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I just want to highlight one thing about this whole government takeover debacle. The reason you have the separation of power (legislative, judiciary, executive)

• naijaboiler 2y ago
  This!!! What makes democracy powerful isn't that it guarantees good governance. It is powerful because because it prevents power transfer problems and all the associated struggles. The number 1 responsibility of any system of government is how well it handles power transfers, not whether it produces good governments.
  • threetonesun 2y ago
    I remember an American History teacher explaining that the most amazing thing about the new American government was that when we went from Washington to Adams nothing changed for the American citizen. Certainly that has not always held true but certainly I agree with you - thinking about the government is one of the last things I want on my mind.
    • lupusreal 2y ago
      Washington is often compared to Cincinnatus because he had the opportunity to hold onto power, but chose not to. Supposedly (Legend? History?) some men from his army told him to become a king or offered to make him one, and he refused.
  • DanielHB 2y ago
    I would say proper transitions of power is part of good government. Your phrasing makes it sound like governance doesn't need to be good as long as it transitions properly. Improper transitions of power cause bad governance.
    • ksec 2y ago
      I guess that in that context, if we reduce the role of government in as many ways as possible then whether a Good or Bad governance would have less impact to us? And in doing so a proper transitions of power is more important?
      • DanielHB 2y ago
        A bad transition of power usually (almost always?) results in an increase of the role of government. Bad transitions of power requires the new government to assert its power in order to legitimize itself. In the worst scenarios that means jailing/disappearing the opposition/journalists/activists/etc.
        • ksec 2y ago
          Thanks. Make sense.
      • scott_w 2y ago
        That works right until you have a government that does absolutely nothing and the public vote in someone who promises to smash up the system. Someone like... Donald Trump.
• bko 2y ago
  Right, unfortunately the trend has been increasing power of the state for some time. But I think the point also argues against having an extremely powerful administrative / regulatory state. For instance, suppose you want to create a department to "fight misinformation" and it will have wide ranging power to push for censorship. But depending who is running it, it might censor vastly different kinds of speech. If you believe such an entity should exist you should be indifferent to the kind of person running it. As an example, consider garbage removal. I'm relatively happy with my city's garbage removal. I wouldn't really be concerned if it was run by Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. Maybe there would be some graft in one way or another, but it's pretty obvious what the organizations' goals are. So I think that there's a difference between "government takeover to shrink the size of the state" is different from "government takeover to add another layer of unelected bureaucracy to run our lives"
  • DanielHB 2y ago
    > So I think that there's a difference between "government takeover to shrink the size of the state" is different from "government takeover to add another layer of unelected bureaucracy to run our lives" Maybe in the short term, but in the long term they are no different because the power separation is eroded in either case. If you want to reduce the size of the state you need to get congress on board with your plans.
    • bko 2y ago
      Why do I need to get congress? Congress isn't some magical body that is somehow more responsive or well run than the executive. They have more special interests. Why would I want a delegate from some state have a say that the government should have less of a reach into my life? That just means id have to essentially bribe this person with some special carve out for his state which is how we got into this whole mess. Lot simpler to just have more or less a national referendum for delete power
• jc_811 2y ago
  Completely agree. Being slow and not able to be flipped upside down on the whim of someone (or some party, or some group, etc) is a feature not a bug In my opinion incremental change with a common passage toward a better future is the best way to have long term functioning democracies
  • fooqux 2y ago
    > incremental change I think this is key for other reasons as well. A country, especially a global superpower like the US, has an incredibly slow turning radius. Even more so when you need to stop and consider ripple effects, as politicians should be. For some reason, politicians like to sell that they'll be able to fix everything in a short term, and people continue to buy it. When really, anybody at a podium saying they can "fix the economy" in timescales measured in anything but decades should be a red flag. I mean, I get it. If your adversary is promising to fix everything in months, you're going to look like a fool for saying it'll take you decades. I just find it interesting how the populace continues to buy into the fantasy.
• red-iron-pine 2y ago
  > It is really the same reasoning with dictatorships, even if the dictator is good, competent and capable his successor most likely won't. Democracy is the best form of government because there are clean, regulated ways to transfer power. Not a scramble for dominance that once settled is meant to last in perpetuity. You're assuming that there will be a successor, in a democratic sense.
