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Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

Could anyone here make a legitimate argument why these gag-orders are a good idea?

I am consistently baffled how a political party can make so many decisions that are objectively wrong and still garner support of roughly 50% of the population. I feel bad for anyone that has legitimate conservative viewpoints on things like fiscal policy. The only people in government that seem to agree with them also happen to be bigoted, anti-science, authoritarians.

EDIT: For those responding with some form of "the Democrats are no better", do you honestly not see a difference between the first few days of the Trump administration and every other modern presidency? It isn't about political moves involving topics like abortion, Obamacare, or how to deal with the Middle East. Smart people can have reasonable disagreements on those. However in the last few day he has had his press secretary lie to the American people, suggested the US should commit war crimes, and forbid government agencies from speaking to the public. Things like this used to just be "wrong" but they have now been turned into partisan issues.

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The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. -- Donald Trump via Twitter, Nov. 2012 [Source: https://www.google.ca/search?q=twitter+trump+china+hoax&ie=u... ]

Thus spake The Donald. There are people at these agencies who contradict this. Whether they are foreign agents, foreign sympathizers, or misguided, misinformed or ignorant doesn't matter -- they must be stopped from spreading their lies for the good of the country. We must defend the truth!

I believe that's more or less how the argument goes.

One of the first moves of any tin-pot dictator must be to suppress all sources of truth, and if that's not possible, discredit them.

That is absolutely required if he is to lie with impunity, and Donald Trump has been a pathological liar for years.

It's sad to see the USA in this state, but it's what a sufficient number of citizens voted for....

There are ways to get rid of him, but are we sure the vice president would be better?

As it stands now all the Democrats and many of the republicans in the House and Senate will be against anything he does. He has uphill battles to win to make lasting changes.

I confess that I find Pence very scary as well, but he's not obviously mentally ill. [1]

I assume the good old GOP will throw Trump under a bus when he has outlived his usefulness. However, as a non-American, I don't have a good understanding of how the House and Senate actually work.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-greene/is-donald-trump...

The US is basically under 1 party rule at the moment.

The minority party has virtually no power to initiate action or legislation, and very little power to block actions by the majority party.

The right wing base of the Republican party just picked Trump over all the standard establishment candidates they put forward, so the establishment leaders in Washington are not going to want to risk alienating their voters in order to take down Trump.

The house has to vote to impeach anyone in the Executive branch, such as the president. The act of impeachment is not "firing them", but the trial to determine if they are guilty and need to be removed or not. The senate then listens to the case and votes with a simply yay or nay on if they are guilty or not.

Realistically, this means you'll need support from both the Senate AND House of Representatives to impeach a sitting president. It would also meant they'd likely not win the re-election in four years and as a result would be somewhat political suicide.

Since the Republicans control both the house and senate majorities along with the president... They're unlikely to do anything other than sit back eating popcorn while Trump wrecks things.

Well, don't shoot the messenger here, I'm going to be honest...

A lot of this probably boils down to partisanship. Pence is as generic a Republican as you can get. He'll make transsexuals use the wrong bathrooms, he'll roll back abortion protections, he'll crack down on marijuana legalization, he'll push military conflicts overseas, etc. But he'll be a boring corporate Republican all the while.

Trump, on the other hand, is a manbaby who is psychologically incapable of accepting that he doesn't have the yugest, the biggliest, the greatestest everything. If Obama's inauguration was more attended, he'll send the press secretary out to attack the press. If Obama had a cool cake, he'll have an identical one (even if it's made of Styrofoam). If you haven't picked this up from his nightly rants on Twitter, the man is psychologically incapable of letting anything go. He's not even capable of letting an insult from a D-list celebrity go.

And that's even before we get into the whole "with every moment in office he's violating the Emoluments Clause" thing. He honestly, legitimately, doesn't give a rat's ass about rule of law, as long as he wins, and gets to face a roaring crowd. And the truth is Republicans are 100% ideologically driven right now and will not do anything to police their own if it means they win. Frankly at this point I wouldn't be surprised if he just blatantly violated the law however he felt and then pardoned himself on the way out of office (or Pence does). Our system is not built to handle a leader who literally doesn't feel shame in this fashion, especially with the backing of a party that doesn't either.

