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China and the cultural revolution/great leap forward should be a warning of what can happen when there is no oppositional veto power. These tariffs could be our

China and the cultural revolution/great leap forward should be a warning of what can happen when there is no oppositional veto power. These tariffs could be our four pests moment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward In 1967, emboldened radicals began seizing power from local governments and party branches, establishing new revolutionary committees in their place while smashing public security, procuratorate and judicial systems. Mao ambitiously sought an increase in rural grain production and an increase in industrial activity. Mao was dismissive of technical experts and basic economic principles, which meant that industrialization of the countryside would solely be dependent on the peasants. Output from the industrial activities such as steel was also supposed to be used for urban growth. Local officials were fearful of the so-called "Anti-Right Deviation Struggle" and they competed to fulfill or over-fulfill quotas which were based on Mao's exaggerated claims, collecting non-existent "surpluses" and leaving farmers to starve to death. Higher officials did not dare to report the economic disaster which was being caused by these policies, and national officials, blaming bad weather for the decline in food output, took little or no action. Acknowledging responsibilities for the Great Leap Forward, Mao did not retreat from his policies; instead, he blamed problems on bad implementation and "rightists" who opposed him. There is a reason historians are already fleeing the country: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/the-fascism-expert-at-yale-whos-fleeing-america https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/the-fascism-expert-at-... If we wait too long to act, there's a good chance it will be too late or cost much much more.

