5 ms·

At what point does someone step in to stop Trump from dismantling the US government completely? Or is it already too late?

by yosito 2y ago

cbg0 2y ago
It's a little naive to think this is just Trump doing it, the people around him are all on board with what's going on, they're not "just doing their jobs".
- federiconafria 2y ago
  When something like this comes up I remember CGP Grey's video "Rules for Rulers".
rjbwork 2y ago
It's too late for anyone but congressional Republicans to step up and impeach him and remove him from office. I wouldn't hold my breath. Buckle up.
- mdhb 2y ago
  I would politely suggest that history is absolutely filled with examples of others taking action outside of government in situations like this to prevent a descent into authoritarianism and that people might want to learn from them rather than relying on magical thinking.
  - pesus 2y ago
    Not just that, it's the foundation of the entire US.
    - timeon 2y ago
      That was before cars. People in US are now domesticated in isolated nodes.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - rjbwork 2y ago
    My point is that there's no legitimate solution outside of what I've stated. Either guardrails like courts and some level of bureaucracy will hold and they'll spend 4 years thrashing against those guardrails, still doing a ton of damage in the mean time, or they'll simply enact their will a la Jackson's challenge to the courts and we'll have a very different government and country at the end of those 4 years. Nothing I said relies on magical thinking. I personally don't think there's any help coming. This administration has a will to power and are going to exercise it. They want to dismantle the government and so they're going to do it. Obviously someone can always take illegal or unprecedented action to deal with the situation, but not mentioning that fact doesn't mean someone is engaging in magical thinking.
    - timeon 2y ago
      Is general strike not legitimate?
      - rjbwork 2y ago
        Sure, but that's not going to happen. Americans are extremely divided culturally and we are atomized and alienated socially and economically. There is no widespread class consciousness and until the comfortable middle class starts missing meals or seeing their friends and families being disappeared in the middle of the night, nothing of the sort is going to develop.
        creato 2y ago
        How do you see what is going on now as a class issue? There is no clear class division between Trump's supporters and opposition. If anything it's the opposite of what you seem to be thinking. Trying to frame it in those terms is failing right out of the gate.
        anon7000 2y ago
        Abolishing consumer protections, going all-in on late stage capitalism, and putting the world’s richest people in charge of dismantling the government is absolutely related to class. If people wanted to rise up and actually deal with the establishment like so many want, that involves dealing with career politicians (through term limits and getting money out of politics) and especially dealing with big businesses and the ultra wealthy. (By getting much stronger personal rights, from consumer protection to labor rights to privacy rights to health rights.) Many of these should be non-controversial to the average person, if we had some level of class consciousness that helped people realize that our real problems are not cultural divides. The main point, though, is that many Americans are pretty comfortable, and mostly not interested in direct, confrontational action. That only comes when things get very personal.
  - wickedsight 2y ago
    My gut says that won't do much. Through (media) manipulation, this has buried itself into American culture. Trump is just the face of something that runs much, much deeper into all levels of US politics and society and can't be stopped by 'simple' acts of civil disobedience. Since big companies like FAANG/OpenAI/Twitter etc. can control the information that 99% of people see (and seem to support the current leadership), it's almost impossible to get objective information if they don't want it out there.
- xnx 2y ago
  Fox News could stop this tomorrow. The sway they have over their viewers is near absolute.
  - HDThoreaun 2y ago
    Fox news was late to board the trump train. They tried to get him to lose the primaries twice. Trump isnt beholden to fox
fastasucan 2y ago
At what point? During the election.
nine_zeros 2y ago
Too late. There will be devastation in ways we haven't imagined. In the delusion of GDP and wealth, Americans have completely forgotten their own capacity of destruction. This is the same country that used humans as legal property, went through many booms/busts, caused people and businesses to fail, destroyed wild ecosystems, destroyed industrial production, destroyed housing and lastly, were completely ok with electing a convicted despicable human as their president. America is 100% self deserving of an implosion. And Trump + spineless Congress + Republican supreme Court is enough to cause significant damage. It is too late.
basementcat 2y ago
This is the will of the electorate. Even many of the people here on HN (probably more thoughtful than a typical cross section of the population) believe the administration is on the right track. The best time to stop this was back in November.