Honestly it would be better for the nation if Trump was cut loose. At this point, it's a perfectly legitimate question what happens if he comes into real conflict with another world leader. That kind of baby isn't going to back down, he's going to throw a tantrum, and the US can throw a hell of a tantrum when it comes down to it. Literally the Navy alone could beat every single other military power on Earth combined, even before we bring nuclear weapons into it.

Pence will be generic evil dude, and he will be a lot more successful at pushing his agenda, all of which I disagree with. So in a purely partisan sense, it's better to have Trump in office. But Trump is fucking nuts, so in terms of what's better for the country I have to say Pence.

The question is when Republican congresspeople are going to realize that Trump is a millstone around their necks in many respects. I think many of them do already, but the problem is that Trump wields immense populist favor right now - much more than they do. Republicans overall are a minority, and they are only getting deeper into that hole, but Trump represents a majority of Republican voters and he's only going to keep pushing ahead.

Sadly, we seem to have slipped into the Actual Fascist Timeline.

Well-written and insightful. But I think it overlooks one important fact:

> The question is when Republican congresspeople are going to realize that Trump is a millstone around their necks in many respects

The GOP has been pursuing this ideological war for at least 16 years, but probably going back to Gingrich or longer. Trump didn't come out of nowhere; the GOP spend all that time laying the groundwork.

He's not a millstone, he's just another step along the same path for them.

He may eventually be a millstone, but right now he's a vehicle. They're on the mechanical bull.

The focus of many congressional Republicans is narrow. This is owing primarily to the specificity of their remit from heavily gerrymandered districts, and the undisguised requirements of the small but extremely wealthy cohort that directly and indirectly funds their presence in office.

Trump himself is a non-ideological wildcard with no coherent governance or policy desires. Had the cards fallen only slightly differently, he could have won the Presidency as a loose-canon Democrat and spent the last few days initiating policies completely opposite those we've seen so far. He would enjoy the squirming of frustrated Republicans under the heel of his boot just as much as he's now enjoying the garment rending on the Democratic side.

But things worked out as they did, and he found his emotional affinity and path to power with the Republican base. They became the vehicle for the satisfaction of his peculiar needs, and now that he's in power, he can binge on victory scenarios queued up for him by his GOP courtiers. Does anyone really think Donald Trump has some deep ideological need to implement the "Global Gag Order", something he very likely never heard of before running?

As long as the GOP can stay on the bull, they'll keep squeezing off shots at their personal targets and not worrying about the rest unless something goes terribly, horribly wrong. They can check longstanding empty boxes, and Trump won't care, since the dance itself satisfies him.

I generally agree, except ...

> Had the cards fallen only slightly differently, he could have won the Presidency as a loose-canon Democrat

I agree that he is non-ideological. IMHO he does have some political ideas that meet his business needs, for example being strongly pro-big business, anti-tax, and anti-regulation. I'm not sure how he would square that with the Dems, but he I agree that he doesn't care about GOP ideology.

My point in the GP was that the GOP has been following this course since 2000, 1994, or longer; they started a populist fire that now burns way out of control. The Democrats have not; there is no way they would support him simply for competency and rationality reasons, much less policy.

> Does anyone really think Donald Trump has some deep ideological need to implement the "Global Gag Order", something he very likely never heard of before running?

Certainly he has a strong reaction to people criticizing or disagreeing with him; he wouldn't tolerate that from within the executive branch.

> there is no way they would support him simply for competency and rationality reasons

It's disappointing, to say the least, that this turns out to be untrue for the Republicans. The staid, rational, methodical, conservative Republicans are gone. The nihilists and paperclip maximizers have moved in.

>> the "Global Gag Order"

> Certainly he has a strong reaction to people criticizing or disagreeing with him; he wouldn't tolerate that from within the executive branch.

Definitely, and it's his biggest exposed lever. But while "global gag order" colloquially describes what he's doing right now (silencing workers, ordering facts, data, inconvenient policy "disappeared"), "Global Gag Order" is actually a specific thing: a policy that projects the GOP's abortion stance onto the rest of the world's NGOs by conditioning the receipt of $9.5 Billion in aid on policy alignment.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...

