe as a live AI experiment. - Envision the president allowing Larry Page to run the Treasury system. - Imagine Mark Zuckerberg not only with the power to update federal payment rules, with access to all U.S. taxpayer data. Incredible coincidence Musk runs, privately, a social networking site... I dont include an example with Palantir...Because some of the 19 years old bros working with the Musk team, were interns at Palantir. So I am just going to assume Thiel has all the info on all US citizens now... No concerns with conflicts of interest, no vetting, no official role because...People voted for the current president? When did voting become a blank check?
- jimkleiber 2y ago
  Exactly. Voting for someone, even if they say they will break the law, doesn't mean they're allowed to break the law. AFAIK, that's not how representative, constitutional democracies work.
JW_00000 2y ago
> The thing about democracy is, every person is going to sometimes wildly disagree with what the elected officials do. Declaring it a 'coup' is as silly as [...] The reason people are calling this a coup is not (only) because they disagree with what Trump/Musk are doing, but because their actions are illegal. A president is still expected to follow the rule of law and respect separation of powers. If there are no more checks and balances, then it's a coup. If Congress decided to allocate budget to something, the president should not ignore this. The legislature is losing its power.
- zpeti 2y ago
  Who says they are illegal? Can you cite some sources please? Like actual legal experts, not the guardian. As far as I know, the chevron deference ruling makes it easily arguable that these agencies don't necessarily have any legal standing anyway. The 8 month buyout was completely legal, Clinton did the same. I actually find it highly unlikely any of this is illegal, it's just completely unbearable to anyone who is part of the bureaucracy. But prove me wrong. Show me the legal opinions.
  - idiotsecant 2y ago
    Boy howdy there's a lot to pull apart here but ;et's start with your core statement regarding chevron deference. The recent (and wildly stupid, I think but besides the point) Chevron deference ruling says, in summary, that federal agencies have very little latitude in deciding their internal policies where not explicitly defined by congress. The current administration replaced the head of an agency and had that agency shut itself down. Shutting yourself down is clearly not a power given to any federal agency, so by the very policy you're citing either the judicial or executive branch must act to allow such a move. Instead, our cheeto in chief decided that those other branches don't actually need to do any of that pesky work and it's a lot easier if everyone just does what he wants. There's a word for that style of governance.
    - margalabargala 2y ago
      > so by the very policy you're citing either the judicial or executive branch must act to allow such a move. I think you meant legislative, not executive?
namdnay 2y ago
I agree with some of your points but > You don't win by insulting, by dunking on the other guys on ~Twitter~ bluesky The guy who won did exactly all that And what on earth did Trump do to convince the “reasonable middle” that he shares their values? Who are these reasonable people who decide that Kamala spends too much time insulting people, so they’re better off voting for Donald Trump?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
tootie 2y ago
This is flatly false. He is running the Project 2025 playbook which he expressly disavowed. It is also reasonable to assume he meant to propose a smaller budget, not supercede Congress.
- scarab92 2y ago
  > He is running the Project 2025 playbook which he expressly disavowed He's a conservative, and Project 2025 was from other conservatives. You would expect there to be some overlap in policy perspectives because of the ideological overlap. It doesn't necessarily mean he's taking orders from the heritage foundation.
  - dudefeliciano 2y ago
    Before he got inaugurated the narrative is that the democrats are crazy for thinking that he would enact such unhinged policies, he himself said he knows nothing about it. Now the narrative is "that was expected".
    - scarab92 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - dudefeliciano 2y ago
        > Trump denied having read Project 2025, and refused to commit to following it. On the small chance that he said that in good faith and wasn't lying through his teeh. Does it really matter if he read the playbook or not? Maybe he just surrounds himself with people that have contributed to it (he does), maybe he had chatgpt summarize it to him. If the policies he implements come directly from that menu of suggestions, does it really matter?
woodpanel 2y ago
> Declaring it a 'coup' is as silly as when Trump lost in 2020 and declared it a 'rigged election.' At this point any discussion on HN about Trump delivering his campaign promises (which got him a resounding electoral victory) seems to be filled with elitist rage ("Every single IT board I'm on") and thus is just proving his point. This is the blowback for the medical overreach of the covid years, for the 1984-esque re-labeling of open gender- and race-based discrimination as DEI, for basically shaming every opposing view as > evil, fascist, dastardly white supremacists and many more transgressions. I'm saying this as a non us citizen working in a sector in Europe that is very likely to get absolutely clobbered by Trump. The blame is simply to put at the losing side. Them denying the merit of their loss, the lack of any introspection and instead just one-upping their everybody-i-disagree-with-is-hitler mantra is at least comforting in the sense that I know they shouldn't be in charge.
Take8435 2y ago
> but even when SCOTUS was friendly to the anti-Trump cause Sources requested for this statement, made unilateral with no evidence. > Declaring it a 'coup' is as silly as when Trump lost in 2020 and declared it a 'rigged election. A single person, who somehow owns multiple major companies with, clear conflict of interest, is not a coup? What? He & his "engineers" reportedly have access to American citizen information. Where's the required oversight by Congress? I get trimming the government, but let's talk about it in the open rather than relying on his word and his word alone. > You don't win by insulting, by dunking on the other guys on ~Twitter~ bluesky, or by protesting. Would you say that to Tea Party folks who widely protested Obama? What? This makes no sense. Didn't they also insult Obama and his birth? Or anyone who voted for Obama? Whataboutism. Frankly, I feel you are delusional and have bought into the ruse of the current news cycle. > "Everyone not already in our tent is evil, fascist, dastardly white supremacists," but to their chagrin, their current tent is under 50% of the voting public and it isn't growing. Trumps share of the vote was <50% via https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2024presgeresults.pdf https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2024pres...

