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The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you

The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you have rights, etc. Those things are of the past now, for the US. I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech. The social dynamics are the same - the abuses, the selective enforcement, the lack of recourse, the same characters in the roles of various levels of "law enforcement" and "politics". I'm so very sorry, but the best you can do from here is speedrun the collapse.

leptons 1mo ago
>Those things are of the past now, for the US. It's a temporary situation, it isn't necessarily a permanent situation. Tell me how you think East Germany is doing these days. And no, it doesn't have to take 40 years to right the ship, so long as people get their heads out of their asses and vote. Things are likely to change by the end of this year, and in another 2 years we could have a very different government that could undo a lot of the bullshit going on right now.
- deleted 1mo ago
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- adamors 1mo ago
  Tens of millions have voted for this 3 times in the past 10 years, it succeeded twice. This is not going away, half the voting population of the US wants to live under authoritarian rule and will do anything to take the whole country with them.
  - expedition32 1mo ago
    Yep if Kent State happened today half of America would be cheering.
    - brewdad 1mo ago
      A third of America was cheering back then. The attitudes that brought us Trumpism go back many generations.
  - joenot443 1mo ago
    I think if I lived in a truly authoritarian country I'd be a bit taken aback to have my situation equated to that of Americans'.
    - codedokode 1mo ago
      Yes Americans do not understand how lucky they are.
      - leptons 1mo ago
        Republicans are in every way trying to turn this into an authoritarian hellhole. "Cruelty is the point" is a phrase used with regards to right-wing politics in America. We're heading in the worst direction possible, but it takes a bit longer and more work to get a country the size of America with different states to become fully authoritarian. It doesn't happen overnight like it can in small countries.
    - stackbutterflow 1mo ago
      Only because you think authoritarian means poor.
  - dantillberg 1mo ago
    Voter preferences can change with time, as voters observe the effects of their previous selections. Most voters don't want and didn't vote for authoritarian rule. They are humans with many diverse challenges & concerns in their lives. Their votes are an attempt to balance/compromise among those.
    - hdgvhicv 1mo ago
      Yet after Jan 6th more people voted or Trump than voted for the Harris The US wanted this.
      - leptons 1mo ago
        Only a small part, maybe 1/3 of the US wanted this. Not the whole population. Sadly 1/3 of eligible voters don't vote - they are the ones who didn't want this but don't have enough sense to vote, and that's different than wanting trump.
        hdgvhicv 1mo ago
        They don’t kind this. If they had they’d have held there nose. This wasn’t Romney vs Obama.
  - leptons 1mo ago
    >half the voting population of the US wants to live under authoritarian rule That's half the people who showed up to vote, not "half the voting population". 1/3 of the eligible voters simply didn't vote, and from the people I've encountered that don't vote, they are mostly left-leaning. No, stupidity and self-harm aren't going away, those are human traits. The current admin is actively hurting everyone, with tariffs and stupid wars he campaigned that he wouldn't start, ICE in every city everywhere causing chaos even to right-wing supporter-owned businesses (they wanted immigration reform but not like that!). This admin has shit the bed, and even his supporters are feeling that. They are now in the "finding out" phase, and the next phase doesn't look so good for republicans in the next election because of it.
  - kelnos 1mo ago
    Voters change their mind all the time. Sure, there are still plenty in the US who want all this, but Trump's approval ratings are at or near all-time lows, and at least some people who voted for him finally see his lies for what they are, and have regrets. It's still worrying! His supporters still number lots of people who a) are still somehow too gullible to realize Trump and the MAGA crowd are not going to make their lives better, and b) actively want what's going on. But there are easily more eligible voters in the US who wouldn't vote for a Republican with a gun to their head, or who are finally starting to understand that "sticking it to the libs" is hurting themselves. It's not going away, but it's likely that it's declining, and possible it will continue to do so. Whether or not it declines quickly enough, before these jackasses consolidate power and break what's left of our institutions... well, that remains to be seen.
    - rootusrootus 1mo ago
      I take some solace for how there is such a hard floor of support for Trump. Counterintuitively, I consider that good news. Because any regular politician would be so far underwater at this point that they might well fear for their life. What Trump has is a solid 1/3 of the population that are so far up his ass they can't see daylight. That works out great for him, and poorly for every other GOP politician. He's achieved demagogue status, which is easier said than done. Vance ain't got it, Rubio ain't got it, there's not really anybody on the sidelines who looks like they may have it either. So when Trump is gone, the GOP is going to undergo another wild gyration in ideology after the infighting settles down. And if they don't find another halfway plausible demagogue, they might be a back into minority party status for the next two decades. There is precedent for this. But the dems are almost certainly getting ready for their own come to jesus moment, their base is pretty pissed off too. Could get interesting. A boring candidate will probably be the preferred choice after the chaos of these years, but after that I think it might get wild.
  - vjvjvjvjghv 1mo ago
    You can rage against Trump and republicans as much as you want but in the end the democrats must learn to formulate why anybody should vote FOR them. Even in the current chaos they aren’t able to bring up a coherent message and follow through when they are in power. I see the same in Germany. AfD is getting stronger while the established parties get nothing done. It reminds me somewhat of the state of the Weimar Republic. The democratic parties failed which gave an opening to the nazis.
    - watwut 1mo ago
      Somehow, no one votes for nazi because they believe that stuff. Rhetorically. They are always victims with no agency. They do believe in stuff. And their soft supporters succesfully manage to turm the blame to others. Trump situation is result of years of hard work of heritage foundation, conservative preachers, tech bros, supreme court and so on. He represents their project being succesfull.
      - rootusrootus 1mo ago
        You don't give Trump enough credit. It is about him personally, this is not the big win for the heritage foundation that you portray it as.
      - deleted 1mo ago
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      - frollogaston 1mo ago
