4 ms·

The interesting bit to me is that everybody just plays along. Rather than that he gets thrown off his perch and replaced by someone sane. Trump is an idiot, no

The interesting bit to me is that everybody just plays along. Rather than that he gets thrown off his perch and replaced by someone sane. Trump is an idiot, no doubt about it. But all those that voted for him and that continue to enable him are the bigger idiots, and if they're not idiots they are probably hoping to profit from the chaos he's creating. That's because chaos is a good time to do some grabbing. You could see this during the downfall of the former Soviet Union, which in spite of being dirt poor still made a handful of families obscenely wealthy. Now imagine being able to do a similar resource grab on the scale of the modern United States. Trump 1, COVID, Trump 2, the Russian war on Ukraine, AI and a couple of more wars... It's a miracle things haven't gone further down - yet. But I'm really wondering how long our social constructs will be able to withstand this kind of concerted assault.

xg15 6mo ago
> Trump is an idiot, no doubt about it. But all those that voted for him and that continue to enable him are the bigger idiots, and if they're not idiots they are probably hoping to profit from the chaos he's creating. For all the assurances that the US military is an army with the ultimate task to protect the Constitution and bound to democratic principles, they sure seem to view the Commander in Chief as the sole authority, even if his orders are evidently illegal or undermine the democratic system (because Congress was bypassed). As the war is currently going, I'd have expected at least some generals or officers to refuse orders, not because they suddenly switched sides, but simply because the orders are not democratically legitimized anymore. But nothing like this seems to have happened so far. (Not even starting with ICE...)
- jacquesm 6mo ago
  Oh, I think that has definitely happened. A lot of very high placed career military have been fired recently and even if they're not saying much the fact that it happened speaks volumes. These were people with decades of service. I think at least some fraction of those firings was because of refusal to carry out certain orders. What they should do is speak out, but possibly their future income depends on not speaking out.
- jaldhar 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - mindslight 6mo ago
    Their methods are not a motte and bailey, but rather a fundamental demonstration about how they've been put above straightforward Constitutional law. When I see the thugs who murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti behind bars, then I will start entertaining the idea any of this is about immigration enforcement.
    - jaldhar 6mo ago
      [flagged]
      - mindslight 6mo ago
        I'm not questioning the validity of what they're claiming to police, I'm questioning why the overt capital criminality we do know about has gone unprosecuted and unpunished. If a city only had one murder in a whole year, and they knew who the perp was but refused to arrest and prosecute, would you call that sensible policy?
- ckemere 6mo ago
  I think that there are stories but unreported for good reason. I heard from a pastor friend that he showed up to a house where one of his congregants was inside (with ICE outside), and basically asked them for mercy, and the supervisor was like “Actually, there is lightning in the area so we’ll need to go away but we will come back later.” So not complete rebellion, but a little bit of humanity. Viktor Frankl talks about how there were some “good” guards at the concentration camp.
jaldhar 6mo ago
[flagged]
- xg15 6mo ago
  European here, so I can only judge this from afar, but "Autopen" wasn't even an option anymore. And by now, honestly, Harris looks like she'd have been the WAY saner option. (And, the US being the US, the choice of the President has direct consequences for the rest of the world - so from the PoV of European interests, Harris would definitely have been the better choice) But yeah, the underlying problem seems to be the electoral system and the general undermining of democratic structures that already started way before Trump. An election in which there are only two (practical) choices, one of them openly insane, is not a useful election anymore.
  - jaldhar 6mo ago
    Isn’t expecting American voters to worry about the consequences to Europe also an erosion of democracy? MAGA is just the latest incarnation of a deep isolationist trend in American politics that goes back to the WW1 era at least. The Western project was an elite one and now the elite is discredited by both the Right and Left. As I mentioned before, I live in a blue state and most people I know voted for Harris. But I would say 9 out of 10 did because they felt they had to not because they wanted to. The governing structure of the Democratic party has not changed and still favors identity over mundane factors like competence or electability. And Europes needs are not high in the priorities of American identity politics sorry.
    - mindslight 6mo ago
      > Democratic party ... still favors identity over mundane factors like competence You really need to actually read what you write to realize how drunk on the Trump distortion field you are. Trump's entire schtick is identity politics - being a popular low-intelligence trashy white guy who poor trashy white guys will think "he's one of us". You really cannot hang your hat on a critique of "competence" here after the jamoke just gave away the Strait of Hormuz to Iran. Harris, which really means the bureaucratic group project that Harris would have continued, would most certainly not have done something so abjectly incompetent. As a libertarian I'll criticize the Democratic party, their policies, and their groupthink all day long. But thinking that any of that criticism implies an alternative of burning our society down is rooted in pure nihilism.