by xp84 2y ago

ithkuil 2y ago

Trump said so many things, so many outlandish things that I think a sizeable percentage of the people who voted for him didn't quite believe he would do. I don't have hard data on that but I did speak with several repubblican voters who dismissed the worries saying that he was just joking to provoke the libs.

troyvit 2y ago
He did. I only hope next time that the people who voted for him because of the truthiness of what he said (vs the actual truth) will think twice the next time they vote.

scarab92 2y ago

Purity spiral. The left won't be competitive in elections until they learn what it is, why it results in alienation of people who would otherwise support them, and find a way to escape it.

jimkleiber 2y ago
In other words, the left needs to learn how to love the right (and many people within the left). But I don't know if that's the case. I think there are a lot of people on the right who want the left to love them but believe that the people on the left do not love them. I believe the problem is that people need to learn how to feel loved. To realize that even our enemies are trying their best and most likely care about us a lot more than they would ever admit. Both sides struggle with this. People on the current left tend to just resign and give up on the relationships. People on the right tend to seek vengeance.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - scarab92 2y ago
    Clearly you don’t really understand what a purity spiral is. Ultimately, the left numerically cannot win an election until they escape it. It’s up to them whether they do.
    - jimkleiber 2y ago
      Not sure if this was to me (I hate that HN anonymizes so much, it doesn't understand the importance of personal context in communication), but I just looked up purity cycle and didn't find anything but found purity spiral, is that what you meant? > A purity spiral is a theory which argues for the existence of a form of groupthink in which it becomes more beneficial to hold certain views than to not hold them, and more extreme views are rewarded while expressing doubt, nuance, or moderation is punished (a process sometimes called "moral outbidding").[1] It is argued that this feedback loop leads to members competing to demonstrate the zealotry or purity of their views.[2][3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_spiral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_spiral

0dayz 2y ago

You could have just condensed this down to: democrats bad and only their fault. Because if people in the middle can be so damn gullible to vote for a criminal who said: "I don't care about you, I only want your votes", like Trump because he promised good economy I don't know how anyone can conclude that the issue here is with democrats and not the people's lack of critical thinking. It's a bit late to correctly point out that focusing on demographics as you voter base is stupid and that it's interest groups you should focus on (as this should've been done in 2008 after Obama's victory), because this isn't a race between two sane candidates.