  • DanielHB 2y ago
    I see no reason why it wouldn't, they don't seem to be trying to dismantle the voting system. I am not super familiar with the US system but my impression is that a most of it is handled at the state level, not the federal level.
    • nemomarx 2y ago
      I'd want to wait until an election is coming up to be sure no changes to those systems are made, really. It's only the first month.
    • wat10000 2y ago
      There’s plentiful talk from the right about allowing state legislatures to ignore the presidential vote in their state and appoint the electors they want instead, about only allowing heads of households to vote, and how it was a mistake to allow women to vote. We already saw multiple attempts to overturn the previous election, with lies about vote totals, fake electors, and finally outright violence. There will certainly be elections. It’s pretty much required for basic legitimacy these days. Even North Korea has elections. Whether they’ll be free and fair, however, is a whole different question.
    • firstlunchables 2y ago
      I don’t understand giving liars the benefit of the doubt. I mean, there are tens of thousands of documented lies and your like “I trust him”. Your mind is broken.
      • DanielHB 2y ago
• pnathan 2y ago
  This is always in my mind. Whatever we choose to let the ruler du jour do, what would, let us say, the $hitler be able to do when they come to power through the mischoices of our fellow citizens? After all, history tells us that such people will both exist and come to power. So it behooves us to be a little jealous of our own rights, and to push officials to limit other officials. There's an interesting fork here where you can argue for a very libertarian view, _or_ you can argue for a "government whose interest is in restraining government (the metagame of 'checks and balances')".
  • Ajedi32 2y ago
    That's one issue with a two party system: it incentivizes collusion between branches that are supposed to be holding each other in check.
• bfrog 2y ago
  This only works even remotely if the politicians agree to work together on some level. Modern US politics went all in on Newt Gingrich’s blockade method to ensure the big bad democrats can’t look like they ever do anything. And here we are with only slightly less broken healthcare with the ACA, a plan originally from GOP, which is constantly hounded on for being terrible. All while drug and medical prices fleece every dollar from every pocket. So this is what it comes back to when congress can’t do their job of helping the American people or balancing the budget. A populist comes in and smashes the norms.
  • le-mark 2y ago
    Everyone reading this should research the end of life healthcare situation in the US. In the current system you will be destitute, your assets will be sucked dry until you have nothing, only then will you qualify for Medicaid. Only the wealthy can die with assets to pass on. We are currently experiencing this with our parents. The system is set up so social security pays just enough to not qualify for Medicaid and Medicare doesn’t cover what they need (assisted living or home healthcare).
    • titzer 2y ago
      It's funny how that works out. Welp, let's have a look at how that stock market is doing....oh look, more GDP growth, everything is hunky dory.
  • dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago
    > A populist comes in and smashes the norms. And who favors the rich. You have to give Republicans credit, they are skilled at getting the poor to comprehensively screw themselves.
    • dfxm12 2y ago
      I've come to the conclusion that some people must see success as holding someone else down as opposed to raising yourself up. The poor people you're talking about don't see it as screwing themselves as long as they can recognize that some other group is more screwed.
• grahameb 2y ago
  cleric here, so excuse me for getting theological: but there should be (and at times truly has been, even if flawed) a shared understanding of the dignity and worth of every person. if we have that, then when one party or another is in power, they know that they are expected to care for minorities and for the stranger, and for the 'other side'. we should be willing to vote for that. that seems to be breaking down, throughout the western world. we should never denigrate or infringe upon the personhood of anyone. we should take the higher road. and I'm not arguing that the oppressed should accept their oppression: I'm arguing that the oppressors should listen to the oppressed, and change. I live in Australia – our constitution is a strange mashup of the UK model (which is certainly the primary influence), and things gleaned from the US. Something I observe is that we're more willing to admit the possibility of non-partisan spaces. For example, rather than electoral commissions being bipartisan, they're non-partisan, with partisan input. It is a serious matter if an official of such an organisation is found to have publicly stated political views. We have some people who make it their profession to be boring, and to simply uphold the precepts of society: including the rights of minorities. That's a serious sacrifice, made routinely by judges and senior public servants. I find myself quite terrified that this is being eroded. I don't know how we turn it around: but I certainly speak up for the dignity of all through my ministry. We all ought to speak up.