        The Democratic party started, fought, and lost a culture war almost before Republicans even responded. They alienated their voters. Heritage Foundation didn't need to do anything. And fringe groups got more ammo. I don't even think Trump was the Republicans' best shot, only popular enough to beat Clinton and Harris (and lose to Biden), and probably tanking his party now.
        watwut 1mo ago
        That is a lie. Republicans did not responded. They were inflaming it again and again and again and again. And always were.
- eclipticplane 1mo ago
  Does anyone on the other side have a credible plan to undo the damage? Where's the Project 2028 book? Is there anyone credible putting together the Executive Orders to undo the stack of shit, is anyone putting together a short list of District Attorneys to interview on January 21, etc?
  - kelnos 1mo ago
    That's the thing that worries me. The Democratic party just doesn't have their shit together in that way. They absolutely should be developing this sort of plan. I expect there is some plan, but I doubt it's as comprehensive or in-depth as Project 2025. And it needs to be.
  - eli 1mo ago
    https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-reconstruction-papers/ https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-reconstruction-papers/ is explicitly aiming to be a Project 2028 book for the left.
    - deleted 1mo ago
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    - uspolitthrowawa 1mo ago
      [dead]
- mathisfun123 1mo ago
  > Tell me how you think East Germany is doing these days. > And no, it doesn't have to take 40 years to right the ship, so long as people get their heads out of their asses and vote. so then you admit the outcome here is contingent/conditional. do you understand that means we are already in dire circumstances if the outcome isn't certain?
- wat10000 1mo ago
  On a long enough timeline, nothing is permanent. The question is how long it lasts and how bad it gets before it gets better. In terms of the ending, East Germany was nearly an ideal case. The state just sort of gently fell over. The country got absorbed into a friendly neighbor. There wasn't much loss of life, no widespread destruction. Then there's East Germany's predecessor state, which ended because it decided to wage war on half the world, and its people bore the consequences. Millions dead, cities wrecked, occupation by foreign armies, the country carved up. "This too shall pass" isn't always a good thing. Or look at the state that created and sustained East Germany. Borne out of violent revolution, decades of repression, collapse, turmoil, economic hardship, brief flirtation with democracy, de facto dictatorship, no end in sight. My biggest worry with the US right now isn't the government itself. It's that so many people want this government. Voting doesn't help when the voters want the bad stuff. We could have a very different government in another two years if the people want it. I'm not convinced they do. If they do I'm not convinced that sentiment will last. We already went through this once, and the "actually, let's not give the shitheads power" sentiment fell apart by the next election.
  - leptons 1mo ago
    The people want this administration and their right-wing politics gone, and the right-wing knows it - if the people really wanted the current shitstorm to continue the right-wing wouldn't be so desperate to suppress the vote, gerrymander like madmen, and use every questionable lever to prevent people to vote like trying to extinguish all mail-in voting, etc.
    - wat10000 1mo ago
      I'm sure a big group of people want that, but I wouldn't call it "the people" when the president has a ~38% approval rating. That's low enough to lose an election but still way too high for me to be comfortable with it. And "the people" have extremely short memories, as we saw last time around.
deepfriedbits 1mo ago
With all due respect, this is a wild take. Things aren't great in the U.S. right now, but they're not even in the same universe as what the Stasi was doing. > I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech.
- dijit 1mo ago
  its only with the benefit of hindsight (and being on the winning side- thus the propaganda was never dispelled) that we consider the stasi and so on the way we do. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck.. might just be a duck. I don’t believe those living “normal lives” in East Germany or the Soviet era considered the police to be evil and invasive the way we do today.
  - leonidasrup 1mo ago
    Soviet era under Stalin was brutal. Soviet famine of 1930–1933 "It is estimated that 5.7 to 8.7 million people died from starvation across the Soviet Union. In addition, 50 to 70 million Soviet citizens starved during the famine but ultimately survived." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%9333 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93... Great Purge "Scholars estimate the death toll of the Great Purge at 700,000 to 1.2 million." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge
    - dijit 1mo ago
      You might not realise it, but you're proving my point to some extent. We don't look at the deaths of our own people as "oppressive" despite the fact that the circumstances that caused them to die was our system. I'm not some bleeding heart liberal or anti-capitalist... I just have an open mind to the idea that we're not necessarily the good guys just because we are us and I look at what is factually true - as in, how could we be described by a non-sympathetic entity. Everyone is their own hero. Nobody believes sincerely that they're the baddie. Chronic lower respiratory diseases account for 145k people a year in the US, and that is a consequence (largely) of car dependence... Or, more directly, 20,000 people a year die due to malnutrition and starvation, tallied over years (as most do) that can rapidly rise to over 100k in a half-decade. The UK has an excess mortality rate of 330,000 linked to healthcare cuts (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000-excess-deaths-in-great-britain-linked-to-austerity-finds-study https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000...). I get that the numbers were talking about are much higher, but it doesn't follow logically to me that ordinary citizens knew that their government was the "bad" one with its actions. Hell, I know Russian families who genuinely believe Putin is doing the right thing right now. So, I don't blindly accept that my government is right just because I think "we're the goodies".
antonvs 1mo ago
> I'm so very sorry, but the best you can do from here is speedrun the collapse. This is a pretty silly take. If you actually follow the news, all of these issues are getting pushback. It's not at all clear that even a competent fascist-leaning government would be able to push through what the current one is trying to do, and sadly for them, competence in their ranks is in short supply. The bigger issue has nothing to do with the faddish concerns of the current government. The era we should be looking to is not East Germany/late Soviet - it's more like the Gilded Age. Robber barons need to be dealt with from time to time.
- rootusrootus 1mo ago
  We should probably be thankful that this crew is so incompetent. They could far more lasting damage if they had a clue.
joenot443 1mo ago