Trump was a longtime pro-choice New York Democrat with no religious or moral framework. There's no way he cares about this; nor does he care enough to not sign it, as it doesn't affect him. He's indifferent, a blank page on which his outer circle of attendants, each the honed tip of the sharpest ideological spears, can write policy that Trump will sign with a "whatever" and a dour glare.

Even more dangerous, once signed, he integrates these policies as his own -- because he now has skin in the game. If his name is on a policy, he'll relentlessly hammer it home. Writ large, this means the Trumpist policy stance will be a bag of the loudest and most radical initiatives -- for him, a set of weak opinions strongly held. Virulently held, as we see from his redoubling on the voter fraud conspiracy theory and crowd size hobbyhorse.

It's not just Trump. The conservative movement has been actively discrediting all sources of information but themselves for many years.

During the election, some of the conservative opinionators (bloggers, radio, etc.) who opposed Trump observed that they had no way to credibly contradict Trump in the eyes of their readers, as they had delegitimatized all other sources of information.

It's not just the Republicans that are eager to cut scientists off from the media and the public. The Conservative party in Canada did exactly the same thing, much to the dismay of scientists and the public: http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/when-science-goes-silent/

They also infamously shut down a climate research centre that was keeping ice-core samples frozen. http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/tories-cutting-vita...

Anything that contradicts the messaging of a modern "conservative" party is something that must be destroyed.

Yes. BI ran a good story on this: http://uk.businessinsider.com/conservative-media-trump-drudg...

> I am consistently baffled how a political party can make so many decisions that are objectively wrong and still garner support ...

I find that this hypothesis explains the observations:

It's an ideological movement. The test of support is not truth or good outcomes, but whether it fits the ideology. That's why you see some Republicans saying more and more outrageous things. They are demonstrating their loyalty to the ideology by saying things that are unacceptable from any other perspective.

I was reading some history of the Middle Ages and rise of the Enlightenment, and it reminds me a bit of that. Speaking very generally, in the Middle Ages a certain ideology ruled, facts be damned. In the Enlightenment, reason become preeminent even when it contradicted ideologies. Maybe we're headed for a new Medieval period!

I hate to break it to you, but climatology is also an ideological movement.

Climatology noun the scientific study of climate.

Climatology is science. You can call this or that environmental activist whatever you want, but science is science. I hate to break it to you though, I really do. I'm really sorry for breaking this to you because breaking things to you is so hard to do, but I'm just going to take one for the team and break it to you anyway, regardless of my general feelings about breaking things to people.

But most importantly, it is going to die now that it's political purpose is at an end. There will be no climate-based global collectivism.

Hah. Nope. What's going to happen is that there'll be more damage done via the us government's new stance. There are other world governments, state governments, private businesses, universities, and, of course, individuals, to continue to work on the problems arising from the man made global temperature increase and resulting climate changes.

Most movements seem to be ideological. See, for example, studies that find scientific literacy is equally appalling between climate change deniers and supporters[0].

In the case of climate change, and in everything else, the internal and private views of a politician and their inner circle are not necessarily the same as their public views. This explains why Obama claimed to be against gay marriage, why Gore made claims that he almost certainly knew were wrong about seeing a planetary catastrophe by 2016, and may explain Peter Thiel's cryptic comments on Trump and climate change from a little while ago[1]. The internal opinion may be that climate change is too expensive to fix, that the extent of the damage may be lower than predicted, that the billionaire Americans Trump hangs out with have no reason to care about poor Indians living in the Ganges delta, that climate change is too much of a talking point for the left for the right to backpedal on, or that doing anything more than we already are would not help/would not be cost effective.

Or, alternatively, the ship has an ignorant madman at the helm. Who really knows?

[0] https://m.phys.org/news/2015-02-climate-science-literacy-unr... [1] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/fashion/peter-thiel-do...

The implication of the parent comment is that it's all the same - every movement, group, etc. are equally wrong or right. That's a common defense of propaganda, but it's not reality.

Nobody is perfect; everyone is a bit ideological, but some are much more rational and empirical than others. All coders create bugs, but not all coders turn out equal quality code. Everyone is a bit violent, but we aren't all equally murderers. There are major differences, and the current conservative movement is heavily ideological; I think my hypothesis holds up very well.

