I speak from personal history, but it's really easy to take a bunch of theoretically smart, high-achieving young people, give them a singular purpose, and have them work in overdrive with a level of arrogance that fits their lack of wisdom. It's essentially exactly how Mao was able to create the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.

The Cultural Revolution did not have theoretically smart, high-achieving young people. Most of the atrocities were done by people who hated the "theoretically smart, high-achieving young people"

Not at all - I feel like you're saying that since the Cultural Revolution was anti-intellectual, it was thus against "theoretically smart, high-achieving young people".

But that analogy is even more apt for today - these young, energetic, just-out-of-school people want to tear down "elitist" institutions, just like students in the Red Guard did the same. One of the founders of the Red Guard who kicked off the Cultural Revolution was Nie Yuanzi, a Vice Chair of the Department of Economics at Peking University. I hope her Wikipedia page clarifies the analogy I was making: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nie_Yuanzi

> Most of the atrocities were done by people who hated the "theoretically smart, high-achieving young people"

No, most of the atrocities were done to eliminate political threats by targeting everyone who had a semblance of power and did not fell in line. Academia was targeted not because of an anti-intellectual push but because they could counter the influence of the new totalitarian regime trying to establish itself. There's a good reason why the leaders of said authoritarian pushes were lauded as the brightest minds in the land, whose writings should be consumed with a religious fervor.

> No, most of the atrocities were done to eliminate political threats by targeting everyone who had a semblance of power

And what power did most of these professors have if not their minds? This does not go against my assertion, it sounds like a "no" just to say "no"

Read what it was actually like:

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001275005.pdf

> And what power did most of these professors have if not their minds?

You're completely missing the point. Their academic careers put them in a position where their role was literally to shape and influence the next generation. As they were not fervent supporters, their role posed a threat to the regime. They could be profoundly dumb or grossly incompetent professors for what its worth. It's just that they didn't lockstep with the regime and the regime didn't wanted to risk it.

I think the current idea is for the violence to be done by prison guards in El Salvador. The kind of person that thinks SV "built the modern world", and that they're part of a new tier of human being for having gotten rich for stuff like having worked on a game for kids 11 years ago, and therefore are entitled to co-rule the world from now on, are just useful fools that help to enable that.

I guess the operation principle for Trump II is, if we want to beat China, be China first.

Semi-counterpoint: the actually smart, high-achieving young people adapt to the status quo. The ones one rung lower, who the prevailing system cast aside for some deficit or other, begin their own independent revolutions (often at the margin of society, and achieving little).

The rubes who blindly join someone else's revolution are neither the smartest nor the most high-achieving; they're just... useful.

You're describing Yarvin. Smart, but not smart enough to make it in the mainstream because he has racist authoritarian leanings. So he was cast out of mainstream hacker culture to toil on Urbit and his dark enlightment projects. The rubes are the kids in TFA.

> I've learned the hard way that many people in this country do NOT actually care about democracy.

Our democracy has been eroding for decades. Congress collects paychecks while gridlocking progress, even on bipartisan issues that could help ordinary citizens. Super PACs and "campaign contributions" (aka bribes) ensure the wealthy control both parties. Democrats and Republicans both spend recklessly and divide the nation. Democrats won't admit it, but their approach has driven half the country to prefer what the Republicans have become: essentially a cult.

How do you fix wealth inequality? That's what I want to know. I feel like we're so far past the point of no return. I'm sure they're all eagerly rubbing their hands together waiting to be a Duke in Peter Thiel's new global Monarchy.

The most reliable way that has been found is to make everyone poor. Once disposable resources appear someone always becomes a more shrewd trader, even if means if production is otherwise equal. Then they trade those things for a greater share of the means of production...

High tax on the rich. We did it in the UK in the first half of the 20th century with tax as high as 90%. But to do that you have to vote it in and it's not really popular with the electorate these days.

It's popular, but no party run with that agenda.

Preserving wealth is actually an uphill battle. It likes to leak; the wealthy need the help of systems and institutions to keep their largesse intact. If you want it to diffuse throughout society, stop guarding it, stop bailing them out, and tax them like you mean it.

So many policy decisions are about who to throw under the bus; flip the incidence from "mostly people without wealth" to "mostly people with wealth".

The traditional method is fairly ugly but if someones actions kill enough people at some point it is reasonable to kill them too.

> How do you fix wealth inequality? That's what I want to know.

This has been a topic of research for a long time in social science. Wealth redistribution via taxation, education, and strong social safety nets. There is some deadweight loss due to taxation in a single-shot model, but allows for more stable regimes when considering the long term.

Except the real issues are immigration and globalization.

The NYT did a couple of great podcasts about both issues: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/electi...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/03/magazine/nafta-tarriffs-e...

A majority of Americans have never supported either policy, but the credentialed elites in both parties have done so for decades. And both things have been accomplished largely through executive action. E.g. turning H1B from a temporary worker program into a pathway to permanent residency, or free trade agreements.

If anyone else would simply commit to severely immigration and free trade, Trump’s hold on the GOP would evaporate. We have seen it happen in other countries—in Denmark the left capitulated on immigration and everything is fine again.

> Except the real issues are immigration and globalization.

The US is a country of immigrants, and has been so since it's inception.

H1Bs are not about limiting immigration at all. They are about having a workforce without basic rights and bestow corporations with the power of uprooting an employee's life and banishing them from the land if he even dares stepping out of line.

The axes hanging over the regular folk's head, such as corporate control over access to healthcare, is not enough to completely control the workforce. They still feel they need more control. That's why mechanisms like H1Bs exist, and why illegal immigrants are still widely employed and the ruling regime punishes workers but always protects the employers who insist in hiring them almost exclusively.

> The US is a country of immigrants, and has been so since it's inception.

As JD aptly put it, that’s wrong,[1] but, regardless, so what? America is first and foremost, a democratic republic. Sentimental 20th century notions designed to assimilate the last wave of mass immigration have no binding power on the electorate. Americans are entitled to decide that they’re done with immigration, and it’s the civil service’s job to put that into effect.

[1] The US is a nation created British settlers. Once that society was created, immigrants moved into it. There’s a fundamental difference between immigrants and settlers. https://youtu.be/ZpbYtZ5La8U?si=5gdZ-MGamBwZ4djb. Italian Americans speak English and live within a system of laws and civic customs inherited from a thousand years of English tradition and history. But English Americans don’t speak Iroquois or adhere to an Iroquois legal system or traditions.

> As JD aptly put it, that’s wrong (...)

That's a mind-numbing stupid take which is rejected by the faintest cursory ancestry analysis of the US population. The 2020 census alone points out that there is as many german americans as English americans, and I'm not seeing racist anti-immigration rants targeting germans. They are the predominant ethnic group in the Northeast and Midwest regions. If not by immigration then how do you explain their presence?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Americans

For a clue, check where Trump's grandfather was from and how he ended up in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Trump

The total number of european americans don't even reach 40% of the population, which is nothing new.