> if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech. I'm pretty optimistic that after the next general America will be ready to give up on the extremity of late turn over a new leaf. I fully expect a new president to be ushered in, whether R or D, and for some level of normalcy to start creeping back. The Soviets lost eventually, I don't think America can lose. Canadians like myself have watched America win for our country's entire existence; I am unconvinced that a decade of silliness is enough to compare America to East Germany. In 2016 I remember Americans saying this was the end of the line and the country was doomed. 10y later they're richer than ever and its companies have global dominance of the most world-changing technology of the last 20y. I just don't think "the collapse" is coming anytime soon. If anyone's interested in a friendly wager, my email is open. I'll happily go 1:1 odds that America will have a new president come 2029 and the country will still remain the world's richest and most powerful.
- ericmay 1mo ago
  Your day to day is still pretty much normal. If you turned off the news and never read about Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data [1] you'd just in your head remember there are tens of millions of folks flying, going through customs and border security and all that with 0 issues. What you wrote I think regarding the decade of silliness precisely supports the point, in my opinion. [1] I'm not defending the behavior of border control here, but I also don't think we need to overreact to this one example which is exactly what is happening.
  - joenot443 1mo ago
    > Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data Yeah, that's awful. As far as federal overreach of power goes, that's pretty inexcusable. I'd probably posit that COINTELPRO in the 60s was more insidious, but that doesn't discount this story individually being terrible. I still maintain that America is not in the midst of its own demise and a comparison to East Germany is inaccurate.
    - 1mo ago
ApolloFortyNine 1mo ago
This has been legal since long before Trump, if you don't like it there's laws in motion to ban it you can support, but entering across a border you've been allowed to be searched without a warrant for decades at least. And if you're being searched and then you destroy what they're trying to search... Here you are.
- phs318u 1mo ago
  From the article: “ he has been ensnared by National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, or NSPM-7, a sweeping directive issued by President Trump last September that expanded the definition of domestic terrorism to include crimes like getting in the way of immigration enforcement. His prosecution is one of the earliest known instances of the federal authorities charging a person with destroying evidence using a program designed to wipe a device clean after a specific code is entered.” So, while “no privacy at the border” has always been a thing, the re-categorisation of this as “domestic terrorism” is new.
  - rootusrootus 1mo ago
    Is the actual charge destruction of evidence, or terrorism? Because if it's the former, then it looks a lot like a plausible legal case.
    - frollogaston 1mo ago
      Destruction of evidence. But sounds like they were searching him in the first place under Trump's new counter-terrorism rules.
      - deleted 1mo ago
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shimman 1mo ago
You don't need to go to other countries to play your fears, lest we forget our constitution is a pro-slavery document and one of the first acts of congress was the fugitive slave laws. I think it's more effective to stick to our own history because this country has always been a struggle for workers outside of a small very respite after WW2 that has been actively fought against and weakened since.
honeybadger1 1mo ago
[flagged]
cespare 1mo ago
This defeatism is unhelpful. I'll not simply surrender the country that I love, thanks.
- phs318u 1mo ago
  Doing nothing is surrender. So what do you propose people do? What are you doing? Is it effective?
  - nozzlegear 1mo ago
    > So what do you propose people do? Vote > Is it effective? Obviously yes. Imagine for a second that you're a MAGA supporter, anti-abortion, stick it to the liberals type of person. Would you say that voting has been effective to get the things you care about passed into law (or repealed)? You absolutely would.
- rootusrootus 1mo ago
  Especially to someone who is unlikely to even be here.
TimTheTinker 1mo ago
> US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era > The social dynamics are the same - the abuses, the selective enforcement, the lack of recourse, the same characters in the roles of various levels of "law enforcement" and "politics" What you're describing is politics in general. The question is not whether abuses occur (they do, everywhere), but whether the system is built to be resilient and course-correct over time. The thing about freedom is not just that it's less miserable than the alternative; more importantly, freedom enables a feedback loop where people's individual choices carry corrective information: what they buy, what they sell, how much, at what price, who they vote for, what they write/publish, what they read, what they say etc. The system at large can correct itself over time if (a) these choices are allowed to have power to influence the system, and (b) the courts enforce justice without interference by the ruling party. Not a single communist country in the 20th century stayed communist for more than a few years when only 2 freedoms were allowed: (1) freedom of the press, and (2) freedom of the courts from control by the ruling party. The Soviets and East Germans suppressed every form of freedom that carried information or potential corrective power, because they maxxed on staying in power above all - they effectively had to. No one wants to be under real communism/socialism[0], so for it to be stable it has to be maximally suppressive. [0] see various records of escape attempts, such as https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/politics-and-government/east-germans-flee-west-escape-communist-regime https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/politics-and-governm...
kingkawn 1mo ago
Hallelujah!
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jrmg 1mo ago
The USA started from and has come back from way worse in the past. Some dark, dark things happened in the USA, and almost every progression had a corresponding backslide - but the tick-tock has always ticked further towards a freer, more equal, and more equitable society. Progress doesn’t always (ever?) require complete collapse. I’m willing to hope this era is another ‘tock’. But that does require people to not just give up (or even work to accelerate the backslide?!) as you seem to be suggesting is the best course of action.
- mohamedkoubaa 1mo ago
  >but the tick-tock has always ticked further towards a freer, more equal, and more equitable society. This is a popular sentiment, not a statement of historical fact. Arguments both for and against this are credible.
  - jrmg 1mo ago
    You can make a credible argument that the American society is less free, less equal, and less equitable than it was at its founding? There are just so many ways in which this seems crazy to me. I feel like you think you’re luring me into some sort of rhetorical trap - but to pick the two elephants in the room, a large proportion of the population was literally owned by other people, and only white male landowners could vote.
    - nrb 1mo ago
      That wasn’t the claim: it was that the tocks always outpace the ticks. One area that this extremely obviously does not align with is immigration. Privacy is another area in steady decline for generations. It’s very reasonable to consider that in many areas we may regress to a mean somewhere in between founding days and the peak.