>"the current conservative movement is heavily ideological"

The current Democratic establishment is also heavily ideological. Aside from a few outliers like Bernie Sanders, a lot of the Democratic rhetoric is built up around identity politics. You don't have to look far to find it, but to give you one example, listen to how much this DNC vice chair candidate hammers home the 'diversity' message:

https://youtu.be/Jjs87Y2F_FA?t=5m19s

Again, the argument is that everyone is the same. See my prior post.

The fact that it is possible for things to be different doesn't imply that they are. Entropically speaking, it's unlikely for two populations to measure up equally by any particular scale. However, that alone doesn't tell us much.

On another note, suppose both groups actually are quite similar in how ideological they are. One would be mistaken to then assume that the two groups have equally effective approaches for conducting affairs. Despite the fact that robustly measuring such effectiveness is currently far outside our grasp.

Coming back to reality, I would guess that both parties are not equally ideological. However, I do think there are very large segments of both that are almost entirely ideological, and that, unfortunately, these subgroups often take most of the limelight.

> The fact that it is possible for things to be different doesn't imply that they are

Right, so let's stop talking of theoretical possibilities and look at concrete reality. I don't know of the last time a party embraced ideology as strongly as today's GOP; anyone who doesn't see that will never see ideology anywhere - it hardly could get more extreme.

> I do think there are very large segments of both that are almost entirely ideological, and that, unfortunately, these subgroups often take most of the limelight.

Again, a false equivalence IMHO. Which very large, limelight-stealing Democrat group are you referring to? Hillary Clinton supporters were the largest group; she's almost the opposite of ideological. Obama and his supporters are very non-ideological. The participants in last Saturday's marches were generally non-ideological, AFAICT.

I agree with you that the Republicans are more ideological in recent years.

It's late, so I don't have the best examples, but I have a vague impression that there has been an increase of single-dimension, with-us-or-against-us identity politics. Perhaps I'm mistaking noisy for large. Even still, many of these groups do have legitimate claims...

Reflecting a bit, I suppose one main reason I posted was that I didn't like the implication that the mainstream left has become enlightened past the point of ideology. But perhaps that point is too much of a distraction in this conversation. Meh.

Btw, not that it should matter, but I lean left and voted for both Obama and Hillary.

> I didn't like the implication that the mainstream left has become enlightened past the point of ideology

I agree. It's not that the mainstream left is so great and above reproach, it's that their right-wing competition has embraced madness.

Nope, that doesn't logically follow. Different ideologies have different impacts on the world. If you group people just by ideology alone you'll be missing the bigger picture.

My attempt at a legitimate argument: Perhaps they are an attempt to put government-wide "pause" on public communications from all agencies, so they can a) reduce the odds of these agencies making statements that are directly counter to the new government's strategies, and b) buy time to put those new strategies into place (confirmation hearings, realignments, etc). In other words, never intended to be permanent gag orders, more just in the name of implementing new message discipline.

As for your second point, I think much of this has to do with how the language of power is different than the language of truth. The Republicans in the USA have historically bought more into the language of power than the Democrats have. By that I mean, given the choice between clearly and honestly explaining your position, and instead communicating something different that you believe will better advance your agenda, the Republicans have generally seemed to be more in the second category than the Democrats.

This shouldn't be a politically controversial point. The latter style language is more common in business, negotiations, diplomacy, etc. Democrats can do it too, but it's less of a campaign style for them.

It's also not a secret, which is why it feels easy for Republican supporters to defend. To them, it's not ridiculous that the Republicans never came up with an alternative ACA plan during Obama's presidency. There was a very clear calculation that "opposition only" would be more effective than coming up with a plan replacement. And it's obvious, too, because as soon as you suggest an alternative, you open yourself up to attack. Meanwhile, the Democrats regularly mocked them for having no better alternative. For some of them, this might have been just a communications strategy, but for many others, they were actually upset and mystified that the Republicans were not advocating an alternative plan.

