821–830 of 1001 posts
Is anyone still doubting that what's happening is the actual death of American Democracy? Anyone still willing to argue that this is about freedom and cutting waste?
I would argue that this is not the end of your country's democracy and that in 2028 a new president will be elected. You'd disagree, I trust?
this is impacting scientific research to the point that people are scrubbing the word "gender" from their papers to avoid their research programs getting flagged by the doge gestapo
Given that it took about two centuries for the public to accept the heliocentric model, some patience may be needed. A great number of people only learn about gender through undergraduate education. And, iirc, only 25% of the population have undergraduate degrees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trump is pretty old at this point. Even if he decided to go full dictator, how long does he have? Maybe 5 to 10 years? I don't think it would be quite as "stable" as Putin's Russia.
Most of HN is probably too young to remember him, but Trump seems closer to Putin's predecessor Boris Yeltsin from 30 years ago. They have flamboyant and unpredictable public personas in common. Yeltsin also loved public performances, media attention, and direct engagement with large crowds. He often made chaotic decisions based on gut feeling and instincts rather than any clear strategy. Over time, alcoholism made Y…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trump is pretty old at this point. Even if he decided to go full dictator, how long does he have? Maybe 5 to 10 years? I don't think it would be quite as "stable" as Putin's Russia.
The things Trump has put in place may long outlive him. Roe v Wade lasted a long time.
So disappointed by the irrational and hyperbolic comments from my fellow nerds. Why are folks reading into this so much!? Clearly folks aren’t actually reading the content and just reacting based on a headline. Read, contemplate, compose. This really shouldn’t be an inflammatory exec order - from what I can tell this is precisely within the purview of a POTUS and precisely in line with historical exec orders. Why the…
This is not hyperbolic. In one month Trump has taken full unchecked power on almost anything. In 4 years, you won’t vote, that’s a given.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah this is a key tenant of the MAGA 2016 and 2024 campaigns: draining the swamp, fighting the deep state, etc. How else is the executive supposed to align fed bureaucrats to his goals?
The unitary executive theory is hardly a maga invention.
It makes sense to me, as a worker bee, i know I have to do what the boss says
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the crux of the issue. Executive power has been gradually expanded since at least the end of WWII, but things have accelerated since the early 00's. Think GWB's "signing statements" or Obama's "phone and pen." Trump I, Biden, and now Trump II have continued to push the limits, in part because of a desire for more power but also because Congress hasn't functioned as an institution in decades. Congress has pass…
Congress needs to be expanded to do its job, and drop the filibuster. We need more, proportionally allocated representatives. Representatives that come from more than one of two parties. Representatives that spend more time at home than on the campaign trail or in DC.
All for reps expansion. Remember that we haven't expanded in nearly 100 years because "we were out of room in the building". Meanwhile we have 435 people representing 330 million people (average of 760k people per rep), when the population representation was roughly 250k/rep the last time it expanded.
We should have at least 1000 reps by these numbers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems to me that the operative line: > The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch. conveys respect to the judiciary branch, and states that this only applies to situations where the executive branch is interpreting laws in isolation during their enforcement of them (which happens quite often…
I mean, yes, technically it's "not new" for the President and Judiciary to disagree at this level. But doing so results in events like the Trail of Tears, which is pretty bad . People are alarmed and concerned because they know it's not new. It's not difficult to find horrors in American history. Decorum and norms exist for the purpose of attempting to smooth over these stress points and make a safer power structure…
If you've followed Trump for long enough, one of the things he talks about a lot are the "unelected bureaucrats" in the government making the real laws that end up impacting Americans day-to-day, more than Congress oftentimes. That's who this is targeted at; subordinates within the executive branch. This isn't a law, or even an interpretation of an existing law, or an expansion of executive branch powers, or even an expansion of the powers of the office of the President (because legally, as far as I know, the President has always had this power); its best described as a memo elaborating a process.
One example that might be applicable here is Net Neutrality. FCC enforcement of Net Neutrality goes back and forth; it was about to happen, until Trump in 2017 when the ruling was cancelled, and then in 2023 it came back, and now it probably won't happen again. What you're seeing there is, in the most accurate sense, something this action would expressly cover. There's zero congressional law dealing with net neutrality. Every time the FCC has touched the topic, its been the unelected bureaucratic appointment of the latest elected President making a new rule that can just as quickly be overturned or interpreted differently by the next President. Trump's new action just recognizes a process that's already been happening, basically forever.
What net neutrality really needs is the same thing a ton of these bureaucratic agencies need: a law, passed by congress. Write it in stone.
But, this is a rare thing in modern America, and maybe it always has been. Our legislative branch sucks. Seems like our Founding Fathers may have wanted it that way, but I doubt they fully understood the consequences. Getting it to do anything is like pulling hair, and that's why Executive Actions (read: authoritarian rule) have become so common. Trump, to some degree, through his mass layoffs, the defunding of various parts of the government, and now the codification of the process that the President makes decisions on-behalf-of the executive branch, is trying to scale the bureaucratic state back. Is that a good goal? Will it be successful? I don't know. But that is, under my interpretation, the best description of his aims.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Protest and revolt. Government for the people and by the people
A majority of Americans voted for Trump. There was a pollster who was on CNN a day or two ago who looked into people who voted for Clinton and Biden in 2016 and 2020, but then for Trump in 2024. These people were (of course generally speaking) happy with Trump's performace so far this term. There frustration with the Democrats was what they perceived as a lack of action, and they see Trump as "moving fast". It's clea…
22.73% of Americans voted for Trump.
22.06% of Americans voted for Harris.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds pretty obviously unconstitutional. I don't see how a reasonable person could disagree actually. The whole point of the checks and balances is to prevent this.
Ok, so how would those checks and balances work if the president refuses to obey the courts? Who's going to enforce those court orders? I suppose you could say that the congress could impeach - but what if the majority of the House sides with the president? And if the House does manage to pass impeachment, it still takes 2/3 of Senators to convict - as we've seen that's a very high bar and very unlikely to happen. Bu…
In that case, congress is serving as a check on the court's power.