11 ms·

The US is so weird right now. You have a President who is ordering the defunding of tons of groups (universities, media, aid, institutes) while not clearly hav

• bluGill 1y ago
  Not the first time, but few people remember the trail of tears and all the things done around that back then.
• mathgeek 1y ago
  > You have a President who is ordering the defunding of tons of groups (universities, media, aid, institutes) while not clearly having that authority and often doing so for what he views as ideological crimes. It’s important to remember that while the President issues the orders, there are other actors behind the scenes writing them for him. They have goals that go beyond a single man considering ideological crimes.
  • bhouston 1y ago
    Can you explain and reference sources? Otherwise it is a pretty vague comment.
    • afavour 1y ago
      I would imagine Project 2025 is a good source here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 Every American owes it to themselves to familiarize themselves with the project and its aims, because a number of its authors are the ones wielding power right now.
      • andrewblossom 1y ago
        And a good way to keep track of their "progress" here: https://www.project2025.observer/ https://www.project2025.observer/
      • bhouston 1y ago
        Thank you!
      • rahimnathwani 1y ago
        The chapter about education is a great read.
      • vel0city 1y ago
        It's insane to me how many people argued with me that Project 2025 was democrat propaganda to smear Trump. Both online here on Hacker News and in person.
        • yks 1y ago
          DARVO in action
        • mschuster91 1y ago
          The thing is, people are expecting that campaign promises are pointless blathering. That's what led many people to believe it will be just the same this time.
          • vel0city 1y ago
            No, they were arguing these things are so obviously bad and wrong, Trump would never actually do these and these aren't his platform. They're just conspiracy theories by Democrats to slander Trump. So many people and news orgs kept repeating Trump's lies about how he doesn't know anything about Project 2025 and its totally unrelated to what he wants to do. Some examples on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41505433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41505433 > It’s “real” in the same way as Steele Dossier was real. > As far as I can tell it’s just a smear device along the lines of “when did you stop beating your wife”, or fake “dossier”, or “Russian collusion” And even if you were dumb enough to think "this is just puffery, he wouldn't do things this terrible", why are you voting for the guy arguing he's going to do terrible things?!
    • beardedwizard 1y ago
      Project 2025 would be the most obvious answer
    • justinrubek 1y ago
      How do you suppose such evidence could be procured? I understand the burden of proof in terms of claims, but this is one that is, by design, difficult to gather substantial evidence for. Particularly without legal/criminal repercussions, and that's in good times when they are at least making an attempt to follow the law.
      • ffsm8 1y ago
        Is it? I mean it wasn't a particularly spicy statement - did anyone actually think the president wrote any of the plans he's greenlighting / signing? If anything, I was kinda confused why he called that into question, the job of the president is to decide whose plan is getting executed at any given time, not actually do the planning himself
    • mbfg 1y ago
      Project 2025 is the playbook, plenty of references on line.
      • alabastervlog 1y ago
        As with the Project for a New American Century douchebags, they just straight-up told us the bad things they were going to do to the country, and now they're doing them, and people still manage to be all, "hey, where'd all this stuff come from?!". Our news media are terrible.
        • SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
          This was all widely reported, I'm not sure why you're criticizing the news media.
          • alabastervlog 1y ago
            There is no reason at all it shouldn't have been the only thing they'd bring up when talking to or about Trump during the campaign. Instead, they let "oh, yeah, never heard of it" slide.
            • SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
              I don’t agree with the premise. Should the news have refused to talk about his tariff plans or promises of personal retribution so they could reserve the space for Project 2025?
          • Sindisil 1y ago
            What was widely reported was that he disavowed Project 2025. Those denials were seldom challenged, nor were the many Heritage Foundation related people that were also in Trump's inner circles reported upon in any critical way.
    • mikepurvis 1y ago
      Mass deportations was right there in Project 2025, the "plan" about which Trump claimed to have no knowledge during the campaign: https://www.aclu.org/project-2025-explained https://www.aclu.org/project-2025-explained Dude can barely string two sentences together— can't tell when a photo has been annotated and has no idea what Signal is. Thinks "groceries" is an old-fashioned word. It's pretty clear at this point that it's others behind the curtain running this show.
      • Brohampton 1y ago
        By that logic wouldn't any of the presidents since Regan be fulfilling project 2025s "Mass deportations". Trump admin is behind even the previous admins total deportations at this point in the term. And they're being extremely lenient to businesses who hire illegal immigrants (which breaks the law) and even encouraging it.