So, these "decisions that are objectively wrong", it's just because it's worth it to them. Be anti-science because it increases your odds of gaining power. Supporters agree, and generally believe that all that stuff (science, reality, etc) will be dealt with after they gain power. They're very trusting that the people they support are more competent than they are letting on, and that it will work itself out.

I may not agree with your assessment, but you put some thought into it and avoided hyperbole, which is rare on HN.

I disagree with one big point:it's not ridiculous that the Republicans never came up with an alternative ACA plan during Obama's presidency

That's what Obama said, again and again (goes to your comment about the "language of truth"), but the Republicans did submit 4 bills into Congress as ACA alternatives.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/yes-obama-republicans-have...

It's seems to me that you've gutted the entire argument of the GP. The ACA was the only piece of evidence presented. Everything else is unsubstantiated personal opinion.

I also take issue with the lack of scope and over-generalization. Did Abraham Lincoln (R) use the language of power? Did George Wallace (D) use the language of truth? Is Donald Trump a typical Republican? Both parties have and are evolving over time.

Well you got me on the surface details there. But I think the sense of the point is still correct, in that the Republicans did not advance a plan that they actually wanted to pass. They've got the House, the Senate, and the Presidency now, so they could advance any one of those four plans right now if they wanted. I'll update my views if the plan they settle on is anywhere close to one of those four.

Just a (semi-)minor quibble. The US population is currently around 322 million. The number of eligible voters in 2016 was somewhere around 220 million [1]. Just under 63 million voted for Trump [2]

1. https://www.quora.com/How-many-estimated-eligible-voters-in-...

2. http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president

So it would be much more accurate to say he garnered "support of roughly 50% of voters." Or even "active voters."

So he got 63 million votes, and Hillary got, say, 66 million. That a total of roughly 130 million.

Know that that means? About 90 million did not vote.

Of course. But 50% of the population is not an accurate phrasing in any way.

It's accurate, but raw numbers does something to our understanding of matters like that.

It's not accurate. 50% of voters is accurate.

50% of the population is not accurate.

It's not accurate.

Like Brexit, it was a fraction of all potential voters that voted, and of those less than half voted for that particular thing. At best it was 28% of the voting age population.

I would counter-quibble because I didn't mention anything about voting. I used the word "support" as in "approve". From what I have read, there is rarely more than a few percentage point difference between the net favorability ratings of active voters and of the population at large. I therefore think it is fair to say roughly 50% of the general population approves of the platform of the Republican party.

As a conscientious objector, I emphatically reject the idea that abstaining implies any inkling of support for republicraps or democants. 63 million supported Trump directly, 66 million supported him as their second choice, and an additional 8 million couldn't resist supporting the broken process. The rest of us just want to be left alone by this religion of democratic totalitarianism.

>66 million supported him as their second choice

Wait, are you actually arguing that someone voting for Clinton contributed more to Trump winning than someone not voting at all?

Regardless of how you spin it a vote that you forfeit is a vote that isn't cast for any of his opponents. You can't fix a broken system by turning you back on it.

Many voted for Clinton primarily to stop Trump from winning, and believe it or not, vice-versa. Their support fed on each other, which is the exact race-to-the-bottom degeneracy you'd expect with a captive audience that feels required to vote.

I've got some respect for those who voted for Johnson, Stein, etc, as they still resisted the siren song of choreographed panic. I just personally think that if one of the current third parties became one of the two parties, it would be quickly invaded by the same status quo shills (see: the Tea Party).

The actual brokenness resides in all of our heads - the fundamental idea that any matter should be subject to possible focus and mass scrutiny, with everyone judging from afar to form some for-or-against opinion. This setup is great for those who mediate the focus (eg media, which is why it's gotten so popular), but only contributes to the disempowering helplessness we all feel.

Black Mirror's "Fifteen Million Merits" reminded me a great deal of what modern democracy has become. Turning my back on the homeopathic lever helps me to avoid being misled by it.

That freshman level philosophy stuff sounds great in theory but most of us have to live in the real world with real problems and real consequences.

That's an oddly inconsistent response. Which perspective do you actually intend to take - that you're well traveled in philosophy and what I am saying is only freshman level, or that you don't see the value of applying basic abstract concepts to your concrete situation?

FWIW what "real consequences" are you referencing here? A lack of psychological comfort from the ballot box?