So if not from immigration then how do you explain that fact?

There’s many ethnic Germans in America, but there’s almost nothing German in broader American law and civic society. Thats the distinction between the settler population (British people and African slaves, with a relatively small proportion of Dutch, Spanish, and French) and the immigrant population (everyone else).

America is a country that happens to have a lot of people of immigrant ancestry. That’s an incidental feature. Because it’s a physically large country that was for a long time relatively unsettled. But that doesn’t define the country. There isn’t anything that commits the country to any particular policy re: immigration. In fact, the massive German, Irish, and Italian immigration of the 19th century led to a decades-long restriction of immigration staring in the 1920s, where the foreign born population dropped from 15% (similar to now) to under 5% by 1970.

> There’s many ethnic Germans in America, but there’s almost nothing German in broader American law and civic society.

Irrelevant. The disputed fact was that America was not a country of immigrants. The idiotic assertion raised in the parent post is a refresh of the argument that the Mayflower landed settlers and not immigrants, which is nonsense due to the fact that the bulk of the population of the US are undoubtedly immigrants.

Does that define the country, or is it an incidental fact about the country? By that logic you could say America is a nation of white people (definitionally, rather than merely incidentally) to justify a different immigration policy.

> Does that make America “a nation of immigrants?”

The vast majority of Americans are immigrants.

> Is it a defining characteristic or an incidental one?

Is this even a question? Again, the vast majority of Americans are immigrants.

> I wouldn’t say that’s a defining characteristic that should define our future immigration policies.

You can try to move the goalpost as far as you'd like and blow as many ignorant and ill-informed xenophobic dog whistles as you'd care to blow. You cannot outrun the fact that the US is a nation of immigrants.

I simply read your post to make it make sense. That is, you’re saying “America is a nation of immigrants” to refer to some articulated principle—like free speech or property rights—that should compel the electorate to adhere to some policy going forward.

If by “nation of immigrants” you mean merely the fact that most Americans have immigrant ancestry, your original post makes no sense. Why would that incidental fact have any bearing on what America’s immigration policy should be going forward? Mere accidents of history don't compel a democratic republic to maintain any particular course.

Democracy is 'good' mainly because it represents a vote of who would win a violent fight, and anticipating that, we can bypass all that and just defer to the victors without bloodshed. As means of violence becomes less equal amongst those granted suffrage, though, democracy becomes less stable as there is no longer clear visibility as to why the losers must defer.

If we weren't easily slaughtered meat sacks, I'd say democracy rather sucks.

Sincere question: are you and I using “democracy” to mean the same thing?

What Trump is doing is a reversion to how the federal government was run after the founding and during the 18th century (what’s derisively called the “spoils system”). Trump campaigned with a bunch of people with specific ideas (RFK, Musk, Gabbard, etc.) and then when elected put those people in positions of authority. Here, taking an axe to the civil service was Item #9 on Trump’s platform: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform. He sent Musk as his surrogate to camp out in the key swing state of Pennsylvania the week before the election. For many Trump voters, this is what they voted for. For others, maybe DOGE wasn’t their thing, but they were content with it to get RFK Jr. or Gabbard or Tom Homan. And from all those people you got a winning coalition.

What you’re talking about sounds more like Wilsonian managerialism. Where elections are more like an input signal to a credentialed civil service service that applies its expertise to the problems of governance: https://fedsoc.org/commentary/fedsoc-blog/woodrow-wilson-s-c....

You can make a fair case that governance by detached civil servants is better, but how can you possibly say that it’s more democratic?

Typically, democratic means voting people in Congress in, then Congress votes and represents their constituents.

There is a reason the President was not initially elected by the people. The spoils system and the current systems failings are precisely that foresight.

When Congress is weak, the Executive is unchecked. Go read the Old Whig 4

Luckily a weak congress can be replaced. I see nothing that has happened so far personally that cannot be democratically corrected.

> Typically, democratic means voting people in Congress in, then Congress votes and represents their constituents

That's still happening.

Sure, presidential electors should be appointed by state legislatures and the administrative state is unconstitutional.

But if we aren’t relitigating all that: we have an administrative state, to which Congress has delegated vast authority. Given that, how is it possible to argue that we should then further insulate that administrative state from accountability to the only elected official who can effectively hold it accountable—the President? What’s left?

That view reduces the elected government to a meta-government. Congress’s job is to make largely jurisdictional and procedural rules for the civil service to follow, and the president’s job is to mind adherence to those rules. But actual policymaking is delegated to the civil service, which is insulated from elections.

The spoils system is good, actually, and I’m persuaded that’s how the constitution was meant to work. People who voted for Trump loved that he put up a slate of people he was going to appoint with concrete visions of how they were going to run the government. That seems democratic to me.

Sorry but the spoils state is called corruption and is totally bad in all forms. If you want to curtail the so called administrative agency then the parties have to win elections by dicisive margins. Or the president and judiciary can force Congress to pass laws.

You’ve neglected any discussion of democracy beyond the executive branch.

Can you expand?

I keep hearing on HN about how the US is being "taken over", that there is a "coup in place" and Musk is a "fascist" and so on (I'm not making these up, these are genuine HN comments in this thread and elsewhere).

I'd like someone to clearly explain to me, an outsider about why such hostility has been ushered in this community ? Please point me to specifics so that I can understand what law(s) are being broken? Why are we seeing blog posts like this "listing names".. like it's September 1, 1939 ?

I've been a member of HN for many years and have never seen this level of panic bubbling up, I've been trying to follow it but it's hard to follow a balanced discussion when I see half the comments downvoted and only one sided conversations are happening, which is quite upsetting for me, since one of the reasons I cherish this community, is because of its ability to provide nuanced discussions.

So if I may, I'd invite you (and others) to please engage in thoughtful discourse, so that I can genuinely be informed and make my own conclusions on the matter.

I think we’re seeing a lot of culturally rooted assumptions about the nature of government bubbling to the surface. There’s a lot of people who subscribe to progressive managerialism, which was championed by Woodrow Wilson. This is the dominant culture of knowledge workers. What Trump is doing is deeply upsetting to them. They will invoke things like records laws or the Impoundment Act or whatever, but nobody gets this worked up about laws requiring paperwork. They’re upset at the idea that you could just have a president who runs the executive branch however he wants regardless of what the civil service wants.

Most Americans, by contrast, are populists, either left-populists or right-populists. The breach of orderly practices doesn’t get them worked up. Look at how AOC frames what’s going on. She doesn’t talk about paperwork violations—her supporters wouldn’t care. She accuses Musk of robbing the Treasury, threatening to stop social security payments, etc. I don’t think those things are true, but it’s the kind of thing that would move her populist supporters to action.