zozbot234 2y ago
Oppositional veto power should be coming from the Republicans in Congress right now, especially the House. And if they aren't going to do it they should all be facing primary challenges for the upcoming midterm elections.
- hayst4ck 2y ago
  That is literally not oppositional veto power. You're asking what is currently a one party state to disempower itself or infight. That's absurd. The problem is unchecked power. You can't expect those in power to check themselves. When there is no forceful resistance at all to obviously insane completely radical policy that experts are "confused" by, we should all be very very worried.
  - zozbot234 2y ago
    The whole point is that the U.S. are far from a one party state right now. We are going to see midterm elections relatively soon, the result of which will most likely dictate the rest of Trump's presidency. If he loses his support in Congress, the potential for further damage will be checked significantly.
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
      > relatively soon 2026 is a loong way off considering the pace that Trump is setting the place on fire. Yet he still has time to play golf. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-has-another-miracle-golf-victory-at-his-own-course/ https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-has-another-miracle-golf...
    - hayst4ck 2y ago
      We aren't experiencing bad policy, we are experiencing an attack on rule of law, a coup, and "a revolution that will be bloodless if the left allows it to be." Russia has elections too and you should probably think about how they are different and why they are different, and how that relates to rule of law.
      - dangus 2y ago
        The jury is still out on whether what you are saying is hyperbole. We can't assume the worst-case outcome despite the serious danger of that outcome should it occur. We definitely should think about how Russian elections are different and why they're different. For one thing, in the US the executive branch and federal government has very little control over elections by design. The current administration can say whatever it wants about elections, it has no power to stop a disaster for them in 2026 if the pendulum swings enough. It is extremely hard to change the constitution like was done in Turkey or Hungary. It is extremely hard to remove lifetime appointment judges from the opposition administration. Executive orders are easily reversed and laws must be repealed to undo them. If laws were easy to undo the ACA would be gone by now. Just because the current administration is acting like it completed a successful coup doesn't mean that it actually has in reality. Don't take what they say to be truth, because they constantly lie. The would love for the opposition party to think that they have taken over and that there is no hope. All they've done is won one single election by very slim margins and tossed out a bunch of executive orders. The current administration loves tariffs simply because it's the most impactful lever the president can use without congressional approval besides commanding troops. The current administration literally cannot do much else in terms of lasting policy and they are too lazy and incompetent to approach congress with any actual ideas (something that the Obama and Biden administrations excelled at, e.g. the ACA and Bipartisan Infrastructure bill). The US constitutional system has survived authoritarian-minded presidents before. And of course, that's not to say the US system is perfect or even an especially fair and representative system. But it has very strong protections against permanent dictatorship or an outright coup.
- duxup 2y ago
  I think the catch is that for the GOP it's an all Trump party. If you're not with Trump you're out anyway ... so even from the start opposing Trump means your out, regardless of an election.
  - zozbot234 2y ago
    This can change very quickly, though. Everyone right now is hearing the "giant sucking sound" of the economy going down the toilet due to entirely self-inflicted damage. There's no way that the broader Republican constituency is going to ignore this fact, regardless of Trump.
    - duxup 2y ago
      I agree to some extent, but many of the independent voices in that party have been discarded in favor of others. Even in the early days of Trumps first term they struggled for weeks to shutdown Obamacare and … just gave up as they couldn’t legislate. It’s a party that by design is missing leadership.
    - hayst4ck 2y ago
      I don't really think it can. I think it's wrong to view the GOP as a party of elected officials. The GOP has elected officials, but Fox news/Rogan/etc, the Heritage Foundation, project 2025, the NRA, palantir, cambridge analyitica, twitter, Zuckerberg, bezos, and many other funded and powerful institutions are behind every individual congressperson. So you're not talking about a decision that is made individually. Republicans for all of their flaws, act with a great amount of solidarity, which is what makes them powerful, they are able to punish anyone that breaks that solidarity, and for many GOP people who are also criminals protected by their position, the punishments could even be quite severe if they forgo the protection of party by dissenting. The only meaningful act of dissent that even comes to mind was John McCain who was dying.
    - ninkendo 2y ago
      > There's no way that the broader Republican constituency is going to ignore this fact, regardless of Trump. There’s no such thing as the broader Republican Party. It’s just Trump now. It’s like when a CEO packs a board with his friends and family, you don’t expect that board to keep the CEO in check. In addition, Trump is a cult-like leader. His supporters will never, ever, ever break from him. They could lose every last penny, it wouldn’t matter. They’d blame the democrats. Trump is infallible and to question that is to attack them personally, they are unable to separate themselves from him at this point. This is not hyperbole, it is an observation of fact for the last 8 years. He has never lost supporters. Everyone that has bet on him losing support from congress or his base, has been hilariously and spectacularly wrong, every single time. (Including me… I used to be pretty hooked on Trump news in his first presidency, thinking “this will surely sink him” after every single scandal. I still want to believe it’ll happen. But I know now it never will. You can only be wrong so many times before you realize it’ll never happen.) The only realistic path to checking Trump is a massive blue wave in 2026 from pissed off (non-Trump-base) voters. But that’s 2 years away.
dumbledoren 2y ago
> China and the cultural revolution/great leap forward should be a warning of what can happen when there is no oppositional veto power. In the Angloamerican West people always bring up the Cultural Revolution as a cautionary tale, but the Cultural Revolution removed the influence and power of the old Chinese elite from the society and established the dominance of people's congresses unshakably. Despite the undesirable happenings around it, it changed China's culture fundamentally. Even the father of the current president of China was purged from power during that revolution, leading to Xi being raised as a normal person and rising to the top from the village level, like almost all of the Chinese governing cadres - ending up with the ordinary people dominating the establishment. That is why China has a lot of street sweepers, garbage men, electricians etc in their people's congress while you won't see one single person with such a job in the US Congress or even a few in the major European countries' parliaments. They are dominated by the elites from the same social circles, or in the case of various European parliaments, by hundreds of years old aristocratic families and their relatives with similar surnames. So using the Cultural Revolution as a cautionary tale for the Trump administration not only does not make sense because it's not an accurate comparison, but also the assumptions behind the usage of it as such an example are misplaced from the start.
- Kye 2y ago
  There's one bartender in the US Congress, but the point seems to hold.
- hayst4ck 2y ago
  > They are dominated by the elites from the same social circles Education is far from elite making, maybe elite in a global sense, but not elite by American standards. Being elected to a position also makes the social circle. It might surprise you that many American politicians are real people with real non aristocracy backgrounds. In physics your selection of point of origin determines your ease of calculation. You selected some kind of aristocracy/dynastic rule vs the people origin, which gives you a warped analysis because you are unable to find the root cause. If you instead choose authoritarianism and unchecked power as your point of origin, the comparison to the cultural revolution is very apt. "Ignoring experts," is also directly applicable. > In the Angloamerican West people always bring up the Cultural Revolution as a cautionary tale, Perhaps that's a lot of indication that many people see it is a relevant cautionary tail based on their own judgement. One populist man with unchecked power caused one of the worlds worst famines by denying experts and reality. That is applicable.