      • wing-_-nuts 1y ago
        >It's pretty clear at this point that it's others behind the curtain running this show. Honestly, the fact that he's now surrounded on all sides by Curtis Yarvin acolytes should have us deeply concerned. I fear someone with that ideology who's maliciously competent coming to power.
      • ecocentrik 1y ago
        > It's pretty clear at this point that it's others behind the curtain running this show. It doesn't matter who else is running the show in his name in the same way that it didn't matter who else was running the Biden administration. He's more than just culpable by association. Stop trying to infantilize the man. He's old but he's nowhere a stupid as everyone makes him out to be. He is callous and vindictive and expects loyalty in all things. He hates all forms of liberalism including the Republican ideals of liberal democracy and believes himself to be above the law. It's his administration, even if he doesn't seem to know about or even care about all the details.
        • mikepurvis 1y ago
          Oh for sure, I don't think any of this lets him off the hook; the concern is more that the movement is significantly greater than just him. When he's out of the picture there's a whole machine ready to slot in the next guy and keep on the agenda.
    • SirFatty 1y ago
      It's not at all vague, unless you haven't been paying attention. Project 2025, for example.
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      • DonHopkins 1y ago
        They're fully aware of Project 2025 because they have been paying 100% full attention to people like Trump who have been claiming they never heard of it and that it was Democratic propaganda. So they know exactly what it is because we told them so, we told them so, we told them so, we told them so, and we told them so again and again, and every time they just denied it harder and harder. Now they're pretending they are surprised and never heard of it either.
  • Workaccount2 1y ago
    I'm pretty sure with Trump this time around it is much less the case. In his first admin there are endless stories of the "Adults" in the room keeping him in check. This time around he was sure to only fill his cabinet with yes men, so no one could keep him reigned in.
    • thesurlydev 1y ago
      My thoughts exactly and it makes me truly terrified.
    • agloe_dreams 1y ago
      Heh...it is so much worse than that. Trump has no idea what he is doing, it has been very clear in interviews. In the first admin, it was the adults in the room, the thing is, it's not yes men this time...it's the villians in the room. Trump is being handed EOs that he doesn't have a clue about. For all the talk about P2025 and denial of any relation to it, they have done roughly 50% of the actions in the project already with more on the way. ~2/3rds of all his EOs have been in the plan. Virtually everyone related to the project is now in the admin - the head of the FCC literally wrote the 'FCC' section and boy is it an attack on everything the EFF holds dear. I think what is notable is that it seems to have gotten more bold - the plan called for reducing USAID, not killing it for example. And Yes, page 246, killing funding for PBS.
      • dgreensp 1y ago
        Exactly. Trump is practically illiterate and is being handed things to sign. His original ideas that were pushed back on by his advisors in his first term were a different sort of idea, things like, "Why can't we just force that country to do what we want, we're the USA, we're the most powerful, we could just bomb them."
        • ta1243 1y ago
          For those downvoting you for saying Trump is practically illiterate Here he is asking the UK prime minister to read out a letter he'd been sent https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yxxpxe5qko https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yxxpxe5qko
  • whoknew1122 1y ago
    I'm not sure how important that is to remember. The president is issuing the orders. The president is chief executive of the country. The president can't pawn off responsibility to some White House staffer or think tank. An executive order is the president's order. Is it useful to look at the people who wrote or lobbied for the order? Perhaps if you want to want to understand the context of an order. But none of that context mitigates the president's responsibility for any order. At the end of the day, it is a single person exercising their sole authority to issue executive orders.
    • alickz 1y ago
      Cutting one branch off the poisonous tree won't do much, even if it is the biggest, even if it's the trunk Needs to be taken up at the root
    • great_wubwub 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • scarby2 1y ago
        > the enablers and puppet masters are already planning and laying groundwork for when Cheeto Jesus drops dead. We've already lost the battle, let's not lose the war. Their success in some way is tied to trump right now. Nobody else seems to captivate his base in the same way, and they've made most of this about a man and less about a movement. So it's entirely possible this dies when he does.
        • ta1243 1y ago
          Depends how the next generation of MAGAs works. The republican party is full of them who are backing Trump all the way. The only opposition seem to be bond traders. The great thing about wannabe dictators is they don't allow the new generation the space to grow and take over, so there's no clear line of succession (Vance doesn't have it yet) But the democrats seem completely at a loss, and the mid terms are only 18 months away.