  • Brigand 2y ago
    My impression is that a focus on dignity and worth of every person has lead to a complete fixation on rights and wants of minorities and underprivileged groups. What is missing from this point of view are individual responsibility and willingness to contribute. From what I see online some people a fed up with this approach and this has caused the current backlash. Perhaps dignity needs to be complemented by responsibility and we all ought to keep both in mind?
    • tom_ 2y ago
      Mx Goat added a note about their real-world qualifications for pitching in on this sort of question, presumably because their user name didn't really make it obvious why we might wish to listen to their thoughts on how a society should function for the benefit of all.
• ap99 2y ago
  By government takeover do you mean the republicans controlling the senate, house, and presidency (and the supreme court generally being conservative)? The American people voted them into office. Power was transferred peacefully. When the repubs are voted out we'll go through this "takeover" process again to whatever extent the dems can control the government. These powers that are being utilized were in place with Biden, Obama, etc. Trump hasn't taken anything new. Honestly, people who don't like Trump will claim he's a dictator but it's mostly they don't like him and not that he's doing anything vastly different.
  • lupusreal 2y ago
    The theory goes that checks and balances have broken down because Congress can't stop Trump, but actually I think they simply don't want to.
    • DanielHB 2y ago
      It is because Trump is doing most of these things through executive orders and presidential appointments it is up to the judiciary to strike them down, not the congress. To make this stuff permanent they would need to go through congress, then it is much harder for a future administration to repeal these changes.
      • lupusreal 2y ago
        Same deal, the judiciary could smack him down, and is to an extent, but the extent to which they aren't is down to them not wanting to. The checks and balances are intact, merely choosing not to check and balance as the democratic party wishes they would.
      • zerocrates 2y ago
        Congress could do all sorts of things to assert its power: it could call hearings, issue subpoenas, revoke or change appropriations, pass laws, file suit, threaten impeachment, actually impeach. The courts could get involved if the administration resisted or defied some of those actions too, of course. They have no interest in doing any of that, though. Generally those in power in Congress support what Trump is doing and are happy to have it happen without them needing to lift a finger (or take the blame if there are problems). To the extent that they don't, they're also happy to rely on the courts and again not take the blame or blowback from their voters. As the administration plows forward and gets a taste for operating outside the law, I do think you have a growing risk that even a Congress that wanted to resist would find itself unable. You see administration figures favorably citing arguments that they should ignore court orders even now, and some evidence that they're defying orders already.
• tomjen3 2y ago
  Isn't the various departments under the executive?
  • hansvm 2y ago
    No. That would give the president the power of a king, something the founding fathers tried hard not to do.
  • Ajedi32 2y ago
    Yes, and that's precisely the root of the problem here. If you want government that's responsive to the will of the people, then it has to be either directly elected by the people, or accountable to someone elected by the people. The way this is supposed to work constitutionally is that Congress sets policy by law, and the executive "take[s] Care that the Laws be faithfully executed". The executive branch does not set domestic policy at all; it just implements the policy Congress set. But what happens when the scope of government grows so much to the point where Congress cannot possibly set all policy itself? What did happen is that Congress started creating agencies and granting them broad powers over certain aspects of domestic policy. It then, as the constitution provides, became the executive's job to implement those agencies. And as any software dev knows, there's a lot of wiggle room in implementation details. So now we end up in a situation where the executive has a huge amount of control over these agencies which in turn have a huge amount of control over us.
• commandlinefan 2y ago
  > this kind of power couldn't be abused by subsequent administrations I'm old enough to remember nearly identical rhetoric during Bill Clinton's presidency. I suspect that somebody older than me would remember the same even further back. Claiming that the president is abusing his power in irreversible ways just seems to me to be an American tradition.
• krunck 2y ago
  The USA need to weaken the power of the executive. Remove the executive order power. Remove the pardon power. And I'd even recommend that the individual president position be replaced by a group of people each of which gets voted in on different years. The monarch-like persona does not belong in a democracy.