zozbot234 2y ago

Oppositional veto power should be coming from the Republicans in Congress right now, especially the House. And if they aren't going to do it they should all be facing primary challenges for the upcoming midterm elections.

hayst4ck 2y ago
That is literally not oppositional veto power. You're asking what is currently a one party state to disempower itself or infight. That's absurd. The problem is unchecked power. You can't expect those in power to check themselves. When there is no forceful resistance at all to obviously insane completely radical policy that experts are "confused" by, we should all be very very worried.
- zozbot234 2y ago
  The whole point is that the U.S. are far from a one party state right now. We are going to see midterm elections relatively soon, the result of which will most likely dictate the rest of Trump's presidency. If he loses his support in Congress, the potential for further damage will be checked significantly.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
    > relatively soon 2026 is a loong way off considering the pace that Trump is setting the place on fire. Yet he still has time to play golf. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-has-another-miracle-golf-victory-at-his-own-course/ https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-has-another-miracle-golf...
  - hayst4ck 2y ago
    We aren't experiencing bad policy, we are experiencing an attack on rule of law, a coup, and "a revolution that will be bloodless if the left allows it to be." Russia has elections too and you should probably think about how they are different and why they are different, and how that relates to rule of law.
    - dangus 2y ago
      The jury is still out on whether what you are saying is hyperbole. We can't assume the worst-case outcome despite the serious danger of that outcome should it occur. We definitely should think about how Russian elections are different and why they're different. For one thing, in the US the executive branch and federal government has very little control over elections by design. The current administration can say whatever it wants about elections, it has no power to stop a disaster for them in 2026 if the pendulum swings enough. It is extremely hard to change the constitution like was done in Turkey or Hungary. It is extremely hard to remove lifetime appointment judges from the opposition administration. Executive orders are easily reversed and laws must be repealed to undo them. If laws were easy to undo the ACA would be gone by now. Just because the current administration is acting like it completed a successful coup doesn't mean that it actually has in reality. Don't take what they say to be truth, because they constantly lie. The would love for the opposition party to think that they have taken over and that there is no hope. All they've done is won one single election by very slim margins and tossed out a bunch of executive orders. The current administration loves tariffs simply because it's the most impactful lever the president can use without congressional approval besides commanding troops. The current administration literally cannot do much else in terms of lasting policy and they are too lazy and incompetent to approach congress with any actual ideas (something that the Obama and Biden administrations excelled at, e.g. the ACA and Bipartisan Infrastructure bill). The US constitutional system has survived authoritarian-minded presidents before. And of course, that's not to say the US system is perfect or even an especially fair and representative system. But it has very strong protections against permanent dictatorship or an outright coup.
duxup 2y ago
I think the catch is that for the GOP it's an all Trump party. If you're not with Trump you're out anyway ... so even from the start opposing Trump means your out, regardless of an election.
- zozbot234 2y ago
  This can change very quickly, though. Everyone right now is hearing the "giant sucking sound" of the economy going down the toilet due to entirely self-inflicted damage. There's no way that the broader Republican constituency is going to ignore this fact, regardless of Trump.
  - duxup 2y ago
    I agree to some extent, but many of the independent voices in that party have been discarded in favor of others. Even in the early days of Trumps first term they struggled for weeks to shutdown Obamacare and … just gave up as they couldn’t legislate. It’s a party that by design is missing leadership.
  - hayst4ck 2y ago
    I don't really think it can. I think it's wrong to view the GOP as a party of elected officials. The GOP has elected officials, but Fox news/Rogan/etc, the Heritage Foundation, project 2025, the NRA, palantir, cambridge analyitica, twitter, Zuckerberg, bezos, and many other funded and powerful institutions are behind every individual congressperson. So you're not talking about a decision that is made individually. Republicans for all of their flaws, act with a great amount of solidarity, which is what makes them powerful, they are able to punish anyone that breaks that solidarity, and for many GOP people who are also criminals protected by their position, the punishments could even be quite severe if they forgo the protection of party by dissenting. The only meaningful act of dissent that even comes to mind was John McCain who was dying.
  - ninkendo 2y ago
    > There's no way that the broader Republican constituency is going to ignore this fact, regardless of Trump. There’s no such thing as the broader Republican Party. It’s just Trump now. It’s like when a CEO packs a board with his friends and family, you don’t expect that board to keep the CEO in check. In addition, Trump is a cult-like leader. His supporters will never, ever, ever break from him. They could lose every last penny, it wouldn’t matter. They’d blame the democrats. Trump is infallible and to question that is to attack them personally, they are unable to separate themselves from him at this point. This is not hyperbole, it is an observation of fact for the last 8 years. He has never lost supporters. Everyone that has bet on him losing support from congress or his base, has been hilariously and spectacularly wrong, every single time. (Including me… I used to be pretty hooked on Trump news in his first presidency, thinking “this will surely sink him” after every single scandal. I still want to believe it’ll happen. But I know now it never will. You can only be wrong so many times before you realize it’ll never happen.) The only realistic path to checking Trump is a massive blue wave in 2026 from pissed off (non-Trump-base) voters. But that’s 2 years away.