      • 1y ago
  • vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
    "It’s important to remember that while the President issues the orders, there are other actors behind the scenes writing them for him. They have goals that go beyond a single man considering ideological crimes." All dictators/authoritarians have a whole layer of very capable people under them that will implement orders from above without thinking about ethics or morality. But they will do a good job. Hitler had people like Himmler and Speer, Stalin had Beriya and many others (don't know names). The interesting thing is that these people will also do well in democracies. A lot of ex-nazis in Germany turned into good democratic people (example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Filbinger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Filbinger). You also have these people in companies where for example layoffs are done in the most humiliating way.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  • HistoryLogs 1y ago
    I've seen many people draw a comparison between Trump and Hitler (because of course - people compare everybody to Hitler). But what I don't think people remember is that a guy like Hitler didn't just show up and "make a dictatorship". He was an opportunistic guy who showed up when Germany's democratic, constitutional republic was weakened by a poorly-functioning congress, and most of the actual power was concentrated in the executive branch. When the time came, Hitler wasn't the one who passed the Reichstag Fire Decree allowing him to suspend the freedom of the press and jail his political opposition. That law was passed by president Hindenburg. Hitler didn't create a dictatorship. He was handed one on a silver platter - by an ailing 85 year old man with too much power.
• wffurr 1y ago
  How do the courts enforce their rulings if the executive branch is wholly beholden to the president? It’s already a big problem for the DoJ. See https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-situation--formalist-delusions-confront-lawless-realities https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-situation--formalis...
  • mmastrac 1y ago
    I guess this is why it's called a constitutional crisis and not a constitutional opportunity
  • ty6853 1y ago
    Even judge Xinis [kilmar garcia] was talking a big game, but then folded after promising 'expedited discovery' and the consideration of contempt. She delays week after week and grants the executive the right to hide under the shadows under seal so the public can't know what's happening, even though prior she bragged about forcing them to file these updates with the public. The court folds and folds when they realize they can't actually impose what they ordered. I am taking note. The executive definitely is taking note -- Marc Rubio on live TV angrily taunted the judge.
    • alabastervlog 1y ago
      Some folks speculate that this judge in particular has realized she's either got to keep permitting delays and obvious shenanigans, or she gets to go into the history books as the judge whose case was the breaking point at which the executive went completely, mask-off lawless. Folks suppose she'd prefer someone else get that honor, so is hoping to let the government delay long enough that the case is mooted (because the dude's dead) or another case gets to that point first.
      • pjc50 1y ago
        It's a very dangerous game, and she is therefore playing only the safest possible moves with the smallest possible escalation at any point. Perhaps it eventually ends in gunfire, but giving the government hundreds of opportunities to back down before then is safer. Each individual step by the judge has to appear as reasonable as possible so as not to be over-ruled by SCOTUS.
• laborcontract 1y ago
  All the while, I don't think I've ever loved our country as much as now because I think this is a time where our system of checks and balances can come to shine. I do hope this experience will lead to people re-evaluating their love of FDR. You can like what he stood for, but he was an equal if not (much) greater abuser of the executive office.
  • mcpeepants 1y ago
    > this is a time where our system of checks and balances can come to shine why do you think that, all things considered?
    • laborcontract 1y ago
      Because we've seen federal courts unafraid to repudiate unilateral executive force. Why don't you think that, all things considered?
      • ziddoap 1y ago
        Hasn't Trump already ignored orders from the supreme court regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia? "Judge scorches Trump admin for stonewalling in Abrego Garcia deportation case" is just one recent headline. From my outside perspective, your checks and balances do not appear to be working. If they do work, I can't help but wonder what is taking so long.
        • laborcontract 1y ago
          would you prefer what’s happening in brazil? there are cases where the president has made the lives of individuals miserable in every presidency we’ve lived through. Stating that this is a terrible fact of life and doesn’t justify the harms. what kind of powers do you envision the judiciary having to rectify these wrongs?
          • ziddoap 1y ago
• netsharc 1y ago
  The executive branch has ignored the courts a few times, basically saying "What are you going to do about it?". I feel like it has to lead to a standoff of some group with guns saying they're following the courts/defending the constitution against another group with guns saying they're following the orders of the president (just like those Nazis who were "just following orders"). I need to print t-shirts with "Is it a coup d'etat yet?" to sell to the onlookers when this happens (in theory I could start selling these now).
  • lazide 1y ago
    One of the first orders of business was asserting the executive branch (really the white house) was the final authority for the executive branch on what a court order or court ruling ‘means’. He just has to say ‘nuh uh’, and as long as people want their jobs, that’s it.
    • chii 1y ago
      > and as long as people want their jobs so it comes to this, where people would have to take a stance, and it requires personal sacrifice on the part of those taking a stance. However, that is what it means to serve.