      - mohamedkoubaa 1mo ago
        Exactly. It is a high dimensional space and it depends which sample you select
stronglikedan 1mo ago
> if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era That's just too ridiculous and absurd for most people to accept, thankfully. I accept reality, not social media narratives.
bossyTeacher 1mo ago
> The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding This is HN. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
spl757 1mo ago
The US has it's mid-term elections this november, and it's possible, and even likely, that the Democratic candidates will win overwhealmingly. The Democrats are not a monolith, either, the Democratic Socialists of America political group is the very progressive part of the Democratic party, they are the ones that are not accepting dark money campaign donations. I do not agree with a lot of the unrealistic things that some DSA candidates have said, but those or the candidates that aren't winning the primaries. There is a giant blue tidal wave coming in November. Trump will become nothing more than a lame duck "president", and he'll likely be impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate and the Justice System will probably be the final arbiter of his fate. That's the way I see it. And I never believed I would be saying what I just said, but the fact is that since trump was elected, the democrats have flipped 31 (at last count) formorly Republican held seats, and the republicans have flipped exactly zero seats from democrat to republican. The American People are not their goverment, especially right now, even though that's not how it was meant to be, but I know one thing, they are fed up and enough is enough.
- phs318u 1mo ago
  I agreed with everything you said up until “he’ll be convicted”. Not a snowflake’s chance in hell unless the DSA metaphorically push the doddering old guard down the stairs.
  - spl757 1mo ago
    I was referring specifically to the US Senate "convicting" chump, not a court. That can only happen if he is succuessfully prosecuted by the US House of Representatives. I agree that the courts are not predictable in that way, and what I'm talking about will be based on which party controls the house and senate. If the dems win enough seats in both, it's entirely possible for him to be impeached in the house and convicted in the senate. We won't know what the makeup of the house and senate will be after the midterms, so that remains to be seen.
- rootusrootus 1mo ago
  I think the best case scenario is that the democrats win sufficient control of congress that they can both stop the legislative agenda (to the extent it even exists) and interfere enough with presidential executive actions that everything stalls until we reach the next presidential election. I have exactly zero expectations of real consequences to Trump. He has far too much popular support for that to be realistic. But I will say that everybody else in his regime better hope he writes them a broad preemptive pardon before he leaves office because the teflon only works for him.
tiahura 1mo ago
In law school we skipped border search cases because the border crosser cases can basically be summed up with “you have no right to privacy at the border.” This has been the common law for 5000 years. It has nothing to do with Trump, or cell phones, or anything other than the notion that a sovereign has an absolute right to know what is crossing its borders.
- Natfan 1mo ago
  English Common Law hasn't existed for 5,000 years, which is what the American judicial system is based on. unclear as to where you got this number
  - CSMastermind 1mo ago
    Not OP but generally states are considered to be a central political organization that maintains a monopoly on violence within a defined area. The border is the thing that makes the state and have been since states first emerged about 5,000 years ago. If the state cannot preserve its border it is no longer a state.
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teaearlgraycold 1mo ago
We have unprecedented corruption in the White House but much of the other stuff is not new territory. It’s bad and a regression I hate to see. But we can always improve when the people demand better. The people always have the power, even if they don’t realize it. For the most part nothing has changed.
- rootusrootus 1mo ago
  I remain hopeful that we will react to this latest test by improving the guardrails again. The current regime does not by any means have the popular support of the citizenry, so there is every reason to expect some backlash and consequences on the other end of this. It'll take years, though, to work through.
  - teaearlgraycold 1mo ago
    It's encouraging to see 80% of Democrats think the DNC needs its leadership replaced.
whalesalad 1mo ago
i remember when hacker news was full of hackers. that persona is dead now.
- hdgvhicv 1mo ago
  It’s always been tech bros and wanna be tech bros.
siren2026 1mo ago
edit: deleted because political flamewar
- nikanj 1mo ago
  Say whatever you want, just don't say it on social media or border control might not let you enter the country the next time
  - rootusrootus 1mo ago
    Border control can't stop you from entering the country. Please do not spread misinformation. If you mean non-citizens? Well, I invite you to check out many other places all across the world who also pick and choose who they will allow to visit.
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khriss 1mo ago
And to add to that, a very loyal set of voters who will literally vote for more of the same even when it directly and empirically makes their lives worse.
8note 1mo ago
CBP/FBI could have shot or tortured him or his loved ones after he provided the bad key, but didn't his rights still did apply and do apply for now at least
- FireBeyond 1mo ago
  I mean ICE could have arrested him and shipped him off to a foreign country too, even if a federal judge orders them not to, too. Except, while not in this case, they've done exactly that in hundreds of cases at this point.
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greekrich92 1mo ago
The tendency to describe things that are so essentially characteristic of the capitalist imperial core as resembling the Soviet Union is always so funny
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ryan_n 1mo ago
Quite possibly the worst take I’ve ever read on hacker news. “Things are generally bad now so the entire country should roll over and get fucked.” What are you even thinking dude? Maybe take a walk outside or something..
kypro 1mo ago
It's been this way in the UK for years now. Always interesting to hear how far the rest of the West the US is. If you come to the UK the police are allowed to stop you without suspicion and force you to answer their questions honestly or be charged with a crime for remaining silent or lying. You must also give them access to all of your devices if asked, or again face criminal charges. Most people here are okay with it though. Ultimately if you're not doing anything wrong you'll probably be okay.
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frollogaston 1mo ago
> The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding > the best you can do from here is speedrun the collapse Sorry arrogant bitch, it's not gonna happen
nelox 1mo ago
[dead]