- jrflowers 2y ago
  > (probably more thoughtful than a typical cross section of the population) What makes you think that?
  - zimpenfish 2y ago
    Normally when people say things like that, the reasoning is "...because they agree with me."
  - HDThoreaun 2y ago
    text based social media requires more thought than video based
    - jrflowers 2y ago
      Most people use Facebook primarily through text. Are Facebook users more thoughtful than the average person?
  - basementcat 2y ago
    > What makes you think that? Perhaps I'm too optimistic.
- computerthings 2y ago
  Yes, there are advocates for technocracy on here, and they think they can gain from this. Being "thoughtful" doesn't make any of their specific arguments for it more or less valid. When you have to move away from the thing in question to supposed qualities of the supposed "many" people who are for it, that shows you the thing in question might not be defensible.
jltsiren 2y ago
Everyone with the power and legitimacy to act is already involved in whatever the administration is doing. Apart from a violent coup or a revolution (which could easily lead to a civil war), nothing can really stop this before the next elections. This is what Americans voted for in elections that were generally fair and legitimate. And eventually, when the dust settles, it might be a good idea to rewrite the Constitution. To have more effective checks and balances and a less centralized executive branch.
- yosito 2y ago
  Trump and Musk both openly stated that they manipulated the election and manufactured votes. And even if that weren't the case, voter suppression and gerrymandering were also in full swing. So I wouldn't call it "generally fair and legitimate".
  - muddi900 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - gregates 2y ago
      Gerrymandering did deliver the narrow Republican majority in the House this time, which is critical to the ability of Trump and Musk to ignore the law. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/us/politics/2024-elections-congress-state-redistricting.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/us/politics/2024-election...
      - muddi900 2y ago
        Yes, and I agree that the wholesale takeover of state governments by State GOPs is a precursor to what Daddy Trump is doing. They are brazen about it too, disregarding the will of their own Party's governors sometimes. However, Senate and President were elected by a plurality of the electorate.
4ndrewl 2y ago
From the outside it looks like he's operating as a late-medieval King, theatrically issuing decrees whilst his courtiers are just going around picking fights. I don't really understand what the point of the houses are now, a fig leaf I guess? I suppose that in 5 years time he'll just pass an executive order saying there's a clear and present danger to democracy by having elections and that will be that.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
  "Christians, get out and vote. Just this time! You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it'll be fixed, it'll be fine, you won't have to vote anymore my beautiful Christians!" July 27, 2024.
gitaarik 2y ago
[flagged]
- defrost 2y ago
  > Well isn't this what most people voted on? Strictly speaking, no. Trump won 77,284,118 votes, or 49.8 percent of the votes cast for president. Voter turnout nationally in 2024 was 63.9 percent (below the 66.6 percent voter turnout recorded in 2020). So 31.8 percent of the eligible voters in the USofA voted for Trump in the 2024 elections, most eligible voters didn't vote for Trump. Eligible Voters aside, an even greater percentage of people in the USofA didn't vote for Trump being too young or otherwise disenfranchised. Of those that did vote for Trump it's a leap to say that all of them voted to fire the chief government records keeper; like Brexit, many of those who voted for it had no real idea what they had voted for.
  - anon7000 2y ago
    Yep. I mean Trump lied throughout his campaign, saying Project 2025 had nothing to do with him or his eventual policy. What if you were on the fence, and decided to vote for him after he distanced himself from that crazy religious establishment playbook? That person didn’t vote for this to be happen (even though the con was fucking obvious in the moment.) Do his voters really want to loose Obamacare, Medicaid, social security, food stamps, whatever? No, of course not. Next to no one is interested in cutting a program that personally benefits them. Though, we can’t forget the troll voters who are in it to own the libs because they’re upset over identity politics and cancel culture, and Elon seems cool to them. I guess they’re happy now, owning the libs, thinking they voted for this, but they’re really just owning themselves after a company or bank fucks them over when consumer protection is abolished. The incentives are just too strong for companies to absolutely screw everyone they can, so it will happen without question.
  - ifyoubuildit 2y ago
    Wouldn't it be assumed that "what most people voted on" would have eligible voters _who actually voted_ as the denominator? Also, to this: > many of those who voted for it had no real idea what they had voted for. How many folks do you think ever have any real idea what they're voting for?