I'm clearly addressing a very real problem of people being simultaneously more fed up yet supporting ever shittier politicians. I'm sorry that my analysis recognizes symmetry and thus doesn't admit the tired approach of proselytizing for one team even harder.

I am saying that you are debating theory that has no place outside of debate of theory. It rings of privilege and naivete to the way the world actually works. Just search Twitter for "dead without Obamacare" and you will find plenty of "real consequences".

Ah, so the ad hominem of "freshman philosophy" fails, so you try the more fashionable ad hominem of "privilege".

Talking about "dead without Obamacare" is fallacious emotional appeal as well [0]. My entire point is to resist making decisions based on short term concerns being dangled in front of us, especially when the choices come bundled with consequences that just hurt a different group. You can stick your head in the sand and call it "theory", but this rejection of bigger picture analysis only primes the pump by setting up the next "dead without ..." situation.

But hey, "they will only drag you down to their level and beat you with experience". I guess I've been beaten.

[0] nevermind the fact that it's more appropriately called Romneycare

You are really complaining about ad hominem arguments and being dragged down to my level when in the first sentence of your first comment you called the two big parties "republicraps or democants"?

Yes. My labeling is counter marketing against the Party (see, I just did it again), which does not reflect on you. Whereas you were actually derailing the argument being presented, first by monkeysphere bullying and then by shrinking the scope to a base emotional appeal. The mirror of "dead without Obamacare" is "death panels" - neither one makes for intelligent discussion.

Here's why it's "freshman philosophy":

Nobody cares that you can define terms, point out fallacies, or use labels - any schoolchild can do that stuff. Simply, the arguments you've made are bloodless rhetoric without illustrations, emotions or lived experiences to draw from.

Instead of developing one argument, you tend to follow a pattern of "conclusion followed by hypothesis", peppering the post with one conclusion per paragraph. There's nothing much to engage with on a theoretical level when you do that, nothing to pick at or explore further. It gives a hostile tone of "I don't have to do my homework". Yes, you do. Nobody wants to engage with lazy thinking.

I only "pointed out fallacies" in direct response to OP's attempt to switch the argument from one of ideas to one of social rank-pulling. And now you're continuing to do that ("bloodless rhetoric without illustrations, emotions or lived experiences"). It might just be that my lived experiences are different from yours, and have caused me to seek a resolution between these two opposing tribes.

This necessarily involves leaving out my immediate concerns and biases, and admitting that the tribe I identify with less is still coming from their own honest viewpoint. To me, that's a much saner position than to assume that 63 xor 66 million people are personally mortally wrong.

I am speaking in a world in which neither you or I have the power to drastically change the US political system. You might try "to seek a resolution between these two opposing tribes." However we all knew that resolution was impossible in the 2016 election and I imagine we can all agree it isn't happening anytime soon. I am coming to this debate with that as an established premise and it appears you are not. You are trying to have an ideological debate about "democratic totalitarianism". I am pointing out the pragmatic problems with throwing your vote away in the name of that ideology. Regardless of whether I agree with your underlying beliefs, in my opinion, people with your mindset are putting their viewpoints above the actual results of our political system and the people that are already being victimized by a Trump presidency.

> I am speaking in a world in which neither you or I have the power to drastically change the US political system

On this point, we agree.

> However we all knew that resolution was impossible in the 2016 election

I'm not talking about a resolution between the tribes themselves, but a synthesis of their viewpoints. In my observation, each tribe is pissed off over a lack of control and feeling powerless. Rather than advocate solutions that reduce centralized control over both tribes' lives, the politicians attack caricatures of the other tribe and implement more controls over them (generally because some donor stands to make a buck off of it). The winning tribe cheers, while the losing tribe builds resentment and we end up with eg Trump.

> I am pointing out the pragmatic problems with throwing your vote away in the name of that ideology

As far as I'm concerned, every vote is a "throw away". But I refuse the Faustian bargain of blessing one evildoer because they're subjectively slightly less evil. Clinton would not be setting off the mass panic we're seeing [0], but still starting empire wars in distant lands and furthering domestic totalitarianism.