That's a weird take. Given your other comments in this thread, you have ideological blinders on.

People are worried because Musk is doing whatever the hell he wants, dismantling power structures that could oppose him, and installing lackeys that are loyal to him. He won't face consequences for doing anything illegal because he has a puppet in the White House that the Supreme Court says has absolutely authority to pardon him for anything.

This is a naked power grab, and must be treated as such.

So, having read through the thread a few days after participating, and being more or less fully on the anti-current-actions camp by DOGE, I think raiyner is actually doing a pretty strong job presenting the facts as he, she, or they see it.

Sure, happy to expand.

Stepping back quite a bit, the US constitution divides up responsibilities between the Legislator (Congress), the Executive (President), and the courts (Supreme Court).

The Legislator is given rights over declaring war, applying tariffs and levying taxes, federal budget, approving international treaties, and of course writing laws. Over the past 250 years, the legislative branch has slowly given the executive branch more discretion. In times of emergency, the legislative branch moves too slowly, so the executive branch is better suited to make snap decisions.

Trump, as soon as he's taken office, immediately used these powers to declare an emergency at the border (https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-pr...) and redirected the military to intervene. It's an abuse of the power, as the situation has been relatively stable (enough so that congress should have had time to meet and decide on next steps), but it's something he did in his last term as well (https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/pr...) so was expected. What wasn't expected was the repurposing of Guantanamo Bay (a military prison with a dark history outside the jurisdiction of most US courts) now being used for migrants (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0p1ykxyzjo). It's a worrying trend of moving undesirables somewhere out of sight of the general public. In his last term, there were detention centers inside of the US (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tornillo-texas-tent-camp-hou...) with poor conditions -- most notably, Trump pardoned one such sheriff (https://www.npr.org/2017/08/25/545282459/president-trump-par...) who was remarkably cruel and called the tent cities personal concentration camps. This shift to move migrants to more restricted areas is seen as a way to avoid oversight.

Trump likewise invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to levy tariffs against Canada (https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/prog...), Mexico (https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/impo...), and China (https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/impo...). Again, these powers are usually invoked in response to war, so it's considered an abuse of power. Canada and Mexico are also close allies and a part of USMCA, which is a treaty promoting free trade between the three countries; Trump negotiated & signed the USMCA treaty when he was last in office, and has since called it a bad deal and these tariffs directly conflict with it. It's put the US in a situation where allies are being alienated. Trump has also threatened tariffs against the EU and Taiwan, both of which currently count on US military intervention in case of war, which is straining those relationships as well.

Republicans, hopefully more as a show of solidarity than an act they'd follow through with, have also introduced legislation (https://ogles.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-ogles-propo...) to allow Trump (and only Trump) to run a 3rd term as president. This kind of twisting of the laws is something you'd expect more in Russia or other puppet governments and leaves a bad taste. Similarly, legislation to add Trump to our national landmarks (https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/792) have been floated while Trump has had historically low approval ratings when compared to past presidents (https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ra...).

In Trump's previous term, he appointed several Supreme Court justices. The court is idealistically an unbiased and independent branch, and are given lifetime appointments as such, but the political leanings of the court have shifted with these new appointments. Abortion, a controversial topic in the US, was recently made illegal in several states after the court re-ruled, on party lines, a 50-year standing (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf). More recently, and relevantly, though, the supreme court ruled again on party lines that the president cannot be taken to court over illegal acts while in office (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf) and that only congress's power of impeachment can be used. With a republican majority in both houses of congress (and impeachment requiring 2/3rds approval to convict), there seem to be little to no recourse to anything Trump has done or plans to do regardless of legality. It's democratic in a sense -- the US population voted for a majority in the house and senate and so we're getting what we voted for -- but there's 2 years until the next election, so there's a prevailing sense of helplessness.

Getting into powers of the purse, as mentioned before, the executive branch is expected to dutifully carry out the budget and laws set by the legislative branch. This includes the creation and running of departments, as well as getting senate approval for department heads. Notably, Elon Musk is not a senate-approved department head, but he's been given dangerous amounts of access to the treasury (https://www.wired.com/story/treasury-department-doge-marko-e...) and other departments. This is without going through the normal vetting process (although, as President, Trump does have the power to bypass such requirements. It's simply against norms, and raises concerns about the possibility of blackmail, espionage, and hacking). Elon has also declared several departments as 'criminal organizations' (https://www.npr.org/2025/02/03/nx-s1-5285539/doge-musk-usaid...), Trump has fired anyone who has pushed back against Elon's requests, and funding for most departments has been paused pending review. Trump has also offered almost federal employees a Voluntary Exit Program (VEP) (https://www.opm.gov/fork/), although the legality of such a VEP is debated since past court cases (https://www.oyez.org/cases/1989/88-1943) have ruled that congressional approval is necessary. If that's the case, anyone who resigns may not end up being paid. This is seen as a wider purge (eg. https://apnews.com/article/trump-fbi-firing-a7b19a5f414ce82c..., https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-federal-inspectors-genera...) of the government to replace federal employees with loyalists to the president (instead of to the constitution).

And for Elon specifically, during Trump's inauguration he did his infamous "My heart goes out to you" salute (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfYjPzj1Xw) which is seen as a poor attempt to signal to the far right and neo-nazi parties, that typically have supported the republican party, that they are welcome and in positions of power now. Elon also spoke at far-right rallies in Germany (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/elon-musk-appears-video...) championing lines of nationalist empowerment. At face value, it's innocent enough, but these terms are also seen as a dogwhistle for neo-nazis and so it's seen together as another vocalization of support for them.

Trump also pardoned everyone involved in the insurrection on January 6th, who had invaded the capital and attempted to abduct the congressmen and vice president to stop them from ratifying the peaceful transfer of power in 2020. This is seen as a nod from Trump that if you support him, you will have immunity for your actions.

---

The US populace voted for this, so if it's a coup it's a bloodless one. But everything Trump has done in the few weeks he's been in office is very extreme by the standards of the US. The transfer is power is usually peaceful, and builds upon the work of past presidents. This is a very abrupt departure from that, and no concern is given to impressions of corruption and nepotism.

Self-coup is a thing, and it's what's happening now!

> The US populace voted for this, so if it's a coup it's a bloodless one.

The role of Trump's normalization of political violence cannot be understated. It's well known that going against Trump results in death threat and spawns acts of stochastic terrorism.

Please read this comment from elsewhere in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42969050. Then go onto Google and read all the details about this person, including what he was given access to; how a federal court upheld his access just earlier today; and then how, hours later, he resigned when his recent social media commentary was discovered.

Quick primer: he was one of only two people who reports to Elon Musk at Doge who had access to the treasury department payment system. There is suspicion (to my knowledge not yet proven) that he had write access to the system, but there’s no debate that he had read access because an actual judge stated he could continue to have access today (judge’s decision was before the WSJ reported on the social media commentary and he resigned).