At what point does someone step in to stop Trump from dismantling the US government completely? Or is it already too late?

by yosito 2y ago

At what point does someone step in to stop Trump from dismantling the US government completely? Or is it already too late?

cbg0 2y ago

It's a little naive to think this is just Trump doing it, the people around him are all on board with what's going on, they're not "just doing their jobs".

federiconafria 2y ago
When something like this comes up I remember CGP Grey's video "Rules for Rulers".

rjbwork 2y ago

It's too late for anyone but congressional Republicans to step up and impeach him and remove him from office. I wouldn't hold my breath. Buckle up.

mdhb 2y ago
I would politely suggest that history is absolutely filled with examples of others taking action outside of government in situations like this to prevent a descent into authoritarianism and that people might want to learn from them rather than relying on magical thinking.
- pesus 2y ago
  Not just that, it's the foundation of the entire US.
  - timeon 2y ago
    That was before cars. People in US are now domesticated in isolated nodes.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- rjbwork 2y ago
  My point is that there's no legitimate solution outside of what I've stated. Either guardrails like courts and some level of bureaucracy will hold and they'll spend 4 years thrashing against those guardrails, still doing a ton of damage in the mean time, or they'll simply enact their will a la Jackson's challenge to the courts and we'll have a very different government and country at the end of those 4 years. Nothing I said relies on magical thinking. I personally don't think there's any help coming. This administration has a will to power and are going to exercise it. They want to dismantle the government and so they're going to do it. Obviously someone can always take illegal or unprecedented action to deal with the situation, but not mentioning that fact doesn't mean someone is engaging in magical thinking.
  - timeon 2y ago
    Is general strike not legitimate?
    - rjbwork 2y ago
      Sure, but that's not going to happen. Americans are extremely divided culturally and we are atomized and alienated socially and economically. There is no widespread class consciousness and until the comfortable middle class starts missing meals or seeing their friends and families being disappeared in the middle of the night, nothing of the sort is going to develop.
      - creato 2y ago
        How do you see what is going on now as a class issue? There is no clear class division between Trump's supporters and opposition. If anything it's the opposite of what you seem to be thinking. Trying to frame it in those terms is failing right out of the gate.
        anon7000 2y ago
        Abolishing consumer protections, going all-in on late stage capitalism, and putting the world’s richest people in charge of dismantling the government is absolutely related to class. If people wanted to rise up and actually deal with the establishment like so many want, that involves dealing with career politicians (through term limits and getting money out of politics) and especially dealing with big businesses and the ultra wealthy. (By getting much stronger personal rights, from consumer protection to labor rights to privacy rights to health rights.) Many of these should be non-controversial to the average person, if we had some level of class consciousness that helped people realize that our real problems are not cultural divides. The main point, though, is that many Americans are pretty comfortable, and mostly not interested in direct, confrontational action. That only comes when things get very personal.
- wickedsight 2y ago
  My gut says that won't do much. Through (media) manipulation, this has buried itself into American culture. Trump is just the face of something that runs much, much deeper into all levels of US politics and society and can't be stopped by 'simple' acts of civil disobedience. Since big companies like FAANG/OpenAI/Twitter etc. can control the information that 99% of people see (and seem to support the current leadership), it's almost impossible to get objective information if they don't want it out there.
xnx 2y ago
Fox News could stop this tomorrow. The sway they have over their viewers is near absolute.
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  Fox news was late to board the trump train. They tried to get him to lose the primaries twice. Trump isnt beholden to fox

fastasucan 2y ago

At what point? During the election.

nine_zeros 2y ago

Too late. There will be devastation in ways we haven't imagined. In the delusion of GDP and wealth, Americans have completely forgotten their own capacity of destruction. This is the same country that used humans as legal property, went through many booms/busts, caused people and businesses to fail, destroyed wild ecosystems, destroyed industrial production, destroyed housing and lastly, were completely ok with electing a convicted despicable human as their president. America is 100% self deserving of an implosion. And Trump + spineless Congress + Republican supreme Court is enough to cause significant damage. It is too late.

basementcat 2y ago

This is the will of the electorate. Even many of the people here on HN (probably more thoughtful than a typical cross section of the population) believe the administration is on the right track. The best time to stop this was back in November.

