Turning On The Giant Faucet Of Bullshit - US Politics February 2025

And Trump has lots of judges in the courts who can help him

Maybe. I'm not persuaded. I do think he's weaker than he looks.

A lot of autocrats come into power, immediately start doing a terrible job, tank the economy, take a big hit in popularity, cant get any of their agenda off the ground… and still remain in power for a good long time through various combinations of coercion, corruption, inertia, and force. In fact thats usually the norm, not the exception. Im nit seeing any evidence that this will be any different

Like, most autocrats are “weak”. Thats why they have to do what they do the way that they do it

I wish I had your confidence.

i think so much of this is powered by Trump, if he dies or becomes thoroughly incapacitated and it's JD Vance who's owning the libs by doing this bullshit i think much of the uh "charm" of this con largely evaporates.

at least that's what i cling too sometimes tbh

I do think he's weaker than he looks.

He's far too weak to accomplish much within the legal limitations of his office. The difficulty here is that Trump's greatest strength is the weakness and fragmentation of the forces arrayed against him. He is daring his opposition to force him act within the law. It's the job of Congress and the courts to act as the brakes on his government-by-decree and it ought to be in their glaringly obvious self-interest, because once Trump is a law unto himself they lose their power and very reason for existing, they've cut their own throats and occupy empty offices empty of authority.

what's happening to USAID is a disgrace

xxp No I agree w/you curmudgeon, I am very pessimistic. I think he's "weak" in the same way Putin is weak - whether he's popular or flailing or effective or hated is beside the point imo bc he and his cabal are not going to give up the reigns of power voluntarily now that they are in control

sorry i'll stop dooming on this thread now. its been a tough weekend.

To be clear I'm not sanguine about the damage Trump is already doing and the further damage he can and will do. There are plenty of things that are clearly in his power, and plenty of other things courts may let him get away with. But this shock-and-awe blizzard is intended to stun people into inaction or capitulation by creating an appearance of essentially an authoritarian takeover of the entire government. And a significant amount of that is just bluster and air. Check back in six months and see if he seems stronger or weaker than he did on Jan. 31.

Do Schumer and Jeffries have a qualified media communications staff that can counter the Trump take on podcasts, social media, mainstream media, and also getting on Fox News to try to make those in the right wing bubble at least be aware of contrary arguments?

if anyone has seen their social media posts over the past week, the answer is 'absolutely not'. Jeffries bascially waved his fucking hands in the air and said 'thoughs and prayers' and Schumer spent yesterday posting on bsky (and maybe elsewhere) 'well things are going to be more expensive now'.

No idea if there was Dem presence on sunday news media (or if sunday morning news media even matters anymore).

I liked the ezra piece.

primarily through the courts

How many divisions has the Pope? Etc.

But I can see merit in the Kleinian view here

One of my wife’s best friends works for USAID and it is not good, to say the least.

A lot of autocrats come into power, immediately start doing a terrible job, tank the economy, take a big hit in popularity, cant get any of their agenda off the ground… and still remain in power for a good long time t

How many of these autocrats came into power in a robust and longstanding federal republic? It's going to be a struggle to draw meaningful parallels between Falangist Spain or Peronist Argentina here.

Yeah. We can argue in good faith about the weakness of our institutions and how well they can stand successive blows like this, but Falangist Spain and Peronist Argentina were in far more doleful conditions than we are.

NO disrespect meant but... you sure?

Spain was in a civil war and a military coup installed Perón. But ymmv!

Can’t speak for Argentina, but unlike Falangist Spain we did not just go through a five-year bloody civil war in the middle of a world economic depression nor are there is a Cold War anymore that let the US prop Francisco Franco up as an anti communist bulwark

otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETC9cbIoIxk

"WIRED has identified six young men—all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records—who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles in Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project, tasked by executive order with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” The engineers all hold nebulous job titles within DOGE, and at least one appears to be working as a volunteer."

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engineers/

white tech bros

Spain was in a civil war and a military coup installed Perón. But ymmv!

But but but Americans had to pay little more for groceries and (briefly) gas, plus they had to stay inside in their homes for varying durations of time almost 5 years ago, which in their eyes is a bigger tragedy than those things put together.

It's nuts that this same crybaby contingent is a-ok with Musk/Trump saying things <might> be hard for a little while.

More reasons I don’t share the confidence that some upthread expressed re stopping Trump and Musk-

The two top security officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development were put on administrative leave on Saturday night after refusing to give representatives of Elon Musk access to internal systems, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/us/politics/usaid-official-leave-musk.html?unlocked_article_code=1.t04.aird.4eZYva313dtC&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Ok... as much as it grieves me, I'm afraid you leave me no choice - I admit it! The comparisons between 2025 USA and Falangist Spain and Peronist Argentina are limited! And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.....

curmudgeon, I've read all the stories you've posted and we always need palliatives.