leptons 1mo ago

>Those things are of the past now, for the US. It's a temporary situation, it isn't necessarily a permanent situation. Tell me how you think East Germany is doing these days. And no, it doesn't have to take 40 years to right the ship, so long as people get their heads out of their asses and vote. Things are likely to change by the end of this year, and in another 2 years we could have a very different government that could undo a lot of the bullshit going on right now.

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adamors 1mo ago
Tens of millions have voted for this 3 times in the past 10 years, it succeeded twice. This is not going away, half the voting population of the US wants to live under authoritarian rule and will do anything to take the whole country with them.
- expedition32 1mo ago
  Yep if Kent State happened today half of America would be cheering.
  - brewdad 1mo ago
    A third of America was cheering back then. The attitudes that brought us Trumpism go back many generations.
- joenot443 1mo ago
  I think if I lived in a truly authoritarian country I'd be a bit taken aback to have my situation equated to that of Americans'.
  - codedokode 1mo ago
    Yes Americans do not understand how lucky they are.
    - leptons 1mo ago
      Republicans are in every way trying to turn this into an authoritarian hellhole. "Cruelty is the point" is a phrase used with regards to right-wing politics in America. We're heading in the worst direction possible, but it takes a bit longer and more work to get a country the size of America with different states to become fully authoritarian. It doesn't happen overnight like it can in small countries.
  - stackbutterflow 1mo ago
    Only because you think authoritarian means poor.
- dantillberg 1mo ago
  Voter preferences can change with time, as voters observe the effects of their previous selections. Most voters don't want and didn't vote for authoritarian rule. They are humans with many diverse challenges & concerns in their lives. Their votes are an attempt to balance/compromise among those.
  - hdgvhicv 1mo ago
    Yet after Jan 6th more people voted or Trump than voted for the Harris The US wanted this.
    - leptons 1mo ago
      Only a small part, maybe 1/3 of the US wanted this. Not the whole population. Sadly 1/3 of eligible voters don't vote - they are the ones who didn't want this but don't have enough sense to vote, and that's different than wanting trump.
      - hdgvhicv 1mo ago
        They don’t kind this. If they had they’d have held there nose. This wasn’t Romney vs Obama.
- leptons 1mo ago
  >half the voting population of the US wants to live under authoritarian rule That's half the people who showed up to vote, not "half the voting population". 1/3 of the eligible voters simply didn't vote, and from the people I've encountered that don't vote, they are mostly left-leaning. No, stupidity and self-harm aren't going away, those are human traits. The current admin is actively hurting everyone, with tariffs and stupid wars he campaigned that he wouldn't start, ICE in every city everywhere causing chaos even to right-wing supporter-owned businesses (they wanted immigration reform but not like that!). This admin has shit the bed, and even his supporters are feeling that. They are now in the "finding out" phase, and the next phase doesn't look so good for republicans in the next election because of it.
- kelnos 1mo ago
  Voters change their mind all the time. Sure, there are still plenty in the US who want all this, but Trump's approval ratings are at or near all-time lows, and at least some people who voted for him finally see his lies for what they are, and have regrets. It's still worrying! His supporters still number lots of people who a) are still somehow too gullible to realize Trump and the MAGA crowd are not going to make their lives better, and b) actively want what's going on. But there are easily more eligible voters in the US who wouldn't vote for a Republican with a gun to their head, or who are finally starting to understand that "sticking it to the libs" is hurting themselves. It's not going away, but it's likely that it's declining, and possible it will continue to do so. Whether or not it declines quickly enough, before these jackasses consolidate power and break what's left of our institutions... well, that remains to be seen.
  - rootusrootus 1mo ago
    I take some solace for how there is such a hard floor of support for Trump. Counterintuitively, I consider that good news. Because any regular politician would be so far underwater at this point that they might well fear for their life. What Trump has is a solid 1/3 of the population that are so far up his ass they can't see daylight. That works out great for him, and poorly for every other GOP politician. He's achieved demagogue status, which is easier said than done. Vance ain't got it, Rubio ain't got it, there's not really anybody on the sidelines who looks like they may have it either. So when Trump is gone, the GOP is going to undergo another wild gyration in ideology after the infighting settles down. And if they don't find another halfway plausible demagogue, they might be a back into minority party status for the next two decades. There is precedent for this. But the dems are almost certainly getting ready for their own come to jesus moment, their base is pretty pissed off too. Could get interesting. A boring candidate will probably be the preferred choice after the chaos of these years, but after that I think it might get wild.
- vjvjvjvjghv 1mo ago
  You can rage against Trump and republicans as much as you want but in the end the democrats must learn to formulate why anybody should vote FOR them. Even in the current chaos they aren’t able to bring up a coherent message and follow through when they are in power. I see the same in Germany. AfD is getting stronger while the established parties get nothing done. It reminds me somewhat of the state of the Weimar Republic. The democratic parties failed which gave an opening to the nazis.
  - watwut 1mo ago
    Somehow, no one votes for nazi because they believe that stuff. Rhetorically. They are always victims with no agency. They do believe in stuff. And their soft supporters succesfully manage to turm the blame to others. Trump situation is result of years of hard work of heritage foundation, conservative preachers, tech bros, supreme court and so on. He represents their project being succesfull.
    - rootusrootus 1mo ago
      You don't give Trump enough credit. It is about him personally, this is not the big win for the heritage foundation that you portray it as.
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    - frollogaston 1mo ago
      The Democratic party started, fought, and lost a culture war almost before Republicans even responded. They alienated their voters. Heritage Foundation didn't need to do anything. And fringe groups got more ammo. I don't even think Trump was the Republicans' best shot, only popular enough to beat Clinton and Harris (and lose to Biden), and probably tanking his party now.
      - watwut 1mo ago
        That is a lie. Republicans did not responded. They were inflaming it again and again and again and again. And always were.
eclipticplane 1mo ago
Does anyone on the other side have a credible plan to undo the damage? Where's the Project 2028 book? Is there anyone credible putting together the Executive Orders to undo the stack of shit, is anyone putting together a short list of District Attorneys to interview on January 21, etc?
- kelnos 1mo ago
  That's the thing that worries me. The Democratic party just doesn't have their shit together in that way. They absolutely should be developing this sort of plan. I expect there is some plan, but I doubt it's as comprehensive or in-depth as Project 2025. And it needs to be.
- eli 1mo ago
  https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-reconstruction-papers/ https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-reconstruction-papers/ is explicitly aiming to be a Project 2028 book for the left.
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mathisfun123 1mo ago
> Tell me how you think East Germany is doing these days. > And no, it doesn't have to take 40 years to right the ship, so long as people get their heads out of their asses and vote. so then you admit the outcome here is contingent/conditional. do you understand that means we are already in dire circumstances if the outcome isn't certain?
wat10000 1mo ago
On a long enough timeline, nothing is permanent. The question is how long it lasts and how bad it gets before it gets better. In terms of the ending, East Germany was nearly an ideal case. The state just sort of gently fell over. The country got absorbed into a friendly neighbor. There wasn't much loss of life, no widespread destruction. Then there's East Germany's predecessor state, which ended because it decided to wage war on half the world, and its people bore the consequences. Millions dead, cities wrecked, occupation by foreign armies, the country carved up. "This too shall pass" isn't always a good thing. Or look at the state that created and sustained East Germany. Borne out of violent revolution, decades of repression, collapse, turmoil, economic hardship, brief flirtation with democracy, de facto dictatorship, no end in sight. My biggest worry with the US right now isn't the government itself. It's that so many people want this government. Voting doesn't help when the voters want the bad stuff. We could have a very different government in another two years if the people want it. I'm not convinced they do. If they do I'm not convinced that sentiment will last. We already went through this once, and the "actually, let's not give the shitheads power" sentiment fell apart by the next election.
- leptons 1mo ago
  The people want this administration and their right-wing politics gone, and the right-wing knows it - if the people really wanted the current shitstorm to continue the right-wing wouldn't be so desperate to suppress the vote, gerrymander like madmen, and use every questionable lever to prevent people to vote like trying to extinguish all mail-in voting, etc.
  - wat10000 1mo ago
    I'm sure a big group of people want that, but I wouldn't call it "the people" when the president has a ~38% approval rating. That's low enough to lose an election but still way too high for me to be comfortable with it. And "the people" have extremely short memories, as we saw last time around.