jrflowers 2y ago
> (probably more thoughtful than a typical cross section of the population) What makes you think that?
- zimpenfish 2y ago
  Normally when people say things like that, the reasoning is "...because they agree with me."
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  text based social media requires more thought than video based
  - jrflowers 2y ago
    Most people use Facebook primarily through text. Are Facebook users more thoughtful than the average person?
- basementcat 2y ago
  > What makes you think that? Perhaps I'm too optimistic.
computerthings 2y ago
Yes, there are advocates for technocracy on here, and they think they can gain from this. Being "thoughtful" doesn't make any of their specific arguments for it more or less valid. When you have to move away from the thing in question to supposed qualities of the supposed "many" people who are for it, that shows you the thing in question might not be defensible.

jltsiren 2y ago

Everyone with the power and legitimacy to act is already involved in whatever the administration is doing. Apart from a violent coup or a revolution (which could easily lead to a civil war), nothing can really stop this before the next elections. This is what Americans voted for in elections that were generally fair and legitimate. And eventually, when the dust settles, it might be a good idea to rewrite the Constitution. To have more effective checks and balances and a less centralized executive branch.

yosito 2y ago
Trump and Musk both openly stated that they manipulated the election and manufactured votes. And even if that weren't the case, voter suppression and gerrymandering were also in full swing. So I wouldn't call it "generally fair and legitimate".
- muddi900 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - gregates 2y ago
    Gerrymandering did deliver the narrow Republican majority in the House this time, which is critical to the ability of Trump and Musk to ignore the law. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/us/politics/2024-elections-congress-state-redistricting.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/26/us/politics/2024-election...
    - muddi900 2y ago
      Yes, and I agree that the wholesale takeover of state governments by State GOPs is a precursor to what Daddy Trump is doing. They are brazen about it too, disregarding the will of their own Party's governors sometimes. However, Senate and President were elected by a plurality of the electorate.

4ndrewl 2y ago

From the outside it looks like he's operating as a late-medieval King, theatrically issuing decrees whilst his courtiers are just going around picking fights. I don't really understand what the point of the houses are now, a fig leaf I guess? I suppose that in 5 years time he'll just pass an executive order saying there's a clear and present danger to democracy by having elections and that will be that.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
"Christians, get out and vote. Just this time! You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it'll be fixed, it'll be fine, you won't have to vote anymore my beautiful Christians!" July 27, 2024.

gitaarik 2y ago

[flagged]

defrost 2y ago
> Well isn't this what most people voted on? Strictly speaking, no. Trump won 77,284,118 votes, or 49.8 percent of the votes cast for president. Voter turnout nationally in 2024 was 63.9 percent (below the 66.6 percent voter turnout recorded in 2020). So 31.8 percent of the eligible voters in the USofA voted for Trump in the 2024 elections, most eligible voters didn't vote for Trump. Eligible Voters aside, an even greater percentage of people in the USofA didn't vote for Trump being too young or otherwise disenfranchised. Of those that did vote for Trump it's a leap to say that all of them voted to fire the chief government records keeper; like Brexit, many of those who voted for it had no real idea what they had voted for.
- anon7000 2y ago
  Yep. I mean Trump lied throughout his campaign, saying Project 2025 had nothing to do with him or his eventual policy. What if you were on the fence, and decided to vote for him after he distanced himself from that crazy religious establishment playbook? That person didn’t vote for this to be happen (even though the con was fucking obvious in the moment.) Do his voters really want to loose Obamacare, Medicaid, social security, food stamps, whatever? No, of course not. Next to no one is interested in cutting a program that personally benefits them. Though, we can’t forget the troll voters who are in it to own the libs because they’re upset over identity politics and cancel culture, and Elon seems cool to them. I guess they’re happy now, owning the libs, thinking they voted for this, but they’re really just owning themselves after a company or bank fucks them over when consumer protection is abolished. The incentives are just too strong for companies to absolutely screw everyone they can, so it will happen without question.
- ifyoubuildit 2y ago
  Wouldn't it be assumed that "what most people voted on" would have eligible voters _who actually voted_ as the denominator? Also, to this: > many of those who voted for it had no real idea what they had voted for. How many folks do you think ever have any real idea what they're voting for?