      • rescripting 1y ago
        The idea of “checks and balances” is that systems have the strength to counteract systems. Individuals attempting to counteract systems is a much, much taller order. People are multifaceted, and those that dissent can be replaced nearly instantly with someone who won’t. I’m not saying it’s pointless, and individuals asked to do horrible things should do nothing, but it’s much much harder to resist on an individual level than to rely on the leverage that counteracting systems can provide. Unfortunately these checks and balances have been eroded to the point where they are no longer effective.
        • lazide 1y ago
          The idea of the 3 branches is that there are systemic incentives for ‘bad people’ (which is a fundamental normal state, btw) to have incentives to screw up the bad people in the other branches. Not that ‘good people’ (an idea which most of the founding fathers would have considered a naive fantasy) would use it to save everyone. They are supposed to be 3 selfish pillars fighting each other to what is likely an actually reasonable state, not 1 or 2 pillars of ‘hero’s’ fighting evil. Which notably, presenting the executive as the ‘hero’ here is exactly what Trump is trying to do to squash what limited resistance he is getting.
• hypeatei 1y ago
  > Right now I have some faith the courts in the US will stand up to this I think "the guardrails will hold" thinking is flawed when you have someone who is willing to completely side step the system and push the limits. We're not actually sure what holding someone from this administration in contempt even looks like functionally since U.S. marshals are under the DOJ.
  • cyanydeez 1y ago
    Not just one person, congress and a lot of the judicial system. This isn't a one person problem. Not even close. Same way Nazis werent just a "one person" problem.
  • gwd 1y ago
    I think the guardrails were designed to hold someone like Trump once; and then afterwards he was supposed to be convicted of his crimes, or at least never elected again. The guardrails are fundamentally held in place by hundreds of thousands of individuals making individual decisions. People who are asked to break the law can expect that in a few years they'll be vindicated, or at least fear that in a few years they would be punished for going along with the illegal orders. I'm much more worried about the guardrails when people like that get re-elected: suddenly going along with the illegal action is by far the safest thing to do.
    • pjc50 1y ago
      The "original sin" of the founders was accepting the slave states. That embedded the hypocrisy that freedom was only for some people. The constitution proofed against an individual trying to seize power pretty well. It's difficult for a random Army officer or religious leader to catapult himself into a dictator position. But what it does not and cannot prevent against is determined tyranny of the majority.
      • Der_Einzige 1y ago
        There were "actually good" founding fathers who were vehemently anti-slavery and even non racist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine being the most famous example. Unfortunately, they are kept as relative footnotes in history, due to their subversive economic messaging. The intellectual foundations of Thomas Paine run through the thinking of Henry George and Andrew Yang, among many others. All listed figures are basically footnotes in the dustbin of history - and humanity will pay a dear cost for ignoring their voices.
• nashashmi 1y ago
  The stalwarts have died and moved on. The weaklings are promoted. And they are buttering the president with accolades to keep him from screaming. In psych, we call this “fawning”. It is a sister to fight or flight response. But once you stop fawning, you get fired or killed.
• josefritzishere 1y ago
  I find that many of us, somewhat passively, including myself, have been using the term "strange" to describe the American poltitical situation. I think this is to avoid using more charged political terms that are actaully more accurate like fascist, authoritarian, dictator... These are dictionary words which are increasingly apropos.
  • esafak 1y ago
    As long as they don't start proudly calling themselves that...
    • ceejayoz 1y ago
      Oh, we've been there for a while. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cpac-banner-domestic-terrorists/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cpac-banner-domestic-terro...
  • xienze 1y ago
    > I think this is to avoid using more charged political terms that are actaully more accurate like fascist, authoritarian, dictator Because those words have been overused to the point of no one caring anymore. For those too young to remember, George W. Bush was _also_ called “literally Hitler”, a fascist, dumbest man alive, you name it. The left’s go-to of labeling every single Republican “Nazi” for decades is partially to blame here.
    • kbelder 1y ago
      This is true, but attacks on the democratic presidents have been just as moronic.
      • lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
        This is moot to the boy-who-cried-wolf point; the thoughtfulness of criticism towards Republicans doesn't matter right now because criticism towards them in the past has been sufficiently thoughtless. There is a lesson to be learned there.
• arcbyte 1y ago
  I say this as a firm conservative. The courts have so far been outstanding, despite all the inappropriate pressure. I have no doubt they will continue to be. I'm also quite impressed with conservative voters who are speaking out to their conservative representatives. Ultimately though, despite many many calls not to do so, Congress has goven the executive branch unheard of powers. Executive power needs to be reigned in tightly and then Congressional power needs to reigned in as well. We need to push for Federalism.
