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Remember early in his first term when he tested waters but the governmental system pushed back and kept him in check? It feels like an out of body experience to

Remember early in his first term when he tested waters but the governmental system pushed back and kept him in check? It feels like an out of body experience to look at this and contemplate how much he’s changed about how the U.S. government conducts itself.

jayd16 10mo ago
He was rewarded with full control of every branch of government. What did we expect?
- colejhudson 10mo ago
  Through what mechanism is he controlling the other branches of government?
  - galleywest200 10mo ago
    The GOP in Congress abdicating its role and deferring to the executive, as well as SCOTUS continually using the “shadow docket” to rule in his favor with little to no explanation provided.
  - cosmicgadget 10mo ago
    Congress: anyone falling out of line will lose his support in midterms. Judiciary: appointments and ideological alignment with some of the Supreme Court. Thomas and Alito are fully controlled, Kavanaugh just loves a powerful executive, the rest aren't controlled but often in agreement. Then there's his use of executive power to punish his adversaries, e.g. Perkins Coie.
  - zaptheimpaler 10mo ago
    The question is through what mechanism are other branches curtailing his power? It seems to be limited to strongly worded letters and speeches, indignant comments and scathing news reports but nothing real.
  - vannevar 10mo ago
    Through the flawed primary system. Relatively few people vote in the primaries, which means they skew towards extremists. Trump can motivate MAGAns to vote in Republican primaries, which makes MAGA essentially a gatekeeper to Republican seats even in districts where the electorate at large is Republican rather than MAGAn. He's not directly controlling the judiciary yet, but he has appointed wildly extremist judges and threatened judges who rule against him with impeachment, so he's certainly making an effort.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - datsci_est_2015 10mo ago
    The execution of the Unitary Executive theory, a clear ideological descendant of Carl Schmitt’s Decisionism. Carl also had some beautiful prose describing the weaknesses of liberal democracy and how to exploit them that are very relevant to today as well.
- esalman 10mo ago
  And that happened even after they arrested him and tried to put him in jail. What's happening now might be shocking but not unexpected at all.
  - rjbwork 10mo ago
    >tried to put him in jail They really didn't. It was a dog and pony show under the belief that he would not make his way back into power. The dems/reps did not want to set a precedent of holding a president to account for doing terribly illegal things. They didn't intend to actually do anything to prevent this. And so here we are.
    - AnimalMuppet 10mo ago
      I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. I wonder if the Democrats didn't delay prosecution until late 2023/early 2024 in order to have it be a headwind against Trump running again. If so, they have been well-paid for that bit of "strategy". Trump was able to delay the cases long enough that the election came first, and now he has immunity at least while in office.
      - kccoder 10mo ago
        > I wonder if the Democrats didn't delay prosecution until late 2023/early 2024 in order to have it be a headwind against Trump running again. I think they didn't realize the moment the country was in. They put a judge in charge of the justice department when we needed a bull-dog prosecutor. It was a bad choice.
this_user 10mo ago
In his first term, he probably didn't yet understand how much power the office truly holds and how to wield it and just how far you can go with that. Because the main restriction on all of that power has always been convention rather than any actually robust guard rails. But no one, not even someone like Nixon, has ever dared to truly test that out.
- CodingJeebus 10mo ago
  He knew how much power he had back then. The difference was that the government bureaucracy worked hard to counter his agenda throughout his term. It’s why The Heritage Foundation came up with Project 2025: an organizated and cohesive plan to dismantle the bureaucracy and consolidate power. And it is working.
  - mikeyouse 10mo ago
    The first term laid a lot of the groundwork for this term as well - had he not appointed three SC Justices, things would look very different. This court has said basically that all executive actions including pretextual investigations via the DOJ are legal and that there is no such thing as agency independence, even when written into the laws that created the agencies.
    - zarzavat 10mo ago
      Yes, too much emphasis is put on Trump. He's just the President. This crisis has been 80 years in the making. It's the Supreme Court that has expanded the powers of the President, and previously of the Federal government, far beyond what was ever intended. By allowing the federal government to dominate the states, the Supreme Court created a position of unrivalled power. Trump may be an evil narcissist by the standards of normal people, but there's plenty of those sorts of people in politics. That's why you have a constitution.
      - JumpinJack_Cash 10mo ago
        Absolutely! The U.S. is defacto a Russia or China with a lower 'government expenditure/GDP ratio' But that is not that much of a consolation if the government is allowed to pick winners and losers for kleptocracy or there is strong central planning and oversight on what should independent institutions
epolanski 10mo ago
Trump #1 came unprepared, that hasn't repeated.
- datsci_est_2015 10mo ago
  I think it’s more like the opportunists weren’t prepared. Now they’re feasting, and Trump is easily exploited.
kemayo 10mo ago
He's also appreciably more senile now, and a common manifestation of that is lowered inhibitions. I'm not saying that Trump was great at 70, but now that he's 80 he's considerably less in control of himself. (If you doubt this, go watch some clips and compare how he talks now to how he talked during his first administration. If you were concerned about Biden's state in 2024, you should be concerned about Trump now.)