scarab92 2y ago
> a criminal, lie, swindle and rig puller like Trump > voter base is stupid > facist, nazi, coup Name calling typically results in people viewing you as immature. If the left ever want to reclaim the respect of voters, they need to lose this bad habit.
- 0dayz 2y ago
  Those are descriptions not names. The left don't have to any soul searching to do when again the so called middle literally voted for a man who to their face told them that he doesn't care about them he just wants their votes, who yes is a criminal that has swindled, lied and now rug pulled.
  - jimkleiber 2y ago
    Well if the left wants to lead, it should never stop doing soul searching. Why not ask ourselves, "What have we done that may have contributed to people in our lives wanting to support such vengeful behaviors? How might have we and other people like us hurt these people over the years?"
    - intended 2y ago
      But name calling works goddamit! Why shouldnt everyone do that?? Trump is 100% about names, holy shit. I think the left needs to get better at name calling, and match the winning strategy. Maybe it needs to keep coming up with new funny names. TO be serious - nthing the left does will likely work, because they have to somehow appeal to everyone. Be polite and strong, firm and flexible, forgiving and retributive. Basically a unicorn.

realusername 2y ago

So first he did lie about that on record saying he had nothing to do with Project 2025. Then he certainly didn't say that he was going to dismantle the US government with Elon Musk outside of any legal framework (or I missed that). And even if he did, that wouldn't make it okay either. > You win in a democracy only by convincing the very reasonable middle that you share their values I feel like you haven't paid enough attention, this isn't a democracy anymore but a mixed regime, convincing opponents is still necessary but isn't enough to influence power anymore. Look at Hungary if you want some indication of how it's going.

dudefeliciano 2y ago

> Declaring it a 'coup' is as silly as when Trump lost in 2020 and declared it a 'rigged election.' Call it whatever you want, the fact of the matter is that you have an unelected private person, who happens to be the richest person on earth, taking control of federal agencies. I don't think anyone should consider this silly, as nobody thought it was silly when MAGA tried to actually stage a literal coup by force 4 years ago. > You don't win by insulting, by dunking on the other guys on ~Twitter~ The last years have made it very clear that's exactly how you win. You seem to be under the impression that the democrats, not MAGAs, are unhinged in their rhetoric.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
macinjosh 2y ago
The only elected members of the executive branch are the President and VP. The president is employing Musk. Your claims of him being unelected is irrelevant. Valerie Jarret was UNELECTED. OMG OMG /s See how dumb it sounds?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

belter 2y ago

A simple mental exercise using analogies, might help explain why the current branch of the simulation should be backtracked asap... - Imagine if the president allowed Jeff Bezos to reprogram the Treasury’s payment system as if it were an online shopping cart. - Picture the president authorizing Sam Altman to treat the federal payment system maybe as a live AI experiment. - Envision the president allowing Larry Page to run the Treasury system. - Imagine Mark Zuckerberg not only with the power to update federal payment rules, with access to all U.S. taxpayer data. Incredible coincidence Musk runs, privately, a social networking site... I dont include an example with Palantir...Because some of the 19 years old bros working with the Musk team, were interns at Palantir. So I am just going to assume Thiel has all the info on all US citizens now... No concerns with conflicts of interest, no vetting, no official role because...People voted for the current president? When did voting become a blank check?

jimkleiber 2y ago
Exactly. Voting for someone, even if they say they will break the law, doesn't mean they're allowed to break the law. AFAIK, that's not how representative, constitutional democracies work.

JW_00000 2y ago

> The thing about democracy is, every person is going to sometimes wildly disagree with what the elected officials do. Declaring it a 'coup' is as silly as [...] The reason people are calling this a coup is not (only) because they disagree with what Trump/Musk are doing, but because their actions are illegal. A president is still expected to follow the rule of law and respect separation of powers. If there are no more checks and balances, then it's a coup. If Congress decided to allocate budget to something, the president should not ignore this. The legislature is losing its power.