But note that I wasn't talking about the societal results of a (non) vote! The real point I am making is that once you cast off this idea that you have some actual say in the actions of the government, your own perspective becomes much more clear. I'm personally not sitting here in shock thinking something like "OMFG how could this happen. I needed to campaign harder, I'd better start working on electing opposition for the midterms", just like I wasn't thinking "well I voted for Obama so I know he's a good guy and he must be having to compromise".

While Trump's actions do alarm my personal biases harder, I'm thinking the same thing today as I did two years ago - the only way this government is going to stop doing evil shit is when it is no longer able to.

[0] Which would be insidious on its own. IMHO one of the great things about Trump's election is the blowback happening. People should feel mortally worried about the surveillance state we're building.

> I am consistently baffled how a political party can make so many decisions that are objectively wrong and still garner support of roughly 50% of the population.

Party before country. And before reason. And before reality.

I am consistently baffled how a political party can make so many decisions that are objectively wrong and still garner support of roughly 50% of the population.

Same way that "the other side" went from a staunch antiwar position to incessant apologetics for Obama's wars, extrajudicial drone murders, deployment of a massive panopticon surveillance state, and sabre-rattling against Russia.

It's always okay when my guy does it.

Just for the record, Obama never wanted anything to do with Syria and Libya. And when he got involved, he did so reluctantly, and under pressure from the likes of McCain and Hillary.

As for Russia, remember the Reset button? That was Obama's idea, one that was counter to what the war machine wants. The disagreement between Obama and the military regarding Russia wasn't a small matter. At the end of the day, he lost that battle.

Now we have a Republican administration that's even closer to Russia than Obama will ever be.

Who's going to win this time. The White House or the military?

The concept of a President being pressured into waging war in Libya by a Senator and the Secretary of State is just absurd. Obama was the Commander in Chief. He could have said "no" at any time. No one forced him into it.

If you understand the forces at play, the absurdity disappears.

Our agents were already creating "facts on the ground" that the President had to act on. But beyond that, Libya was at some level, Nicolas Sarkozy's war. France saw that Iraq was very profitable for the US military industrial complex and wanted the same for itself in Libya.

Like Bill Clinton used to say, "It's the economy, stupid".

And the leader of an empire that refuses to wage war when an opportunity presents itself is not going to be very popular.

This is just conspiracy theory nonsense, a plausible seeming narrative assembled after the fact. The reality is that you have no idea why President Obama chose to act as he did. If he had decided not to intervene in Libya you could construct an equally plausible set of reasons about why that was inevitable.

Not the parent, but the geopolitical reasons why Obama chose to intervene in (say) Syria and not in (say) Saudi Arabia or Kuwait when those nations chose to machine-gun their Arab Spring protesters are pretty clear. Syria is Russian-aligned, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are US-aligned.

So, too, are the reasons why the US refuses to act against Saudi-backed forces, or in favor of Syrian forces, or most blatantly by refusing to assist secular Kurdish forces (and risk pushing Turkey into Russian arms). Killing civilians has nothing to do with it, again see the Saudis or the Kuwaitis.

Or again, see how the US backed the military coup in Egypt, as they too brutally suppressed dissent. Gotta keep Israel safe, too.

From the US perspective, the whole area is a quagmire, which is why Obama didn't actually put troops on the ground. There is literally no one who is ideologically acceptable to everyone and actually stands a reasonable chance of winning the war. We backed our allies as far as necessary, including to the extent of brutal suppression of dissent if necessary, but no farther.

Obama's decision was that we're not going to get bogged down in another unwinnable war. Realpolitik at its finest. And all the while, the power vacuum continues to turn Syria into a bloodier and bloodier meatgrinder. Not that I have any solutions either - other than "don't mouth the slogans about democracy if you're not willing to back it up".

But again, all of this has been pretty clear for a while. It's really, truly no secret what Obama's position on this has been.

The US has intervened many times in Russian-aligned countries, so your theory doesn't fit the historical facts. I suspect the actual decision making process is far more haphazard and lacks a consistent set of rules.

I don't think you read clearly what the poster was saying, which was that the U.S. intervened in Syria and not Yemen because it was aligned with Russia and especially Iran. However, we only went so far because Obama didn't want U.S. troops on the ground and couldn't order more airstrikes, for example, without having to risk a larger conflict with Russia which supports Assad.