dumbledoren 2y ago

> China and the cultural revolution/great leap forward should be a warning of what can happen when there is no oppositional veto power. In the Angloamerican West people always bring up the Cultural Revolution as a cautionary tale, but the Cultural Revolution removed the influence and power of the old Chinese elite from the society and established the dominance of people's congresses unshakably. Despite the undesirable happenings around it, it changed China's culture fundamentally. Even the father of the current president of China was purged from power during that revolution, leading to Xi being raised as a normal person and rising to the top from the village level, like almost all of the Chinese governing cadres - ending up with the ordinary people dominating the establishment. That is why China has a lot of street sweepers, garbage men, electricians etc in their people's congress while you won't see one single person with such a job in the US Congress or even a few in the major European countries' parliaments. They are dominated by the elites from the same social circles, or in the case of various European parliaments, by hundreds of years old aristocratic families and their relatives with similar surnames. So using the Cultural Revolution as a cautionary tale for the Trump administration not only does not make sense because it's not an accurate comparison, but also the assumptions behind the usage of it as such an example are misplaced from the start.

Kye 2y ago
There's one bartender in the US Congress, but the point seems to hold.
hayst4ck 2y ago
> They are dominated by the elites from the same social circles Education is far from elite making, maybe elite in a global sense, but not elite by American standards. Being elected to a position also makes the social circle. It might surprise you that many American politicians are real people with real non aristocracy backgrounds. In physics your selection of point of origin determines your ease of calculation. You selected some kind of aristocracy/dynastic rule vs the people origin, which gives you a warped analysis because you are unable to find the root cause. If you instead choose authoritarianism and unchecked power as your point of origin, the comparison to the cultural revolution is very apt. "Ignoring experts," is also directly applicable. > In the Angloamerican West people always bring up the Cultural Revolution as a cautionary tale, Perhaps that's a lot of indication that many people see it is a relevant cautionary tail based on their own judgement. One populist man with unchecked power caused one of the worlds worst famines by denying experts and reality. That is applicable.