deepfriedbits 1mo ago

With all due respect, this is a wild take. Things aren't great in the U.S. right now, but they're not even in the same universe as what the Stasi was doing. > I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech.

dijit 1mo ago
its only with the benefit of hindsight (and being on the winning side- thus the propaganda was never dispelled) that we consider the stasi and so on the way we do. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck.. might just be a duck. I don’t believe those living “normal lives” in East Germany or the Soviet era considered the police to be evil and invasive the way we do today.
- leonidasrup 1mo ago
  Soviet era under Stalin was brutal. Soviet famine of 1930–1933 "It is estimated that 5.7 to 8.7 million people died from starvation across the Soviet Union. In addition, 50 to 70 million Soviet citizens starved during the famine but ultimately survived." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%9333 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93... Great Purge "Scholars estimate the death toll of the Great Purge at 700,000 to 1.2 million." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge
  - dijit 1mo ago
    You might not realise it, but you're proving my point to some extent. We don't look at the deaths of our own people as "oppressive" despite the fact that the circumstances that caused them to die was our system. I'm not some bleeding heart liberal or anti-capitalist... I just have an open mind to the idea that we're not necessarily the good guys just because we are us and I look at what is factually true - as in, how could we be described by a non-sympathetic entity. Everyone is their own hero. Nobody believes sincerely that they're the baddie. Chronic lower respiratory diseases account for 145k people a year in the US, and that is a consequence (largely) of car dependence... Or, more directly, 20,000 people a year die due to malnutrition and starvation, tallied over years (as most do) that can rapidly rise to over 100k in a half-decade. The UK has an excess mortality rate of 330,000 linked to healthcare cuts (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000-excess-deaths-in-great-britain-linked-to-austerity-finds-study https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000...). I get that the numbers were talking about are much higher, but it doesn't follow logically to me that ordinary citizens knew that their government was the "bad" one with its actions. Hell, I know Russian families who genuinely believe Putin is doing the right thing right now. So, I don't blindly accept that my government is right just because I think "we're the goodies".

antonvs 1mo ago

> I'm so very sorry, but the best you can do from here is speedrun the collapse. This is a pretty silly take. If you actually follow the news, all of these issues are getting pushback. It's not at all clear that even a competent fascist-leaning government would be able to push through what the current one is trying to do, and sadly for them, competence in their ranks is in short supply. The bigger issue has nothing to do with the faddish concerns of the current government. The era we should be looking to is not East Germany/late Soviet - it's more like the Gilded Age. Robber barons need to be dealt with from time to time.

rootusrootus 1mo ago
We should probably be thankful that this crew is so incompetent. They could far more lasting damage if they had a clue.