zpeti 2y ago
Who says they are illegal? Can you cite some sources please? Like actual legal experts, not the guardian. As far as I know, the chevron deference ruling makes it easily arguable that these agencies don't necessarily have any legal standing anyway. The 8 month buyout was completely legal, Clinton did the same. I actually find it highly unlikely any of this is illegal, it's just completely unbearable to anyone who is part of the bureaucracy. But prove me wrong. Show me the legal opinions.
- idiotsecant 2y ago
  Boy howdy there's a lot to pull apart here but ;et's start with your core statement regarding chevron deference. The recent (and wildly stupid, I think but besides the point) Chevron deference ruling says, in summary, that federal agencies have very little latitude in deciding their internal policies where not explicitly defined by congress. The current administration replaced the head of an agency and had that agency shut itself down. Shutting yourself down is clearly not a power given to any federal agency, so by the very policy you're citing either the judicial or executive branch must act to allow such a move. Instead, our cheeto in chief decided that those other branches don't actually need to do any of that pesky work and it's a lot easier if everyone just does what he wants. There's a word for that style of governance.
  - margalabargala 2y ago
    > so by the very policy you're citing either the judicial or executive branch must act to allow such a move. I think you meant legislative, not executive?

namdnay 2y ago

I agree with some of your points but > You don't win by insulting, by dunking on the other guys on ~Twitter~ bluesky The guy who won did exactly all that And what on earth did Trump do to convince the “reasonable middle” that he shares their values? Who are these reasonable people who decide that Kamala spends too much time insulting people, so they’re better off voting for Donald Trump?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

tootie 2y ago

This is flatly false. He is running the Project 2025 playbook which he expressly disavowed. It is also reasonable to assume he meant to propose a smaller budget, not supercede Congress.

scarab92 2y ago
> He is running the Project 2025 playbook which he expressly disavowed He's a conservative, and Project 2025 was from other conservatives. You would expect there to be some overlap in policy perspectives because of the ideological overlap. It doesn't necessarily mean he's taking orders from the heritage foundation.
- dudefeliciano 2y ago
  Before he got inaugurated the narrative is that the democrats are crazy for thinking that he would enact such unhinged policies, he himself said he knows nothing about it. Now the narrative is "that was expected".
  - scarab92 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - dudefeliciano 2y ago
      > Trump denied having read Project 2025, and refused to commit to following it. On the small chance that he said that in good faith and wasn't lying through his teeh. Does it really matter if he read the playbook or not? Maybe he just surrounds himself with people that have contributed to it (he does), maybe he had chatgpt summarize it to him. If the policies he implements come directly from that menu of suggestions, does it really matter?

woodpanel 2y ago

> Declaring it a 'coup' is as silly as when Trump lost in 2020 and declared it a 'rigged election.' At this point any discussion on HN about Trump delivering his campaign promises (which got him a resounding electoral victory) seems to be filled with elitist rage ("Every single IT board I'm on") and thus is just proving his point. This is the blowback for the medical overreach of the covid years, for the 1984-esque re-labeling of open gender- and race-based discrimination as DEI, for basically shaming every opposing view as > evil, fascist, dastardly white supremacists and many more transgressions. I'm saying this as a non us citizen working in a sector in Europe that is very likely to get absolutely clobbered by Trump. The blame is simply to put at the losing side. Them denying the merit of their loss, the lack of any introspection and instead just one-upping their everybody-i-disagree-with-is-hitler mantra is at least comforting in the sense that I know they shouldn't be in charge.

Take8435 2y ago

> but even when SCOTUS was friendly to the anti-Trump cause Sources requested for this statement, made unilateral with no evidence. > Declaring it a 'coup' is as silly as when Trump lost in 2020 and declared it a 'rigged election. A single person, who somehow owns multiple major companies with, clear conflict of interest, is not a coup? What? He & his "engineers" reportedly have access to American citizen information. Where's the required oversight by Congress? I get trimming the government, but let's talk about it in the open rather than relying on his word and his word alone. > You don't win by insulting, by dunking on the other guys on ~Twitter~ bluesky, or by protesting. Would you say that to Tea Party folks who widely protested Obama? What? This makes no sense. Didn't they also insult Obama and his birth? Or anyone who voted for Obama? Whataboutism. Frankly, I feel you are delusional and have bought into the ruse of the current news cycle. > "Everyone not already in our tent is evil, fascist, dastardly white supremacists," but to their chagrin, their current tent is under 50% of the voting public and it isn't growing. Trumps share of the vote was <50% via https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2024presgeresults.pdf https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2024pres...