  • bix6 1y ago
    [flagged]
  • cyberlurker 1y ago
    Could you share what the courts have done? What I’ve witnessed is cowardice to hold officials accountable or in contempt for unconstitutional acts.
    • throwawaymaths 1y ago
      the scotus (and, notably, conservative lower federal judges) has ruled pretty firmly against trump on the abrego garcia case.
      • vel0city 1y ago
        I'm sure Abrego Garcia is comforted by hearing they wrote some words on some paper while he's illegally in a foreign prison.
      • ziddoap 1y ago
        Notably, those rulings have been ignored so far.
        • throwawaymaths 1y ago
          no doubt that is a problem.
• campbel 1y ago
  "Strange" times is a bit of an understatement.
• TwoNineA 1y ago
  Not weird. It's textbook fascism.
  • adriand 1y ago
    That's exactly right. The problem with the public broadcasters is not that they are regime media, it's that they are not. Put another way, the problem is that they tell the truth. Fox News, on the other hand, is very much regime media, and constantly peddles lies. Therefore, Trump is not attacking them. This particular move is part of the broader campaign to destroy the independent media, which as you pointed out, is textbook fascism.
  • stackbutterflow 1y ago
    It's hard for people to accept it because it raises new questions about the reaction to adopt. If it's true then you know you should resist or you're complicit. A lot ot of 20/30/40 something Americans are going to have very difficult conversations with the new generations in 30+ years.
    • wing-_-nuts 1y ago
      >If it's true then you know you should resist or you're complicit. Resist how exactly? Protest? We're already protesting. They're barely being covered in the news. Armed resistance? Yeah that's gonna work out so well against a militarized police state. Look through history, from the fall of rome to wwII, and those that came out best during those crises had the good sense to flee to somewhere better.
      • stackbutterflow 1y ago
        Educating yourself on resistance. Reading books about it. Talk to neighbors. Buy weapons and ammo. Be ready. Have difficult conversations with yourself about what you're ready to do. Have the same conversations with your partner. With your family, friends, neighbors who you know are also against this.
        • 1y ago
• cyanydeez 1y ago
  there's no saving grace here until rubber meets the road and ICE, among others, start being arrested. Otherwise, it's just a lot of harms being created and not resolving to anyones benefit. This is accelerationist entropy not being stopped but slowed. It's like saying, we're only going to give you one paper cut per day.
  • alabastervlog 1y ago
    The structural problems that got us here, like our system of elections, a Supreme Court that's got at least a couple members that are obviously being bought and seeing no consequences for it, the courts cutting off the possibility of curtailing or even tracking private cash in elections, and right-wing radicalization pipelines via engagement-focused feed "algorithms", are none of them likely to be addressed even in the most optimistic scenarios. I think when Trump suggested at a rally that his supporters could shoot his opponent if she won, and that didn't immediately end his political career, we were in new and extremely dangerous territory to a degree that most failed to appreciate. Nothing short of fixing the structural problems above will get us out of it. If Trump doesn't manage a fascist takeover, we're just buying time for the next person who tries. Under the current culture and legal circumstances, one can clearly run and govern as a fascist and still see significant support.
    • chii 1y ago
      > I think when Trump suggested at a rally that his supporters could shoot his opponent if she won, and that didn't immediately end his political career that reminds me of the scene from Batman Begins, where falcone says he could shoot someone, and the some off duty cop sitting near him at the restaurant would not have batted an eye: https://youtu.be/4DjGB-wPGkc?t=25 https://youtu.be/4DjGB-wPGkc?t=25 does art imitate life, or life art?
• andrewl 1y ago
  Weird is not the term for it. I'd say suspension of due process is terrifying.
  • voakbasda 1y ago
    I have been saying for decades that the most active terrorist organization in the United States is… the US government.
    • sorcerer-mar 1y ago
      Great, you're part of the problem.
      • jeffbee 1y ago
        10000000% The people who are out here saying "totalitarianism was the inevitable consequence of federal standards for feces in bologna" are exactly the problem in America today.
    • jimbokun 1y ago
      That's just dumb. Authoritarian governments and terrorist organizations are not the same thing.
      • int_19h 1y ago
        Sometimes they are. E.g. Hamas is both the authoritarian government of Gaza and the terrorist organization.
    • pjc50 1y ago
      One of those cases where it's very, very important the "the government" isn't a unified block, but a collection of a very large number of staff spread across a very large number of organizations. Only some of which have gone rogue.
  • ta1243 1y ago
    It's happened before, both recently (since 2001), but Executive Order 9066 happened over 80 years ago, in the 19th century the US literally passed a Habeas Corpus Suspension Act. America puts too much faith in its courts and constitution.