If I may, when you’ve had a chance to dig into this, would you reply here and give your take? Would you call it a major red flag? And given the contents of the social media commentary, do you see any parallels to 1939? And if you do see the parallels can you at all, I mean in the slightest, understand where the “panic” is coming from? You don’t have to be at your keyboard or phone crying “fascist!” Just wondering if you can see it, even a little bit. I can, even though I think the fascist language has lost most of its punch from overuse.

Note this is just one example of several over the last few weeks. It’s just a very clear one given there is little debate about the facts.

> The fact that nobody is stopping these people is the clearest evidence anyone needs that there's no such thing as "the deep state".

What do you mean? I see plenty of people trying to stop DOGE. Not very successful so far, considering the President does have significant powers over the Executive function.

And the "deep state" is nothing special. It's simply the unelected government employees. It's the same thing you see in big private corporations and the reason why CEOs tend to fire all the VPs and each org "cleans house" - people who don't agree with your mission will work to oppose it.

Half of these people are software engineers, many in their early 20s. I don't even need the gender card to point out that the group seems highly biased.

Not everyone believes democracy means what you think it means. It's like saying "religion is good." Which religion?

-> Not everyone believes democracy means what you think it means.

What are different democracies people believe in?

That's true, but these are Yarvin acolytes. They literally don't believe in democracy. They think their superior intellect entitles them to rule over the rest of us.

Democracy in the US is well defined, even if someone does not understand it.

Simplified, the President executes laws written by Congress via the Executive branch. Congress passes laws that must agree with the US Constitution. The Judicial branch arbitrates disputes by interpreting the US Constitution. The Constitution can be changed per Article V.

Only a disinfo bot could be so deliberately wrong.

How about: any democracy where Elon Musk (an unelected, private citizen) isn't granted unfettered access to dismantle the federal government.

The civil service is almost entirely unelected private citizens. Musk at least is an agent of the guy who just won the election.

Don't try to talk sense to HN comment trolls. Waste of time.

> Musk at least is an agent of the guy who just won the election.

Yeah: The guy who said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes. That guy. Who wasn't elected absolute monarch, no matter what the unitary-executive crowd fondly believes.

So you’re saying it was transparent what people were voting for?

Trump isn’t governing like a monarch. He’s not regulating private conduct or imposing taxes or putting people in prison. What he’s doing is exercising the executive power, as vested in him by Article II.

(As an aside, Article II says what it says. We don’t need a label for it. What requires a label is the theory that there’s an independent civil service insulated from the President and political appointees.)

> What requires a label is the theory that there’s an independent civil service insulated from the President and political appointees.

The "executive power" is what's enumerated in Article II — most notably the All Other Officers Clause and the Take Care Clause. (It's been often said that it was no accident that the Framers put Article I first.)

So: If both houses of Congress pass a bill saying that Agency X is insulated from the president and political oversight — and the president signs the bill into law — then that should be the complete and utter end of the discussion until Congress and the president agree to change the law.

Those folks who've been bootstrapping a unitary-executive monarchy are engaging in ... let's just say, "creative lawyering" (spelled: making it up out of whole cloth). At least Marbury v. Madison has some policy grounds underlying it (the least dangerous branch and all that); the unitary-executive fantasy is devoid of such advantages.

BTW, just because Trump hasn't yet done all the things a monarchist could do, doesn't mean he's not a monarchist; saying otherwise is atrociously illogical.

He's fettered by the CEO to whom he reports.

Recent body language analysis brings that into question. But it isn't a very precise science.

>Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America

That's also a bit disingenuous. You can save America today by not being an ass to others, doing what you know is right and spending some of your free time helping others. Plenty of charities one can get involved with, locally as well.

The reason why they're there is because "I worked for Musk" in your CV translates to tens/hundreds of millions of dollars later in life.

Who are the domestic political prisoners you're talking about? The rioters who broke into the capitol, reportedly resulting in 5 deaths and at least a hundred injuries? Or different ones

Why are you even trying that angle? It's so easily shot down. Come on now.

We could look at countries that have healthy democracies and see what they're doing differently.

What are countries like Finland, Norway, or Estonia doing differently and how can we import it to our countries?

I care deeply about democracy and I support everything Trump and Musk are doing. I am happy to continue this thread in good faith. Trump clearly stated before the election that he would have Musk run the Department of Government Efficiency to root out corruption and waste, fraud, and abuse. Of course there is teeth-gnashing and wailing from the people affected. And Trump won the popular vote.

Where is democracy failing?

I am not sold on these actions being done in good faith, or legally. There’s a lot of evidence of forceful behavior in obtaining access to highly sensitive systems.

Also, the government is here to run services, for us, with the money we give it in the form of taxes.

Removing all government services in order to save money (and provide tax cuts to the 0.1% richest people and corps.) seems to be based in the belief that we are here to serve the people at the top. This is not the spirit of democracy.

Another notable fact is that the current leadership consists of people who are not known for healthy governance providing care and benefit for many. They are known for maximizing extraction, and shocking lack of compassion and understanding.

Besides the open racism and sadistic dickishness. Which, to be fair, we’re a part of the hatred and fear-based platform.

I have lived experience dealing with selling software to government agencies. I have observed egregious activity, which to my company's government salesmen, didn't cause them to blink an eye. In one case, the DoD budget ran out of money, but the DoD budget for Disabled Veteran purchasing still had money, so we added 10% to the contract and resold through a disabled veteran's LLC, the taxpayer got screwed, the LLC-owner made a 6 figure fee for doing nothing, and we got paid. This, I was told, was literally nothing compared to what else our salesmen had seen! But I was scandalized as an honest 20-something worker bee.

Such a minor case of course. But this is a microcosm of the entire problem. No one cares, no one is incentivized, no one represents the taxpayer. How does a US politician on a $175k salary become worth $80 million after 30 years in congress? The system is rigged, and the majority of the American people see themselves as suckers and are tired of it.

> How does a US politician on a $175k salary become worth $80 million after 30 years in congress?

Which politician are we talking about here? Or are we being generic? From what I've seen, the majority of people in Congress started off rich because, well, you need to be rich (or at least rich-adjacent) to even consider running.

Chuck Schumer, who has been in Congress since 1998 https://www.lawyersclubindia.com/wealth/chuck-schumer-net-wo...

Not wishing to disparage the good name of "lawyersclubindia" and their guesstimates but OpenSecrets has him at just over $1M in 2018[0] and ThisNation has him at $900k in 2022[1]. (Neither sounds that plausible but they are definitely less shady than "lawyersclubindia".)

The only places that have him in the 10s of $M bracket look like spam content farms who've stolen the majority of their content from Wikipedia.

[0] https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances/charles-schume...

[1] https://www.thisnation.com/politics/people/chuck-schumer-net...