Re Sting

I hope the tech bros love their children too

Stopping Trump and Musk in the near term isn't in the cards, they have control of the government and courts. They don't have popular support, they don't control state governments, they'd have a helluva time remaking the military in 2-4 years. What Is To Be Done is the same answer as ever - civil disobedience, labor organizing, mutual aid.

Hegseth may not last two or three months

How does Musk have control of jack shit? He’s not an elected official and he does not hold a recognized position in the government.

Ok, being optimistic that Trump and Musk will eventually fail may help relieve your pain symptoms here, but for others like me your palliative care is not working and is making me feel worse . Maybe I am wrong and / or there is no right or wrong and we all have to deal with this via our own approaches which I guess may be what you are saying.

I mean, as one of the few queer brown people on ILX living in one of the reddest parts of Miami-Dade and programmed as I am, I can't despair.

How does Musk have control of jack shit? He’s not an elected official and he does not hold a recognized position in the government.

And he has all sorts of business dealings with foreign governments that make him a security risk in a bunch of different ways. He's not the boss of a single person in the federal government. I can't believe there won't be some kind of legal challenge to his status.

Ok, being optimistic that Trump and Musk will eventually fail may help relieve your pain symptoms here, but for others like me your palliative care is not working and is making me feel worse.

Oh they will definitely eventually fail. Probably multiple times in multiple ways. That doesn't mean they won't do a lot of bad things, but nothing about this current shitstorm is remotely sustainable.

I mean, believing that Musk and Trump have either the capacity or frankly the attention span to shape a functioning, sustainable autocratic state is at odds with what we know from experience with both of them.

I need musk to vacate the premises. It’s one thing to watch rump and his homies do their thing but that nazi clown needs to be put back where he belongs in the private sector. I would prefer he melt but that’s tbd.

https://scontent-lga3-3.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/475757363_10161489258458095_3842773108521414284_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=j0hI3i5Ut6EQ7kNvgGUDv3T&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-3.xx&_nc_gid=A_ybm5L-4DdxUT194z1Zd9Y&oh=00_AYDOc3LPfNb12HWyk94l2AZW_IECxqIPbrCK23n64SvlOQ&oe=67A5EF81

so one theory is that trump is setting up musk as the "fall guy" in case the plan to build a dictatorship fails.

however, this seems weird as putting musk in charge of so much makes trump look weak. it would especially be true if trump tries to argue that musk was responsible for driving the big initiatives at the beginning of the administration.

I need musk to vacate the premises.

Wait till he or one of his manchild lackeys accidentally or deliberately causes the federal government to miss a payment to Raytheon or Blackwater. He'll vacate the fuckin' earth.

I saw that Musk ceased payments to government contractors as of today, so curious to see how well that pans out for him. what kinds of contractors I don't know.

i'm not a lawyer but he quite literally is not allowed to do that

Ha, headlines say that he is ceasing all contractor payments, but he's not ceasing payments to himself or to any military contractors but he did, based upon advice from felon and retired lt general Michael Flynn shut down payments by the US Department of Health and Human Services to Lutheran Family Services, a faith-based charity that has been providing social services to refugees.

of course he isn't ceasing payments to himself

at what point do americans start the well armed militia thing

i'm not a lawyer but he quite literally is not allowed to do that

― treeship., Sunday, February 2, 2025

It doesn't matter if he is allowed to do that, he's doing it and nobody is going to stop him, and by the way he is never going to jail

We have let arsonists take over our government. All of my rich republican friends assured me that Trump wasn't going to start trade wars, that it was all a bluff, and that lower tax rates on capital gains would be good for them etc. Even non-rich people like my sister and her husband bought into that. My sister sat across the sofa from me last fall and was so sure that his tariffs were a bluff, that they would never be imposed

the well armed militia thing

um, that's supposed to be well-trained militia

honestly I thought the same thing, like this is what he does, I figured the endgame was him implementing then pulling the tariffs because Mexico agreed to hire a few more border cops or whatever, then prices come down and he gets to brag about how he Art of the Deal'd away fentaynl (as it kills more teenagers than ever), it works because the media falls for this shit hook line and sinker, that said if that was the plan he wouldn't be doing this with 3 countries at once, kinda think there really is no plan here

Xxxpost to that ezraklein article:
Speed and force are 100% a strategy unto themselves.
Maybe unsustainable long term, but by then the situation has changed, and the damage has been done...
They don't require a coherent long term strategy because they're not trying to build anything.
They just want to wreck shit, hurt people and steal money.
As somebody said upthread, it's a school shooter mentality.

sink the US into a Depression and then claim that he needs a third term so he can solve it