• footlose_3815 1y ago
  Ramping-up authoritarianism. Since he had a whole party who was shielding him from every single law he broke, even up to corrupting the supreme court. He's now completely unfettered. As far as I'm concerned, his actions frequently have no legitimacy, and he's too shortsighted that he wouldn't expect the same treatment when he leaves office if democrats grew spines. The 2026 midterms will be essential in checking his power.
  • nemomarx 1y ago
    Do you expect free and fair elections in 2026?
    • chii 1y ago
      i do, and i expect the gun toting NRA people to actually enforce elections, if there's even a whiff of trying to maintain power. Otherwise, they'd be gun toting hypocrites.
      • testing22321 1y ago
        No they won’t be hypocrites for doing nothing, they’re standing by while their team wins. Carrying loads of guns is a good way to make sure that happens.
      • int_19h 1y ago
        You mean the same guys who do shit like this? https://www.wired.com/story/antifa-social-media-rumor-forks-washington/ https://www.wired.com/story/antifa-social-media-rumor-forks-...
    • SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
      Yes. It's structurally hard for the federal government to subvert elections since they're run by the states, and Trump hasn't historically shown any interest in doing so for elections he's not personally a candidate in. Musk's trial balloon for stochastic electoral bribery didn't work.
• lazide 1y ago
  If you know history, it’s not weird at all. This is literally the way fascism happens.
• afavour 1y ago
  > Right now I have some faith the courts in the US will stand up to this and get the US back on track I don't mean to sound hysterical but I don't share your faith for two main reasons: - my faith in the Supreme Court diminishes with every year. It is clear a majority are far more motivated by ideology than a straightforward reading of the law - Trump can just ignore the courts. We're not there yet but all signs show we're going in that direction. The end point of that trajectory is the involvement of the police and/or the military. I really, really hope we don't go there.
  • shadowgovt 1y ago
    The Courts have no enforcement power. If the Executive proves unwilling to accede to court orders, the Courts don't have the legal ability to use violence to compel the Executive. At that point, it comes down to whether Congress will impeach and remove. If Congress will not impeach and remove, the Courts are defanged and we functionally have (at least) four years of Executive rule with no legal check on that authority. If Congress will impeach and remove, it comes down to whether the Executive complies. If the Executive does not comply... ... the point is, a lot in the American system actually hinges on the Executive's consent. And the man in the chair right now has no incentive to consent (he knows the moment the chair is no longer his, the weight of the American legal system will come down on his head and he'll at least spend the rest of his life in court cases if not incarcerated. Multiple states want his ass on a platter for crimes in their jurisdictions outside of his function as President). It's a very dangerous time for the American Experiment, existentially.
    • chii 1y ago
      > Multiple states want his ass on a platter for crimes in their jurisdictions outside of his function as President if this were truly the case, then the orange man will fight to remain in power indefinitely. There should and need to be a civil war 2.0 if this happens - lest the bastion of western democracy falls (and it will, if that comes to pass). Then china is the least of the USA's problems. But perhaps this is the engineered outcome desired by russia, if you would believe the conspiracy theory that trump is a foreign asset.
• morkalork 1y ago
  Looks dicey: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-attorney-general-bondi-tells-fox-news-many-judges-need-be-removed-2025-03-27/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-attorney-general-bondi-t... https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/white-houses-leavitt-hedges-possible-arrests-high-level-judges-rcna203470 https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/white-ho...
• howard941 1y ago
  The courts aren't going to save us. No one is going to save us.
  • thesuperbigfrog 1y ago
    >> The courts aren't going to save us. No one is going to save us. We must save ourselves. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." [1] Freedom is not free. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/edmund-burke-did-not-say-evil-triumphs-when-good-men-do-nothing-idUSL1N2PG1EY/ https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/edmund-burke-did-...
  • int_19h 1y ago
    At some point, liberals need to remember that violence intrinsically underpins all political power, and if you're unable or unwilling to engage in it in any circumstances whatsoever, all the power that you think you have will be taken away from you.
• dragonwriter 1y ago
  > Right now I have some faith the courts in the US will stand up to this and get the US back on track You should not. The courts are doing a reasonable approximation of their job, but have no independent enforcement power against the executive and the executive is not being particularly fastidious about compliance with court orders, and there seems to be no willingness either for lower executive officers to comply regardless of direction from above or for Congress to force accountability.
• dfxm12 1y ago
  Right now I have some faith the courts Too many judges have the same Federalist Society/Heritage Foundation ideology around expanding federal power. We've also seen the Trump admin drag its feet around complying with or outright ignore court orders.