I posted the comment above yours.

Nowhere did I mention that accountability for government spending is a bad thing or that government spending is not out of control. Especially with military contracts.

Of course we should address overspending. Of course we should have accountability. Of course we should end the brazen insider trading, and end citizens united, and reform campaign financing.

Defunding USAID, defunding Medicare, deregulating profits on medications, defunding NPR etc. are none of these things and we all know it.

The Pentagon has been failing audit after audit. How come we are not starting with that? (Rhetorical question).

Subsidies for industries that don’t need subsidies.

Let’s not pretend that the waste is in the essential historically underfunded services.

All the cuts are funds already legally allocated by congress.

EM or DT do not have the authority to reverse that funding decision outside the democratic / congressional process.

With DACA, Obama unilaterally decided not to enforce laws duly enacted by congress.

So what keeps Trump from unilaterally deciding not to spend money duly appropriated by congress?

> With DACA, Obama unilaterally decided not to enforce laws duly enacted by congress. > > So what keeps Trump from unilaterally deciding not to spend money duly appropriated by congress?

I had to think about this.

What's the point/goal of giving the power of the purse to Congress if it's actually just a slush fund?

If Congress can allocate money for the courts, but the executive is the one tasked with execution (DOJ) and decided not spend that, we are saying there is no real need to balance power.

So if there's no authority to direct spending, what prevents the executive from spending money on replacing the courts and Congress?

The impoundment act. But good luck getting that enforced with a do-nothing, complicit Congress.

I think the issue is Congress enacting a slush fund and then getting mad that the executive is treating it as such.

Congress does have the authority to direct spending, but doesn’t always do so.

Here’s an example appropriation for USAID:

> development assistance

> For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of sections 103, 105, 106, 214, and sections 251 through 255, and chapter 10 of part I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, $3,000,000,000

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8771...

If you look at the foreign assistance act it’s extremely broad. That’s how you end up with USAID giving money to AFL-CIO to fund labor movements in Bangladesh. They get three billion dollars to spend however they can creatively fit under the general categories of things like “education.” So what supervisory role has Congress really left itself over that money?

It could choose to direct the same billion to DOE, or FCC instead and end up with very different outcomes.

Let's assume it is all one giant slushfund for the executive. What now enables checks on the slush funds use?

If Congress says "here's 10 billion to spend on X and Y but not on Z. And the executive says "nah, I'm going to actually not spend it on X, but Y and Z sure." So Congress says "ok here's half as much so you can't spend it on Z "

Executive replies "now I spend it all on Z"

Congratulations you've discovered a defunding spiral I guess?

To be clear, I don’t think the executive can just ignore the difference between a billion to the FCC versus a billion to USAID.

My point is that, having given a large slush fund to USAID with only vague guidance on how to spend it, they’ve put the ball in the President’s court. The President isn’t obligated to spend the money on the priorities career USAID people want to spend it on. He can spend it on whatever smart lawyers can justify as being within the broad terms of the corresponding appropriation bills. Congress never specifically appropriated money for grants to bankroll left wing labor organizations in Bangladesh. The executive did that and the executive can undo that. And they can see where they stand in terms of total program funding after all that’s done.

And it’ll take time to see whether he’s going to end up spending less than appropriated for statutory programs, such that there’s an impoundment. Remember, USAID isn’t going away, it’s keeping 600 or so mission critical employees.

> To be clear, I don’t think the executive can just ignore the difference between a billion to the FCC versus a billion to USAID. >

Right, he tried that last term with the wall and didn't win in the courts.

> My point is that, having given a large slush fund to USAID with only vague guidance on how to spend it,

How certain are you that it's as vague as you claim?

>The President isn’t obligated to spend the money on the priorities career USAID people want to spend it on. He can spend it on whatever smart lawyers can justify as being within the broad terms of the corresponding appropriation bills.

I think it's a large assumption to say the POTUS can spend the money for an organization on lawers meant to defend dismantling the organization.

What statues do you believe enable this? >Congress never specifically appropriated money for grants to bankroll left wing labor organizations in Bangladesh. The executive did that and the executive can undo that.

Not familiar with the specifics you are waving at, do you have more information?

> And it’ll take time to see whether he’s going to end up spending less than appropriated for statutory programs, such that there’s an impoundment.

So logically the lawyers mentioned earlier by you, could demand a fee sum large enough to ensure the spending, and try to prevent any impoundment?

> Remember, USAID isn’t going away, it’s keeping 600 or so mission critical employees.

You don't have to take all the water away from a tree to kill it, but take away enough water, for long enough time, and it can only wither and rot.

I don't see how the current actions are leading to a reduction in waste. Could you elaborate on how the recent actions are connected with improved spending outcomes?

Something like USAID is established by statute (The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961). It cannot be eliminated or gutted by executive order.

Sidestepping this, which is happening left and right currently, is democracy failing.

Eliminated and gutted are loaded terms here. They are auditing everything and pointing out stuff that is outside the scope of the target’s purview.

People are so wrapped up in this that they are forgetting the information commons are so polluted with rage and nonsense that they think democracy is failing.

Shutting down everything isn't an audit. Looking at some top level line items is not an audit. An audit takes time and you have a plan and reasons to back it up when it's done.

What is happening is things are being indiscriminately torn down.

Maybe it's for the best, but as there's no analysis, people are rightfully concerned about what is happening.

No, they are laying off all staff and shutting down established programs.

“I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said.

“And I actually checked with him a few times [and] said ‘are you sure?’” The answer was yes, he said.

“And so we’re shutting it down,” Musk said.

Technically, it was created by JFK issuing an, checks notes, Executive Order.

After the Act. Read the very first line of JFK's order that created it.

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-10...

The Act gave authority (power) to JFK. The EO created USAID.

Technically this was superseded and USAID was legally established by statute in the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 [1]. Perhaps you forgot to take notes when that happened.

1. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12500

Hence the appropriate use of the word "Technically"

USAID still exists, it's now under the State Department. It is true that one could argue where the authority of the President starts and stops, but that's going to be figured out in the courts.

And the Trump administration was smart to start with USAID. It's been an arm of the CIA since it's origination. Look at the role it played in the Vietnam War - arming of a militia under the guise of "development". It also was the org that funded the fake "polio vaccination campaign" in the search for Bin Laden.

And it's funny to see the pearl clutching going on when only 3-4 years ago there were numerous press reports on just how unaccountable USAID was to the federal government.

Trump disavowed Project 2025 during the campaign and his voters believed him. If democracy worked, he would be held accountable for this enormous bait-and-switch.

> root out corruption and waste, fraud, and abuse

That is not what they are doing by most accounts.

Trump disavowed Project 2025 during the campaign, is just a performance appreciated by his voters, as many of his voters believed “be a racist but don’t say it”.

The same reason that one of the DOGE youth got fired, not because he is a racist, but because his racism remark got caught.