joenot443 1mo ago

> if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech. I'm pretty optimistic that after the next general America will be ready to give up on the extremity of late turn over a new leaf. I fully expect a new president to be ushered in, whether R or D, and for some level of normalcy to start creeping back. The Soviets lost eventually, I don't think America can lose. Canadians like myself have watched America win for our country's entire existence; I am unconvinced that a decade of silliness is enough to compare America to East Germany. In 2016 I remember Americans saying this was the end of the line and the country was doomed. 10y later they're richer than ever and its companies have global dominance of the most world-changing technology of the last 20y. I just don't think "the collapse" is coming anytime soon. If anyone's interested in a friendly wager, my email is open. I'll happily go 1:1 odds that America will have a new president come 2029 and the country will still remain the world's richest and most powerful.

ericmay 1mo ago
Your day to day is still pretty much normal. If you turned off the news and never read about Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data [1] you'd just in your head remember there are tens of millions of folks flying, going through customs and border security and all that with 0 issues. What you wrote I think regarding the decade of silliness precisely supports the point, in my opinion. [1] I'm not defending the behavior of border control here, but I also don't think we need to overreact to this one example which is exactly what is happening.
- joenot443 1mo ago
  > Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data Yeah, that's awful. As far as federal overreach of power goes, that's pretty inexcusable. I'd probably posit that COINTELPRO in the 60s was more insidious, but that doesn't discount this story individually being terrible. I still maintain that America is not in the midst of its own demise and a comparison to East Germany is inaccurate.
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ApolloFortyNine 1mo ago

This has been legal since long before Trump, if you don't like it there's laws in motion to ban it you can support, but entering across a border you've been allowed to be searched without a warrant for decades at least. And if you're being searched and then you destroy what they're trying to search... Here you are.

phs318u 1mo ago
From the article: “ he has been ensnared by National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, or NSPM-7, a sweeping directive issued by President Trump last September that expanded the definition of domestic terrorism to include crimes like getting in the way of immigration enforcement. His prosecution is one of the earliest known instances of the federal authorities charging a person with destroying evidence using a program designed to wipe a device clean after a specific code is entered.” So, while “no privacy at the border” has always been a thing, the re-categorisation of this as “domestic terrorism” is new.
- rootusrootus 1mo ago
  Is the actual charge destruction of evidence, or terrorism? Because if it's the former, then it looks a lot like a plausible legal case.
  - frollogaston 1mo ago
    Destruction of evidence. But sounds like they were searching him in the first place under Trump's new counter-terrorism rules.
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shimman 1mo ago

You don't need to go to other countries to play your fears, lest we forget our constitution is a pro-slavery document and one of the first acts of congress was the fugitive slave laws. I think it's more effective to stick to our own history because this country has always been a struggle for workers outside of a small very respite after WW2 that has been actively fought against and weakened since.

honeybadger1 1mo ago

[flagged]

cespare 1mo ago

This defeatism is unhelpful. I'll not simply surrender the country that I love, thanks.

phs318u 1mo ago
Doing nothing is surrender. So what do you propose people do? What are you doing? Is it effective?
- nozzlegear 1mo ago
  > So what do you propose people do? Vote > Is it effective? Obviously yes. Imagine for a second that you're a MAGA supporter, anti-abortion, stick it to the liberals type of person. Would you say that voting has been effective to get the things you care about passed into law (or repealed)? You absolutely would.
rootusrootus 1mo ago
Especially to someone who is unlikely to even be here.

TimTheTinker 1mo ago

> US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era > The social dynamics are the same - the abuses, the selective enforcement, the lack of recourse, the same characters in the roles of various levels of "law enforcement" and "politics" What you're describing is politics in general. The question is not whether abuses occur (they do, everywhere), but whether the system is built to be resilient and course-correct over time. The thing about freedom is not just that it's less miserable than the alternative; more importantly, freedom enables a feedback loop where people's individual choices carry corrective information: what they buy, what they sell, how much, at what price, who they vote for, what they write/publish, what they read, what they say etc. The system at large can correct itself over time if (a) these choices are allowed to have power to influence the system, and (b) the courts enforce justice without interference by the ruling party. Not a single communist country in the 20th century stayed communist for more than a few years when only 2 freedoms were allowed: (1) freedom of the press, and (2) freedom of the courts from control by the ruling party. The Soviets and East Germans suppressed every form of freedom that carried information or potential corrective power, because they maxxed on staying in power above all - they effectively had to. No one wants to be under real communism/socialism[0], so for it to be stable it has to be maximally suppressive. [0] see various records of escape attempts, such as https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/politics-and-government/east-germans-flee-west-escape-communist-regime https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/politics-and-governm...

kingkawn 1mo ago

Hallelujah!

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jrmg 1mo ago

The USA started from and has come back from way worse in the past. Some dark, dark things happened in the USA, and almost every progression had a corresponding backslide - but the tick-tock has always ticked further towards a freer, more equal, and more equitable society. Progress doesn’t always (ever?) require complete collapse. I’m willing to hope this era is another ‘tock’. But that does require people to not just give up (or even work to accelerate the backslide?!) as you seem to be suggesting is the best course of action.

mohamedkoubaa 1mo ago
>but the tick-tock has always ticked further towards a freer, more equal, and more equitable society. This is a popular sentiment, not a statement of historical fact. Arguments both for and against this are credible.
- jrmg 1mo ago
  You can make a credible argument that the American society is less free, less equal, and less equitable than it was at its founding? There are just so many ways in which this seems crazy to me. I feel like you think you’re luring me into some sort of rhetorical trap - but to pick the two elephants in the room, a large proportion of the population was literally owned by other people, and only white male landowners could vote.
  - nrb 1mo ago
    That wasn’t the claim: it was that the tocks always outpace the ticks. One area that this extremely obviously does not align with is immigration. Privacy is another area in steady decline for generations. It’s very reasonable to consider that in many areas we may regress to a mean somewhere in between founding days and the peak.
    - mohamedkoubaa 1mo ago
      Exactly. It is a high dimensional space and it depends which sample you select

stronglikedan 1mo ago

> if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era That's just too ridiculous and absurd for most people to accept, thankfully. I accept reality, not social media narratives.