• dboreham 1y ago
  There's a bug in the US system to do with having a crazy person elected president but congress people either like the crazy he's doing or afraid of his brownshirts.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• yubblegum 1y ago
  > The US is so weird right now. The weirdness started in 90s. First it was cultural (TV in 90s, Jerry Springer et al). Then it was electoral (hanging Chads anyone?). Then it was constitutional (Patriot Act). Then it was psychological (all those spooks running various "alt" Q etc.). And now it is lobotomy time. Took almost 3 decades but here we are.
  • ncr100 1y ago
    I speculate it started in the 1950s. There was a move to make Business about numbers over People, per my Grandpa's "Back In My Day" speeches he used to give me. He blamed the MBA (no offense to MBAs) for encouraging money-over-people thinking. This then leads to GOP appearing to value winning political power for itself over building a healthy society, in my view.
    • ta1243 1y ago
      Probably around the time your Gradpa started paying attention (post ww2). The 1920s and the great depression were hardly non-weird times.
      • ncr100 1y ago
        Ya possibly! He and rest of my family of that era were deeply impacted by racism, ideological weirdness as you put it. Immigrants, refugees. Makes me sick seeing what the GOP and their racist base are doing today. Wishing I had the balls to join in some legal actions against those turkeys.
    • axus 1y ago
      The GOP voters (and maybe even the politicians!) have a different view of what a healthy society requires. Supposedly keeping womens' sports genetically pure, punishing pro-Palestinian speech, and deporting lots of people is very important for a healthy society, and justifies their behavior.
  • bhouston 1y ago
    > The weirdness started in 90s. I think this is mostly just an artifact of when you starting paying attention in your life, discounting what happened before, you are likely around 50 years old. Remember there was the Vietnam war casus belli that was faked, the student protests and shootings, and Nixon spying on his opponents and before that there was the red scare, the Hollywood black list and segregation in the South. I think weaving together complex set of events like this is too much like the mistake people make in a lot of "evolutionary just so" stories. The degrees of freedom are too large and it is hard to establish true causality in a realm of potentially infinite causal links just by conjecture. I think it is easier and more productive frankly to see what levers and pressures one had right now on the government and then try to influence those. I think government is always in tension between opposing forces and you'll align with some and against others depending on your background, disposition, position in society and your particular perspective of kinship.
• unistudent2025 1y ago
  ))) for what he views as ideological crimes. The vastly provided rationale for all shutdowns is combatting anti-semitism, not any vague "ideological crime." However, the definition of anti-semitism has now expanded so much that even advocating for food for the hungry, DEI, anything, is all somehow anti-semitic
• exmicrosoldier 1y ago
  The distributed system can only handle one point of failure, and two have failed. The leader is net split and doesn't care about most of the cluster and the "zookeeper" is happy with the leader. If the zookeeper doesn't select a new leader the cluster is going to stay in this state.
• sofixa 1y ago
  > Right now I have some faith the courts in the US will stand up to this and get the US back on track but I worry that dam may not hold forever. He and his administration already ignored a Supreme court ruling, so I wouldn't hold my breath.
  • giardini 1y ago
    Just like President Lincoln who pretty much did as he pleased: https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=lincoln%27s+abuse+of+executive+power https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=lin...
• mh8h 1y ago
  Theoretical question: what happens if he doesn’t do what the courts order, and the congress is too afraid to impeach him?
  • neogodless 1y ago
    Is it a theoretical question? This is no longer a representative democracy, but an autocracy.
  • sorcerer-mar 1y ago
    Courts can deputize other people to enforce their orders
    • timbit42 1y ago
      Do you think that will happen? Any idea how long?
      • sorcerer-mar 1y ago
        I think if this happens it would be well after shit has very visibly hit the fan. I.e. when militias take up arms by themselves, perhaps a court would “authorize” their actions with something like this. I don’t think any judge will voluntarily be the spark that ignites a civil war
  • CodeMage 1y ago
    What happens? This. This happens, the things we're seeing. He's already defying multiple court orders and the Congress is not impeaching him. Oh, some of the politicians are introducing articles of impeachment, but you can see quite clearly that this won't go anywhere.