> That is not what they are doing by most accounts.

Let's wait and see for the audits of NGOs! Your opinion says it isn't working, but my opinion says it is.

Part of the difficulty of arguing about this is that the effectiveness is very clearly not there. The following is from treasury.gov[1]:

21 % Social Security 15 % National Defense 14 % Health 13 % Net Interest 13 % Medicare 9 % Income Security 6 % Veterans Benefits and Services 3 % Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services 2 % Natural Resources and Environment 2 % Transportation 2 % Other

To get the level of cuts they want they cannot legally do it without Congress.

[1]: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...

1. There is question of legal authority for the executive branch to be doing what it is doing.These departments were established by acts of congress and an act of congress would need to shut them down. What DOGE is doing is by passing congress and de facto shutting them down by not letting them operate. Eventually the courts will probably catch up and and say DOGE has to stop doing X,Y, and Z, but in the short-term they are taking advantage.

2. It is of legal question whether Musk should have been confirmed by congress given the the access and power he is wielding.

Yes, Trump was democratically elected and yes, Musk was appointed, but democracy requires the rule of law to be followed or the whole thing starts to fall apart.

Trump is ignoring laws. Canning USAID is a great example. Ignoring background check processes is another.

It’ll be handled by the courts then, right?

Personally, I like the bold approach. I really dislike Trump and would never ever consider voting for the guy. This isn’t the outcome that I hoped for, but I appreciate that he’s trying to do something at least, even if it fails. Only 34% of Americans trust the government for a lot of valid reasons. We’ve been at war for pretty much forever. We keep innerworkings of government secret for ‘national security’. And, I have never liked how we influence elections and governments around the world. It always felt so gross.

I’ve done work with USAID and have seen first hand their ineffective humanitarian aid programs. It’s not surprising that they haven’t made much progress in over 50 years when you consider the perverse incentives.

OK, we have an independent judiciary to decide on the legality. Just because you say it's illegal doesn't mean it is. Biden unilaterally cancelled a trillion dollars of college debt, which the Supreme Court said was illegal, then he tweaked the executive order and did it again, which the Supreme Court said was illegal again.

This is the system.

But the DOJ replied to that independent judiciary that was not bound by their decision... It wasn't appealed to a supreme court that would likely overrule the lower court, it was simply asserted that the judges order didn't matter. That is the sort of thing I find concerning. Firing non appointed law enforcement officers without stated cause too. If you walk down the autocratic playbook for the rise to power, there are way too many parallels for comfort. Ask chatgpt to provide them along with relevant quotes from well known autocrats. Some of the judicial orders do seem to be getting followed now, I have some bit of hope that the supreme court won't do anything too obviously biased.

> OK, we have an independent judiciary to decide on the legality.

You don't.

> Just because you say it's illegal doesn't mean it is.

It's illegal to the point it even violates the US constitution.

> Biden unilaterally cancelled a trillion dollars of college debt, which the Supreme Court said was illegal, (...)

The Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Education didn't had the authority to enact such a large program and needed to seek approval from congress, and the rule was called by Trump's appointees.

Biden's student loan debt programs still went ahead because, unlike the original claim, the department of education already was running student debt forgiveness programs before and during Trump's first term, and those existing programs were never questioned as being illegal or unconstitutional.

The fact that you are trying to compare this event to Trump's string of illegal and unconstitutional efforts to shut down and dismantle the whole federal government, not to mention the whole sabotage campaign involving threatening long-standing allies of military invasion and economic war, speaks volumes of how disingenuous you're being.

And what's even worse, the person you replied to may lot even realize how disingenuous they are being. This is the level of propaganda that is tearing through the US.

Which laws protect USAID from Trump's EO, pray tell?

The part of the constitution that says only Congress can create laws and the president just implements them.

He didn't create any law in this matter and he used a legal path way, executive orders. Do cry about the broken system.

No, he is closing down an agency using Executive Orders; however, as currently constituted, only Congress can shut down the agency.

> The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, 22 U.S.C. 6501 et seq.) established USAID as its own agency. In a section titled “Status of AID” (22 U.S.C. 6563) it states:

>> (a) In general

>> Unless abolished pursuant to the reorganization plan submitted under section 6601 of this title, and except as provided in section 6562 of this title, there is within the Executive branch of Government the United States Agency for International Development as an entity described in section 104 of title 5.

Because the agency is an independent agency, it cannot be interrupted without going through the appropriate channel.

[0] https://www.justsecurity.org/107267/can-president-dissolve-u...

Please stop promulgating the misinformation about background checks, it only serves to discredit people on the left. Focus on things that are actually illegal or irregular.

The access that DOGE and Elon has is strictly legal via standard government processes.

I guess one positive out of all of this is that Americans will (hopefully) actually learn something about how the government works. I have the benefit of having worked in DC for a long time but every American should have a passing familiarity with this. Misconceptions are rife.

> The access that DOGE and Elon has is strictly legal via standard government processes.

Nope, you are mistaken. The EO gave access for DOGE and unclassified systems. Treasury has quite a bit that is classified. This is why the lawsuits to stop them have merit.

https://home.treasury.gov/about/general-information/orders-a...

You are mistaken. Individuals can be granted access to any classified system without a clearance by an appropriate authority. Happens all the time in some parts of government. I am quite familiar with this part of the law by virtue of need.

I am sure the trivial act of granting that access was done given that the people now in charge have that authority.

Again, this ignorance of the basic mechanics of US government is discrediting to valid arguments. You are being manipulated to look like you have no idea what you are talking about, which will discredit your valid arguments by association.

Cite the regs. Cure what you feel is inaccurate.

This isn’t a serious request. The ability of authorities to grant arbitrary people access to classified information has been the law of the land forever. If you are unfamiliar with this then you are not in a position to make a credible argument. I am not going to play a game of “fetch a rock” with someone incapable of cursory research.

This is my world, I know how it works.

> This is my world, I know how it works.

"Trust me bro"

Where you have made your claim isn't 'your world,' it's the open web. You may or may not spend any time at all, but taking people at their word was ruined by 4chan and other trolls.

Since I'm pretty sure you're wrong, and I actually chatted about my questions with people who operate in the space, let me add more information to the conversation.

First, governing documents:

Executive Order 13526 - Governs classification of national security information, including Top Secret, Secret, and Confidential levels. - Who Can Override? President - Override Process: The President can declassify or reclassify any classified information at will.

Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) - Controls handling of classified information in legal proceedings. - Who Can Override? Federal Courts (Judges) - Override Process: Judges can determine whether classified evidence can be disclosed in court.

National Industrial Security Program (NISP) (Executive Order 12829) - Regulates access to classified information by contractors and private entities. - Who Can Override? President, Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) - Override Process: The President can issue waivers; DCSA can grant or deny access based on security clearances.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) - Regulates intelligence gathering on foreign entities and individuals. - Who Can Override? FISA Court (FISC) - Override Process: Judges can approve or disapprove classified surveillance requests.

