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One of the very few tech companies who have refused to bend the knee to the United States' current dictatorial government.
by LeoPanthera 1y ago
One of the very few tech companies who have refused to bend the knee to the United States' current dictatorial government.
- FortuneIIIPick 1y agoDictatorial suggests a "ruler with total power". The US has three branches of government. That hasn't changed, ever.
- vkou 1y agoTwo of them jump at the command one the other one, one out of fear (because he has ended the careers of every rep that has crossed him), and the other has been packed with life-time-appointment sycophants who put loyalty to the cut over anything else. Russia (or literally any other dictatorial tyre pyre) also has three branches of government and a token opposition, for all the good it does. Just because you have a nice piece of paper that outlines some kind of de jure separation of powers, doesn't mean shit in practice. Russia (and prior to it, the USSR) has no shortage of such pieces of paper.
- FortuneIIIPick 1y ago[flagged]
- otterley 1y agoIt’s not a fact, because it depends upon a subjective interpretation of the word “working.” Some might argue, for example, that if the President can cow Congress into subservience, then the three branches of government are no longer in balance with each other, and thus the constitution is no longer “working” as intended.
- arrozconcosas 1y agoIt can be true that the constitution is not working as intended, AND the US is a far cry from a country like Russian in terms of it operating as a constitutional republic / democracy. It is not subjective to say the US is more of a democratic country than Russia.
- otterley 1y agoI think Russia was being used as an extreme example. It wasn't being lauded as a model nation, far from it.
- curt15 1y agoMaybe not yet, but the current US president has lauded authoritarian Hungary as a model for the US.
- vkou 1y agoRome wasn't built in a day, you don't go straight from 2024 to throwing people out of windows overnight. But you get there by doing exactly what's being done on a daily basis.
- terminalshort 1y agoDepends on how he cows them into subservience. If he uses the threat of electoral defeat for opposing him, that's totally legitimate. If he uses his position as commander in chief to threaten them with force, that's different.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- otterley 1y agoIt does not matter how. The fact that he is able to do it at all illustrates a design weakness. Until recently, Presidents chose (consciously or otherwise) not to exploit that weakness. It doesn’t mean the weakness wasn’t always there.
- mrbombastic 1y agoThe power of the purse is currently being usurped by the executive branch with no pushback from a republican congress, armed forces are being deployed to American cities, media corporations are being forced to have admin installed bias police, due process is a joke, museums are being forced to remove information the admin find objectionable. You can bury your head in the sand if you like but there are plenty of us who won’t.
- chankstein38 1y agoI always think it's funny how people who have strong opinions based on nothing love to out themselves by just repeating that something is fact. clap clap We're all convinced, for sure! ;)
- otterley 1y agoIt's straight out of Charlie Kirk's playbook.
- ricardobeat 1y agoHow do you explain Trump unilaterally renaming the Ministry of Defense, without legislative approval? Is it a “working branch” if their constitutionally granted power is easily sidestepped?
- otterley 1y agoDo you mean the Department of Defense? The U.S. doesn't have ministries.
- terminalshort 1y agoI couldn't care less because it has always been and always will be the department of war whether or not the letterhead says "Department of Defense."
- nickthegreek 1y agothe dod was not officially renamed to the dow. that would take an act of congress. he gave it a secondary title.
- ricardobeat 1y agoPlaques were replaced, the secretary is now the 'Secretary of War': https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/09/08/trump-rebranded-department-of-war-aims-to-ensure-us-military-is-not-on-the-defensive_6745134_4.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/09/08/t... Sidestepping the legislative power is precisly the problem, regardless of how it's being done, isn't it? That's the whole point.
- izzydata 1y agoThe definition of dictatorial government is either a single person or a small group of people. So there being three branches of government doesn't necessarily prohibit a government from being a dictatorship if they are all working together to enact their authoritarian control without constitutional limits. But really this is just pointless semantics. It doesn't matter what it is called it is still a problem.
- PeterisP 1y agoTechnically (and legally) the USSR also had the same three branches of government; just all controlled by the same party.
- 9dev 1y agoThe Supreme Court has repeatedly and crassly decided in favor of the current administration; among their decisions one to elevate the president above the law, and a carte Blanche for gerrymandering with a footnote that that is against the spirit of democracy. The congress is dominated by the republicans, who have given up on every last shred of dignity and turned themselves into yes men that will approve anything Trump says, from a justified invasion of Greenland to how unnecessary it would be to publish the Epstein files. And the executive branch currently hunts down government employees with an unsuitable personal opinion, takes jet plane bribes from foreign leaders, and tries to eradicate slavery and the Native American genocide from museums and school books. Tell me about those three branches again. Right now, they have been perverted into a single tool to carry out the whims of an egotistic asshole backed by a powerful group of conservative activists.
- jimbo808 1y agoIt's startling how few are willing to. I'm rooting for them.
- chrsw 1y agoCan we trust this though? “Cooperate with us and we’ll leak fake stories about how frustrated we are with you as cover”. And I’m not singling out Anthropic. None of these companies or governments (i.e. people) can be trusted at face value.
- astrange 1y agoThey don't do that. They're not capable of cooperating with anyone, it's maximum punishment all the time. It's unclear if they can keep secrets either.
- TheCoelacanth 1y agoYeah, and a private capitulation doesn't accomplish their goals either. They want the spectacle of public submission.
- jschveibinz 1y ago[flagged]
- tene80i 1y agoWhich part?
- baggy_trough 1y agoI should think that it was very obvious that America does not have a dictatorial government; this is hyperbole.
- knowsuchagency 1y agoObvious only to those with their head in the sand https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/ice-racial-profiling-21045429.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/ice-ra...
- baggy_trough 1y agoICE raids do not a dictator make.
- tene80i 1y agoNo need for that. I was just asking someone to clarify what they were saying. Regardless of what you think about the government, that wasn’t a statement in the above. The statement was about tech companies. So it wasn’t clear.
- curt15 1y agoDoes threatening to prosecute office supply store workers unless they print certain flyers count as the behavior of a dictator? That doesn't sound like the behavior of a government respecting the First Amendment.
- baggy_trough 1y ago
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- arrozconcosas 1y ago[flagged]
- dcre 1y agoThe fact of being elected is not relevant to the question, and neither is the nominal existence of constitutional checks. Extrajudicial murder of alleged criminals, abuse of criminal prosecution to target political enemies, armed thugs yanking innocent people out of their cars, steamrolling firms and universities into administration-favorable policy changes and extracting hundreds of millions of dollars — and that's just the first few things I could think of. There are dozens of examples. It is not inflammatory to describe simple reality.
- dcre 1y agoNew ones every hour! TV shows preemptively taken off the air in _anticipation_ of state backlash.
- MadnessASAP 1y agoI would be hesitant to call the US democratic process "free and fair." And the powers held by the president certainly make them more dictatorial then the heads of state of other democracies, particularly as wielded by the current administration. So you have a democratic process of dubious quality that elected a government that is dictator-ish. Don't accept that your countries elections are free and fair as a axiom.
- tclancy 1y agoArguing de jure instead of de facto is fine until the reality of the de facto affects you.
- sitzkrieg 1y agobecause of this they're probably on borrowed time in this political climate