• softwaredoug 1y ago
  The current administration is politically powerful in one sense, they're also not particularly adept, making them increasingly unpopular and hardening others against them. For example, they if they were reliable negotiators they could be leveraging power to get historic wins over how Universities are structured. But because they're not reliable negotiators, these universities have to fight like cornered animals. Similarly, deporting people with the Alien Enemies Act might have snuck by a conservative supreme court. But the administration seems completely unwilling to show that there is room for remediating mistakes. They've annoyed even conservative Supreme Court members who don't seem eager to support the power grab. If they were smart they'd also be doing things that made the economy strong, not intentionally harming people and creating a fairly universal thing to bitch and moan about - tariffs/high prices. On the one sense GOP has had a strong negotiating position historically, as they're the party willing to burn it all down. But eventually you get to a point of unreliability as negotiating partner, that there's no appeasement to be had, and you have to go all in on opposing them.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• mattmaroon 1y ago
  The design of the system is such that there are several dams so any particular one doesn’t need to hold forever. It’ll hold for a few years, but not a few decades, and hopefully the flood will recede.
• sandworm101 1y ago
  >> The US is so weird right now. But it really isn't. It is odd compared to living memory, but across the centuries this sort of things has happened many times. We had similar discussions after 9/11 (deportations/torture/limitations on rights). A little further back there was the red panic of the cold war. All the nixon-watergate-vietnam stuff. Before that, all the nasty things done to various peoples during WWII. Today seems shocking but is actually rather normal historically. The US moves in and out of authoritarianism regularly. And every time, everyone thinks "this time is different" when it really isn't.
• rs999gti 1y ago
  > You have a President who is ordering the defunding of tons of groups (universities, media, aid, institutes) while not clearly having that authority You have to read into this line from the article: > Congress directly authorized and funded CPB He may not have the authority, but his influence over certain congress people and CPB board members can get the process moving. Also, I have always wondered why CPB cannot just cut federal ties and become a sponsored non-profit? During all shows you always hear or see that they are sponsored or have grants from major Fortune 500s, private families, and other institutions. Also, whenever this defund topic comes up, CPB always says, "we receive very little from the fed, so our funding is not much and can be ignored." Well now is the time to put up and split from the US federal government officially. https://www.propublica.org/article/big-bird-debate-how-much-does-federal-funding-matter-to-public-broadcasting#:~:text=The%20Corporation%20for%20Public%20Broadcasting%2C%20the%20entity,$445%20million%20over%20the%20next%20two%20years. https://www.propublica.org/article/big-bird-debate-how-much-...
• throwanem 1y ago
  The term is "checks and balances." They never function in ideal fashion, but they have failed us badly enough in the past to spill a million gallons of our own blood. I am nowhere near prepared to say they have finally failed us now; for any American so to assume is defeatism, and so to behave is culpable cowardice.
• insane_dreamer 1y ago
  > I have some faith the courts in the US will stand up to this The courts have no recourse if Trump decides to ignore them, as he already has.
• siilats 1y ago
  The anti trump money groups have infiltrated HN or you really think the government today should be spending money on CBS?
  • tomhow 1y ago
    Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• giardini 1y ago
  bhouston says ">Saving grace is that his is not widely popular...<" Ummmm, he was elected President in a resounding defeat for Democrats. And if the election were held today the results would be the same or even worse for Democrats: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2024-11-06/trump-defeats-harris-47th-president-election-2024 https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2024-11-06/trump-defe... "Trump trounced Harris in all the “blue wall” and Southern battleground states and maintained leads in Arizona and Nevada, prompting a torrent of anguish among Democrats. " Today we continue to hear the "torrent of anguish among Democrats", who spout the same solutions they did preelection. Sad!
• TeeMassive 1y ago
  > The US is so weird right now. You think the US is weird? Wait until you hear about what Lincoln did in his time, ha! Even weirder than that thing about committing high treason to create a kingless country with a sovereign elected by the gentile masses of all people! And all that just for "unjust" taxes for wars made and won in their own territories, tsk. There's a good reason why they call it the American "experiment"; because experiments are weird. > You have a President who is ordering the defunding of tons of groups (universities, media, aid, institutes) while not clearly having that authority and often doing so for what he views as ideological crimes. > Also arresting and trying to deport people for things that are not clearly crimes (newspaper op-eds, etc) and without due process. But in all seriousness, I don't see how the end of funding is weirder than the end of it, especially given the history of the the country. I don't see how the status quo is somehow more legitimate. The President is the only elected official of the government. Congress passes laws, and the judiciary can only issue judgements and have no power over the purse nor the sword. The president has the authority to decide where the money goes and how it is attributed and how the laws are executed. The same goes for the non-citizens who reside in the US under the privilege of a visa or other executive permissions; the legal precedents about this are quite clear that the President has broad authority to decide who gets to stay or not. "Due process" defers to the question to which process is due, in the case of illegal aliens there is none except what the executive decide what is due, except for the determination of the illegal alien status in itself.