Atomic Energy Act (AEA) of 1954 - Governs access to classified nuclear information ("Restricted Data"). - Who Can Override? President, Department of Energy (DOE), Congress - Override Process: The President and DOE can declassify certain nuclear information. Congress can pass legislation altering classification.

Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978 - Regulates access to presidential records, including classified materials. - Who Can Override? Incumbent President - Override Process: The sitting President can restrict or release prior administration records.

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) - Allows public access to government records but exempts classified materials. - Who Can Override? Agencies, Courts, President - Override Process: Agencies can deny requests, courts can order disclosure, and the President can override agency decisions.

Department of Defense (DoD) Information Security Program (DoDM 5200.01) - Regulates access to military and defense-related classified information. - Who Can Override? Secretary of Defense, President - Override Process: The Secretary of Defense can restrict access within DoD, and the President can override classifications.

While a President could certainly grant access to classified (and sensitive) systems, there are still laws that prevent hostile takeovers like what Elon Musk and DOGE have done (which, you recall, were explicitly given access by executive order to unclassified systems).

The laws, acts, and regs I would have expected you to cite include:

- FISMA (2014)

- CISA (2015)

- EO 13800

- Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (2004)

- CFAA (Title 18, USC Sec.1030)

Can the president override these restrictions? Not directly -- while the prez has authority over classified information and executive agencies, federal laws explicitly prohibit unauthorized access to IT systems, even by high-ranking officials such as DOGE. IT systems within agencies like the Treasury, OPM, and USAID operate under internal security policies and congressional oversight. A president attempting wholesale access to these systems without proper legal justification can lead to legal challenges (as it has), congressional investigations, and potential violations of federal law.

Some of the policies in these agencies, based on decades of experience in securing the systems, are

- DoD Instruction 8500.01 (Cybersecurity) - established RBAC and principle of least privillege

- DoD Instruction 8530.01 (Cybersecurity Activities Support to DoD Information Network Operations) -- monitoring of privileged users

- Army Regulation (AR) 25-2 (Army Cybersecurity) - MFA requirements -- Army specific, but similar regs at other agencies.

Now, what if someone with authority grants unauthorized access? You're talking espionage act now. CFAA too. Privacy act. Insider threat (EO 13587). Granting unauthorized access to federal IT systems, classified data, or sensitive records is a serious crime. If national security is compromised, penalties become even harsher under espionage laws.

Now, if you're actually in this world, I welcome your substantive additions to the conversation.

Not legal at all I'm afraid to say

Laws are being broken, Congress is being bypassed, and power is being consolidated by the executive branch and a private unelected citizen. The next part of the playbook is to ignore orders by the court. The goal is to dismantle democracy. The playbook is so obvious - Trump himself even said nobody would have to worry about voting for him again because they would "fix it".

Which law is being broken?

> Which law is being broken?

Have you been living under a rock?

Because this thread is taking about US Aid. Unfortunately for everyone, this is not an isolated case.

https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-elon-musk-usaid...

Pretty much. Person asks "how did Americans allow this?". Someone responds and get downvoted and flagged to hell.

Funny enough, that also models the reason why people are in shock? "How could this happen, all the posts, media, and polls I saw were predicting a Harris win? Was it the Russians? The aliens?". Yet here someone responding honestly, and they get downvoted to hell and disappear. Next cycle it will be the same, "how could this happen, everything I read and everyone I asked all agreed with ... and then ..."

Oh please. Good faith requires facts, which this current administration does not use.

Or perhaps you'd be surprised to learn they aren't eating pets in Springfield?

> Oh please.

Oh sure, anytime

> Good faith requires facts, which this current administration does not use.

I don't know, the OP (or GP?) post said they were wanted to continue discussing the issue in good faith. I'll take them at their word until I see them saying something else, what else should we do, downvote and flag everyone to hell? And it seems it's not about the administration having good or bad faith or good or bad facts but the OP presenting their case.

> Or perhaps you'd be surprised to learn they aren't eating pets in Springfield?

There are farms around there, for sure. Some chickens or cows may even have names and eventually get eaten, too. Who knows. I had never been, but was just South of it, in Yellow Springs. A nice little town and big a dairy farm with their own ice-cream and rides and everything.

Yet Trump claimed they (Haitian immigrants) were eating people's dogs and cats.

So your first part of the comment could have been an exercise towards food faith, and your latter part, perhaps mildly excusable as an ill attempt at humor in normal times, is for most who read it an attempt to muddy the very clear facts that Trump lies all the time.

> Yet Trump claimed they (Haitian immigrants) were eating people's dogs and cats.

Sorry, I don't follow all the Trump's doings or saying or what others comment about them. So I simply don't know about it one way or the other. But I have been near Springfield, so I said what I knew about it personally. Have you ever been there?

However, it does seem like you're angry and trying to insult me. That's ok, too. I don't mind, I can take it, just has to be acknowledged and said publicly. No need to beat around the bush with hidden allegations or anything. For one, I don't remember the OP or the GP mentioning Springfield at all. You brought it into the conversation. Which is totally fine, of course, I even gave you upvotes.

Not angry at you in the slightest, and if you feel insulted take it as a opportunity learn that people push back on equivocation, disingenuousness, and deliberate ignorance.

Since your later comment is dead, here is a timely news update to help you remain informed.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...

Thanks for the link, that's helpful.

> Claiming the new Haitian community threatened “the good White residents” of Springfield, Blood Trump members descended on the city in August during Springfield’s annual Jazz & Blues festival, marching downtown while displaying guns and waving swastika flags.

That's horrible. The city sued them, hopefully they all land in jail for a long time.

> “the Blood Tribe made good on those threats,” noting that the city and its residents received at least 33 bomb threats in subsequent weeks

That looks like a slam dunk case, hopefully the city judges and prosecutors there have no problem handling it.

I saw the mention about Temporary Protected Status of the immigrants at the end. I had no idea that existed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_protected_status.

I'd would think the fact that disgusting group marched there and made bomb threats would make the community and the government protect them even more. The city launched a law suite after all.

Now ask the question -- if Trump hadn't amplified allegations of this community as illegal immigrants eating dogs and cats, would they have been harassed and threatened?

To me, the counterfactual clearly points to no.

The Harris/Trump debate gave a set of clear accusations on film, so many that the denizens of the internet made several clever remixes to fight bullies with humor.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5llMaZ80ErY

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BrCvZmSnKA

> if Trump hadn't amplified allegations of this community as illegal immigrants eating dogs and cats, would they have been harassed and threatened?

Agree you're probably right. I never watched that debate, thanks for the clip. I won't watch it further I didn't like either one of them too much.

I did like the remix though, I am sure there are plenty of more of those.