bossyTeacher 1mo ago

> The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding This is HN. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/

spl757 1mo ago

The US has it's mid-term elections this november, and it's possible, and even likely, that the Democratic candidates will win overwhealmingly. The Democrats are not a monolith, either, the Democratic Socialists of America political group is the very progressive part of the Democratic party, they are the ones that are not accepting dark money campaign donations. I do not agree with a lot of the unrealistic things that some DSA candidates have said, but those or the candidates that aren't winning the primaries. There is a giant blue tidal wave coming in November. Trump will become nothing more than a lame duck "president", and he'll likely be impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate and the Justice System will probably be the final arbiter of his fate. That's the way I see it. And I never believed I would be saying what I just said, but the fact is that since trump was elected, the democrats have flipped 31 (at last count) formorly Republican held seats, and the republicans have flipped exactly zero seats from democrat to republican. The American People are not their goverment, especially right now, even though that's not how it was meant to be, but I know one thing, they are fed up and enough is enough.

phs318u 1mo ago
I agreed with everything you said up until “he’ll be convicted”. Not a snowflake’s chance in hell unless the DSA metaphorically push the doddering old guard down the stairs.
- spl757 1mo ago
  I was referring specifically to the US Senate "convicting" chump, not a court. That can only happen if he is succuessfully prosecuted by the US House of Representatives. I agree that the courts are not predictable in that way, and what I'm talking about will be based on which party controls the house and senate. If the dems win enough seats in both, it's entirely possible for him to be impeached in the house and convicted in the senate. We won't know what the makeup of the house and senate will be after the midterms, so that remains to be seen.
rootusrootus 1mo ago
I think the best case scenario is that the democrats win sufficient control of congress that they can both stop the legislative agenda (to the extent it even exists) and interfere enough with presidential executive actions that everything stalls until we reach the next presidential election. I have exactly zero expectations of real consequences to Trump. He has far too much popular support for that to be realistic. But I will say that everybody else in his regime better hope he writes them a broad preemptive pardon before he leaves office because the teflon only works for him.

tiahura 1mo ago

In law school we skipped border search cases because the border crosser cases can basically be summed up with “you have no right to privacy at the border.” This has been the common law for 5000 years. It has nothing to do with Trump, or cell phones, or anything other than the notion that a sovereign has an absolute right to know what is crossing its borders.

Natfan 1mo ago
English Common Law hasn't existed for 5,000 years, which is what the American judicial system is based on. unclear as to where you got this number
- CSMastermind 1mo ago
  Not OP but generally states are considered to be a central political organization that maintains a monopoly on violence within a defined area. The border is the thing that makes the state and have been since states first emerged about 5,000 years ago. If the state cannot preserve its border it is no longer a state.
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teaearlgraycold 1mo ago

We have unprecedented corruption in the White House but much of the other stuff is not new territory. It’s bad and a regression I hate to see. But we can always improve when the people demand better. The people always have the power, even if they don’t realize it. For the most part nothing has changed.

rootusrootus 1mo ago
I remain hopeful that we will react to this latest test by improving the guardrails again. The current regime does not by any means have the popular support of the citizenry, so there is every reason to expect some backlash and consequences on the other end of this. It'll take years, though, to work through.
- teaearlgraycold 1mo ago
  It's encouraging to see 80% of Democrats think the DNC needs its leadership replaced.

whalesalad 1mo ago

i remember when hacker news was full of hackers. that persona is dead now.

hdgvhicv 1mo ago
It’s always been tech bros and wanna be tech bros.

siren2026 1mo ago

edit: deleted because political flamewar

nikanj 1mo ago
Say whatever you want, just don't say it on social media or border control might not let you enter the country the next time
- rootusrootus 1mo ago
  Border control can't stop you from entering the country. Please do not spread misinformation. If you mean non-citizens? Well, I invite you to check out many other places all across the world who also pick and choose who they will allow to visit.
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khriss 1mo ago

And to add to that, a very loyal set of voters who will literally vote for more of the same even when it directly and empirically makes their lives worse.

8note 1mo ago

CBP/FBI could have shot or tortured him or his loved ones after he provided the bad key, but didn't his rights still did apply and do apply for now at least

FireBeyond 1mo ago
I mean ICE could have arrested him and shipped him off to a foreign country too, even if a federal judge orders them not to, too. Except, while not in this case, they've done exactly that in hundreds of cases at this point.

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greekrich92 1mo ago

The tendency to describe things that are so essentially characteristic of the capitalist imperial core as resembling the Soviet Union is always so funny

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ryan_n 1mo ago

Quite possibly the worst take I’ve ever read on hacker news. “Things are generally bad now so the entire country should roll over and get fucked.” What are you even thinking dude? Maybe take a walk outside or something..

kypro 1mo ago

It's been this way in the UK for years now. Always interesting to hear how far the rest of the West the US is. If you come to the UK the police are allowed to stop you without suspicion and force you to answer their questions honestly or be charged with a crime for remaining silent or lying. You must also give them access to all of your devices if asked, or again face criminal charges. Most people here are okay with it though. Ultimately if you're not doing anything wrong you'll probably be okay.

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frollogaston 1mo ago

> The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding > the best you can do from here is speedrun the collapse Sorry arrogant bitch, it's not gonna happen

nelox 1mo ago

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