Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

State Terror, American Style

paulkrugman.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 125 posts

Re: State Terror, American Style

#31

Post by foogazi »

tdeck wrote: post #11
srean wrote: post #6

What I found so remarkable was Trump's address to the generals. I am a little queasy of throwing the fascism word around willy nilly, but the story of "internal enemies" could not have been more formulaic.

This was after Trump's secretary of war said the following on the same stage: “We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy,” Hegseth said. “We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.” It's not exactly subtle. The message i…

All very vague

We all have an understanding of the power of the US military and its foreign agencies

But it’s tough to square this quote with that - what is going to change ?

What does a nuclear superpower need to be untied ? Mass world surveillance, bombing foreign countries?

All of that has happened - what more is needed and why ?

Re: State Terror, American Style

#33

Post by bko »

tdeck wrote: post #19
bko wrote: post #9

[flagged]

You make it sound like these policies are overwhelmingly popular, but they are not https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/30/politics/trump-poll-immig...

This is the phrasing of the question:

> "Do you think Donald Trump has gone too far, has been about right, or has not gone far enough when it comes to deporting immigrants living in the United States illegally?"

52% said too far.

If you phrased the question something like "do you think the federal government has done enough, too much or not enough to deport illegal immigrants" you would get much different results. Or even including Donald Trump in the question is leading. And using "immigrants living in the US illegally" gives you a much different response as illegal aliens. All surveys are biased, but this one could be improved on so many levels.

Look at a much simpler survey about law enforcement attitudes and you'll see, especially in high crime neighborhoods, people want more policing not less:

https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/88476/...

Re: State Terror, American Style

#34

Post by throwaway173738 »

piva00 wrote: post #25
lapcat wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It certainly doesn’t feel good to have turned out being correct after warning that this is where we were headed way back in the dubyah years. This has been happening long before W, and the Democrats are complicit too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

It might take a couple more generations, a lot more misery, and maybe even a complete breakdown of democracy in the USA, for its population to finally learn that Democrats or Republicans are bound to the same higher power in the USA: money. Money is what decides everything, the speeding up of its accumulation brought by neoliberal economic policies under Reagan and onwards just made it abundantly clear that either pa…

How convenient that you have an argument for lumping together both a party that wants to continue the liberal democracy and a party that wants to cling to power at the expense of creating an actual authoritarian state complete with a secret police.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#35

Post by throwaway173738 »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #10

Are they limiting their raids to be within 'blue' states / districts to minimise the collateral damage their reputation may receive from those sympathetic to this cause? Chicago was 77% Democrat in the last election. These behaviours won't stop if there's no blowback from the MAGA base.

It’s also about scaring the liberals into compliance.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#36

Post by BLKNSLVR »

bko wrote: post #22
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article, from my reading, is separating this particular behaviour from normal law enforcement behaviour, and within that space of difference is the problem. It is a problem of recent creation.

'democracy' is used 4 times. Arguments like this: >But as I said, this isn’t about crime. It’s about paranoid conspiracy theories and an attempt to dismantle democracy. Most people don't think of 'normal law enforcement', they just see crime, people in the country illegally and others trying to make law enforcements job harder. They don't care about these types of arguments about how this is different from "normal" l…

So, you're just saying the article isn't persuasive to normies?

I'm OK with that sentiment of yours, but I'm also OK with the article itself and the direction it implies this administration is going.

Normies don't persuade easy, that's why they're normies. Trump has worked out how to persuade them: by lying hyperbolically and providing the 'circus' of the bread and circus method. But it's a dark circus, and its involuntary audience are only those already lost to Trump.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#37

Post by bko »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #36
bko wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'democracy' is used 4 times. Arguments like this: >But as I said, this isn’t about crime. It’s about paranoid conspiracy theories and an attempt to dismantle democracy. Most people don't think of 'normal law enforcement', they just see crime, people in the country illegally and others trying to make law enforcements job harder. They don't care about these types of arguments about how this is different from "normal" l…

So, you're just saying the article isn't persuasive to normies? I'm OK with that sentiment of yours, but I'm also OK with the article itself and the direction it implies this administration is going. Normies don't persuade easy, that's why they're normies. Trump has worked out how to persuade them: by lying hyperbolically and providing the 'circus' of the bread and circus method. But it's a dark circus, and its invol…

> Normies don't persuade easy, that's why they're normies

That's where I disagree with you. Normies persuade very easily. Just give them a better life. Tell them you'll make their life materially better and they'll be persuaded to support it.

See those tents on the street? I'll get rid of them.

Don't like to step over needles? I'll clean it up.

Are you annoyed by having stores put shampoo behind lock and key? I'll start arresting and prosecuting the <1% of people stealing.

Re: State Terror, American Style

#38

Post by sethammons »

foogazi wrote: post #23
actionfromafar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Please avoid political speech" is often just shorthand for "you are not allowed to talk about how the current rules just so happen to be my rules".

Flagged!

And this post was flagged and is no longer on hn front page

Re: State Terror, American Style

#39

Post by MSFT_Edging »

actionfromafar wrote: post #8
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's because we've gotten so used to avoiding political speech as a method of "civility", we've collectively put our heads in the sand. The people who were shouting their worries and concerns were told they were being political. Politics is just life now a days, I don't know how you can actually excise that.

"Please avoid political speech" is often just shorthand for "you are not allowed to talk about how the current rules just so happen to be my rules".

It's easy to forget the Hacker website is actually just a VC discussion board and the "avoid politics" is simply "avoid talking about our future business lines"

Re: State Terror, American Style

#40

Post by lapcat »

throwaway173738 wrote: post #34
piva00 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might take a couple more generations, a lot more misery, and maybe even a complete breakdown of democracy in the USA, for its population to finally learn that Democrats or Republicans are bound to the same higher power in the USA: money. Money is what decides everything, the speeding up of its accumulation brought by neoliberal economic policies under Reagan and onwards just made it abundantly clear that either pa…

How convenient that you have an argument for lumping together both a party that wants to continue the liberal democracy and a party that wants to cling to power at the expense of creating an actual authoritarian state complete with a secret police.

The two parties are not the same, but the privately funded electoral system of the US applies to all parties. Democrats cannot escape the corrupting influence of money.

Consider, as a revealing example, the Patriot Act of 2001. There was more resisitance to it from Democrats than from Republicans, yet there was still not nearly enough resistance. In the Senate, the vote was 98-1, with only Democrat Russ Feingold against. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act?#Legislative_histo...

In my "free speech zone" link above, the Democrats were the first to use that blatant violation of free speech, at their national convention.

Republicans take advantage of the precedents set by both parties.

Post reply on HN