xg15 6mo ago

> Trump is an idiot, no doubt about it. But all those that voted for him and that continue to enable him are the bigger idiots, and if they're not idiots they are probably hoping to profit from the chaos he's creating. For all the assurances that the US military is an army with the ultimate task to protect the Constitution and bound to democratic principles, they sure seem to view the Commander in Chief as the sole authority, even if his orders are evidently illegal or undermine the democratic system (because Congress was bypassed). As the war is currently going, I'd have expected at least some generals or officers to refuse orders, not because they suddenly switched sides, but simply because the orders are not democratically legitimized anymore. But nothing like this seems to have happened so far. (Not even starting with ICE...)

jacquesm 6mo ago
Oh, I think that has definitely happened. A lot of very high placed career military have been fired recently and even if they're not saying much the fact that it happened speaks volumes. These were people with decades of service. I think at least some fraction of those firings was because of refusal to carry out certain orders. What they should do is speak out, but possibly their future income depends on not speaking out.
jaldhar 6mo ago
[flagged]
- mindslight 6mo ago
  Their methods are not a motte and bailey, but rather a fundamental demonstration about how they've been put above straightforward Constitutional law. When I see the thugs who murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti behind bars, then I will start entertaining the idea any of this is about immigration enforcement.
  - jaldhar 6mo ago
    [flagged]
    - mindslight 6mo ago
      I'm not questioning the validity of what they're claiming to police, I'm questioning why the overt capital criminality we do know about has gone unprosecuted and unpunished. If a city only had one murder in a whole year, and they knew who the perp was but refused to arrest and prosecute, would you call that sensible policy?
ckemere 6mo ago
I think that there are stories but unreported for good reason. I heard from a pastor friend that he showed up to a house where one of his congregants was inside (with ICE outside), and basically asked them for mercy, and the supervisor was like “Actually, there is lightning in the area so we’ll need to go away but we will come back later.” So not complete rebellion, but a little bit of humanity. Viktor Frankl talks about how there were some “good” guards at the concentration camp.

jaldhar 6mo ago

[flagged]

xg15 6mo ago
European here, so I can only judge this from afar, but "Autopen" wasn't even an option anymore. And by now, honestly, Harris looks like she'd have been the WAY saner option. (And, the US being the US, the choice of the President has direct consequences for the rest of the world - so from the PoV of European interests, Harris would definitely have been the better choice) But yeah, the underlying problem seems to be the electoral system and the general undermining of democratic structures that already started way before Trump. An election in which there are only two (practical) choices, one of them openly insane, is not a useful election anymore.
- jaldhar 6mo ago
  Isn’t expecting American voters to worry about the consequences to Europe also an erosion of democracy? MAGA is just the latest incarnation of a deep isolationist trend in American politics that goes back to the WW1 era at least. The Western project was an elite one and now the elite is discredited by both the Right and Left. As I mentioned before, I live in a blue state and most people I know voted for Harris. But I would say 9 out of 10 did because they felt they had to not because they wanted to. The governing structure of the Democratic party has not changed and still favors identity over mundane factors like competence or electability. And Europes needs are not high in the priorities of American identity politics sorry.
  - mindslight 6mo ago
    > Democratic party ... still favors identity over mundane factors like competence You really need to actually read what you write to realize how drunk on the Trump distortion field you are. Trump's entire schtick is identity politics - being a popular low-intelligence trashy white guy who poor trashy white guys will think "he's one of us". You really cannot hang your hat on a critique of "competence" here after the jamoke just gave away the Strait of Hormuz to Iran. Harris, which really means the bureaucratic group project that Harris would have continued, would most certainly not have done something so abjectly incompetent. As a libertarian I'll criticize the Democratic party, their policies, and their groupthink all day long. But thinking that any of that criticism implies an alternative of burning our society down is rooted in pure nihilism.