jayd16 10mo ago

He was rewarded with full control of every branch of government. What did we expect?

colejhudson 10mo ago
Through what mechanism is he controlling the other branches of government?
- galleywest200 10mo ago
  The GOP in Congress abdicating its role and deferring to the executive, as well as SCOTUS continually using the “shadow docket” to rule in his favor with little to no explanation provided.
- cosmicgadget 10mo ago
  Congress: anyone falling out of line will lose his support in midterms. Judiciary: appointments and ideological alignment with some of the Supreme Court. Thomas and Alito are fully controlled, Kavanaugh just loves a powerful executive, the rest aren't controlled but often in agreement. Then there's his use of executive power to punish his adversaries, e.g. Perkins Coie.
- zaptheimpaler 10mo ago
  The question is through what mechanism are other branches curtailing his power? It seems to be limited to strongly worded letters and speeches, indignant comments and scathing news reports but nothing real.
- vannevar 10mo ago
  Through the flawed primary system. Relatively few people vote in the primaries, which means they skew towards extremists. Trump can motivate MAGAns to vote in Republican primaries, which makes MAGA essentially a gatekeeper to Republican seats even in districts where the electorate at large is Republican rather than MAGAn. He's not directly controlling the judiciary yet, but he has appointed wildly extremist judges and threatened judges who rule against him with impeachment, so he's certainly making an effort.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- datsci_est_2015 10mo ago
  The execution of the Unitary Executive theory, a clear ideological descendant of Carl Schmitt’s Decisionism. Carl also had some beautiful prose describing the weaknesses of liberal democracy and how to exploit them that are very relevant to today as well.
esalman 10mo ago
And that happened even after they arrested him and tried to put him in jail. What's happening now might be shocking but not unexpected at all.
- rjbwork 10mo ago
  >tried to put him in jail They really didn't. It was a dog and pony show under the belief that he would not make his way back into power. The dems/reps did not want to set a precedent of holding a president to account for doing terribly illegal things. They didn't intend to actually do anything to prevent this. And so here we are.
  - AnimalMuppet 10mo ago
    I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. I wonder if the Democrats didn't delay prosecution until late 2023/early 2024 in order to have it be a headwind against Trump running again. If so, they have been well-paid for that bit of "strategy". Trump was able to delay the cases long enough that the election came first, and now he has immunity at least while in office.
    - kccoder 10mo ago
      > I wonder if the Democrats didn't delay prosecution until late 2023/early 2024 in order to have it be a headwind against Trump running again. I think they didn't realize the moment the country was in. They put a judge in charge of the justice department when we needed a bull-dog prosecutor. It was a bad choice.

this_user 10mo ago

In his first term, he probably didn't yet understand how much power the office truly holds and how to wield it and just how far you can go with that. Because the main restriction on all of that power has always been convention rather than any actually robust guard rails. But no one, not even someone like Nixon, has ever dared to truly test that out.

CodingJeebus 10mo ago
He knew how much power he had back then. The difference was that the government bureaucracy worked hard to counter his agenda throughout his term. It’s why The Heritage Foundation came up with Project 2025: an organizated and cohesive plan to dismantle the bureaucracy and consolidate power. And it is working.
- mikeyouse 10mo ago
  The first term laid a lot of the groundwork for this term as well - had he not appointed three SC Justices, things would look very different. This court has said basically that all executive actions including pretextual investigations via the DOJ are legal and that there is no such thing as agency independence, even when written into the laws that created the agencies.
  - zarzavat 10mo ago
    Yes, too much emphasis is put on Trump. He's just the President. This crisis has been 80 years in the making. It's the Supreme Court that has expanded the powers of the President, and previously of the Federal government, far beyond what was ever intended. By allowing the federal government to dominate the states, the Supreme Court created a position of unrivalled power. Trump may be an evil narcissist by the standards of normal people, but there's plenty of those sorts of people in politics. That's why you have a constitution.
    - JumpinJack_Cash 10mo ago
      Absolutely! The U.S. is defacto a Russia or China with a lower 'government expenditure/GDP ratio' But that is not that much of a consolation if the government is allowed to pick winners and losers for kleptocracy or there is strong central planning and oversight on what should independent institutions

epolanski 10mo ago

Trump #1 came unprepared, that hasn't repeated.

datsci_est_2015 10mo ago
I think it’s more like the opportunists weren’t prepared. Now they’re feasting, and Trump is easily exploited.

kemayo 10mo ago

He's also appreciably more senile now, and a common manifestation of that is lowered inhibitions. I'm not saying that Trump was great at 70, but now that he's 80 he's considerably less in control of himself. (If you doubt this, go watch some clips and compare how he talks now to how he talked during his first administration. If you were concerned about Biden's state in 2024, you should be concerned about Trump now.)