But it seems that group is being sued and that's hopefully they lose and that'll be the best outcome here.

Don't bother joking with serial abusers of good faith on HN. They don't have a sense of irony. It's likely congenital.

Always helpful to review the guidelines. Thanks for the opportunity to do so [0]

> In Comments

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

> Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

This isn't comprehensive, but it is enough to identify what you and I may take for granted from others in the community. If you feel I have abused good faith in my comments, I request you delineate what, exactly, you feel is not in good faith.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tomrod, you're a serial abuser of the guidelines. You should take some time to think about what you say and do on HN and whether you are adding to the discourse are detracting from it. I think you could adjust your tone on almost all your political comments to be more thoughtful and less combative. It would be less work to point out cases where you observe the spirit of these guidelines than where you violate them. I'm sure you wouldn't wish to be so prejudiced, but you come across as an ideologue. Is that really who you want to be?

Agree to disagree on your general take. Best to you.

Responding in good faith:

Winning the popular vote does not make you dictator. It makes you president within the existing laws.

You want to change the way things are done? That's fine. You have a mandate to do so based on the vote? Also fine. Do it within the existing laws.

There are laws in a number of areas (firing federal employees, impoundment, spoils system, probably others that don't come to my mind immediately) that Trump seems to be violating. He doesn't get to do that. He has to stay within the law, because it's the law that makes him president instead of "most popular guy this year".

And it doesn't seem to be that he missed a few steps. He doesn't seem to care about the law at all. That's democracy failing - having a president who thinks he can do whatever he wants, and the law doesn't bind him. That's a president who's trying to be a king.

Now, that's kind of a "vibe" thing. It's not one action; it's more a perception of the cumulation of all his actions. Which means that other people can perceive it differently from how I do, because they assign different weights to his actions. But to me, the trend of the whole is troubling.

> I'm incredibly depressed and disillusioned to see fellow software engineers drinking the Kool-aid so deeply while they dismantle the US federal government.

Please point to a single component of the US federal government in its founding document, the Constitution, that has received as much as a glance.

The last century of cruft, corruptly driven by people not standing for election is where the action is found.

$37T of debt later, we're at the end of a cycle.

Let's just make sure DOGE is not a cure worse than the disease.

DOGE is not about waste, it's about continuing to bypass Congress and consolidate power in the executive branch.

Which, is badly needed.

Comments like this remind me that many Americans genuinely want a dictator

It's baffling

How did you come to that conclusion from their comment?

-> consolidate power in the executive

-> which is badly needed

In the US power is divided between three branches of government to prevent any one bench from becoming too powerful through checks and balances. Consolidation of power in one branch would mean unchecked, dictatorial powers.

-> How did you come to that conclusion from their comment?

How did you not?

None of that implies a dictatorship. Also, consolidation in the executive branch does not imply removal of the others.

Where does the consolidated power come from if it's not from the other two branches?

Power here is a zero sum game.

It’s consolidated within the executive branch…

Consolidating power in the executive branch is about creating a dictatorship. How could it be anything else? They're trying to neuter the other branches of government. Trump has explicitly and repeatedly expressed a desire to be a dictator.

Not really - if you’ve studied political science there’s a concept called unitary executive theory, which basically says in the USA the president has unilateral control of the entire executive branch.

What’s happening here isn’t really the forming of a dictatorship, it’s more single party alignment coupled with a majority in the three branches.

For example there’s nothing stopping congress from sending articles of impeachment followed by removal, other than the fact that there’s no consensus. But there’s no consensus because there’s alignment on the current activities.

TLDR: a sufficient amount of congress implicitly endorses trumps activities.

> TLDR: a sufficient amount of congress implicitly endorses trumps activities.

Which is because Congress has been captured by the autocrat that wants to turn himself into a dictator. They've rolled over and are allowing it to happen. They are setting up a system that will allow them to hold into power for perpetuity, and prevent future elections from changing that.

I’ll believe it when a constitutional amendment happens.

In any case congress has hardly been captured. People keep saying this nonsense as if it’s been many years. It hasn’t even been a month. Once the constituents digest the activity congress will adjust accordingly.

Most of trumps EOs have been blocked or frozen for now. The system is balancing as intended.

> Not really - if you’ve studied political science there’s a concept called unitary executive theory, which basically says (...)

If you read up on unitary executive theory, you won't need to look too hard to stumble upon the fact that it is rejected as being sugar-coated totalitarianism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_backsliding_in_th...

So you're trying to refute the totalitarian push represented by Trump's abuses with a theory that is known to represent a totalitarian push.

Why do you think I’m trying to refute or support anything? Not everything is a battle.

Some people think it’s valid that the president be the absolute executive. I have no opinion on whether that should be true or not.

Even if the president was the absolute executive, they still wouldn’t be a dictator.

When trumps EOs no longer can be blocked by judges I’ll believe he is one. Until then we still have our checks and balances.

Having lived under authoritarianism, I strongly urge you to firmly and swiftly form a negative opinion regarding an executive fully exetcising bypass of the legislature and courts.

Ok, but that’s not happening in USA. Trumps stuff is already being blocked.

I encourage you to read what’s actually happening and not just headlines or tweets.

> Ok, but that’s not happening in USA.

It clearly is.

> Trumps stuff is already being blocked.

That's like claiming there isn't a rape problem because a rapist attempts at raping someone is already being blocked.

What a dumb analogy.

It was perfectly apt for the situation.

Americans have the some of the cheapest housing and highest salaries in the world and look around and cry foul.

The biggest thing holding poorer Americans back is lack of education opportunities and wage theft by their employers.

What does this department do to address those issues?

> Americans have the some of the cheapest housing and highest salaries in the world and look around and cry foul.

I must be living in a different America then.

Have you genuinely tried to compare the salaries vs cost of living in the US vs other countries?

You would genuinely be surprised. Financially the thing that leads most Americans to bankruptcy is medical debt.

Another factor primarily lead by private industry taking advantage of people.

The US is a big place. Living NYC is not cheaper than London. If you live in the middle of the US, you're not making NYC money.

The height of money in NYC is almost unlike anything in the world, including London.

The mediums of places like Pittsburgh is still much higher than most cities on earth.

Americans struggle with wealth inequality not raw wealth. One of the mechanisms to redistribute wealth is the government itself.

The current administration signed an executive order to revoke birth right citizenship[1] in direct contravention of the 14th amendment.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/prot...

Musk is a liar who lies all the time and is lying about the purpose of DOGE. His actual goal is to settle scores and shut down any departments that he doesn't like. What is is doing is VERY illegal and a Democratic DOJ could very well arrest him for it.

What is in the constitution is that ONLY Congress has the power to control spending tax dollars. DOGE has no legal authority to stop any payments that Congress has approved.

Most people drink kool-aid. It's just a matter of whether it's blue or red.