When exactly was the Democratic Party "antiwar"?

2001-2009

I don't think anyone was opposed to invading Afghanistan, and the dems largely supported Iraq in 2003 (granted, the country was fed false evidence). I'd say they only turned visibly anti-war shortly after the invasion and the capture of Sadat Hussein.

The War in Afghanistan was supported broadly by both parties.

Afghanistan was a sweep. Only one person -- Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) -- voted against it in Congress.

Iraq was a Republican President's war. In Congress, the Republicans voted for the war by 48-1. The Dems voted for the war by 29-21. The Independent voted against.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2002/s237

I have argued on behalf of the Obama administration's choices many times, in the context of ongoing historical events. Don't pretend that the world was a harmonious garden of Eden until Obama came along and fucked everything up, because that's counterfactual bullshit. there are things which I would also defend Trump on where there is a good argument for the preservation of the United States' national interest.

Your choice to use a throwaway account, combined with several demonstrably false claims, suggests a predisposition towards arguing in bad faith, given the wide latitude that prevails here.

Obama was the first President to have a war going for the entirety of his two terms. At best, I think he was completely spineless. So many times he could have stood up to the banker class and the war mongers, but he failed to do that. Now Trump is going to take them on.

You're making the assumption that we all have to be on one 'side' or the other, which isn't true at all. In fact it's very harmful.

I hear that often these days, but in the past 8 years conservative pundits constantly ridiculed Obama as "apologist" for talking to Iran, talking to Cuba, pulling troops off Iraq, not bombing Libya after Benghazi, dissenting with Israel's stance on Palestine, and other issues.

Maybe it's me, but I feel it is only very recently that most Republican supporters started to criticize Obama for "saber-rattling against Russia." Coincidentally, that timing roughly matches the rise of Trump.

Suddenly Russia is cool, and you are supposed to make friends with them, otherwise you are a warmonger. (But apparently not China---it's still cool to be hostile toward China.)

Trump has reversed his 2014 position on sanctions against Russia, and how dangerous it is [1]

It's a moot point whether Russia owns him or not, because he now behaves as you would expect if Russia did own him [2]

[1] http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/16/politics/kfile-trump-russi...

[2] http://observer.com/2016/08/yes-american-spies-really-think-...

You know, you say that, but there really isn't much of anything to back it up.

The democratic party has not had any sort of antiwar position since at least as far back as 2000. In fact, in 2004 they had an overt pro-intervention plank. 1

I submit that "both sides" do not, in fact, "do it". The modern republican party seems to be uniquely off of the rails.

1) http://www.antiwar.com/zunes/?articleid=3254

We traded having US army divisions on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan for a few flareups in North Africa, so as far as "Obama's wars" I'd say that's progress. The surveillance is definitely rolled back from Bush, but regardless this and drones are both driven by Congress, which hasn't changed that much overall. The President's job is to "faithfully execute" the laws, which were passed by Congress that wanted more surveillance and wanted fewer U.S. troops in harm's way (even if that means more drones).

"I am consistently baffled why people are fans of sports teams that always lose!"

Chicago stuck with their non-winning team for a hundred years. Don't expect Republicans to change their minds any time soon.

> I am consistently baffled how a political party can make so many decisions that are objectively wrong and still garner support of roughly 50% of the population

They have realized that at least half the population is one or more of {stupid, not paying attention, gullible}, and so they figure they can get away with anything.

Look at what they are doing in South Dakota. The people of South Dakota passed a ballot initiative, "The South Dakota Government Accountability and Anti-Corruption Act", in November that makes it illegal for lawmakers to receive more than a total of $100 annually from lobbyists in the form of "any compensation, reward, employment, gift, honorarium, beverage, meal, food, or other thing of value made or given directly or indirectly". It also creates an independent ethics commission, increases penalties for bribery, and bans politicians from becoming lobbyists for two years after they leave office.

The South Dakota legislature is not happy with this. They have introduced a bill to repeal it. Normally if such a bill passes there would then have to be another referendum to give the public a chance to veto it, since it is trying to repeal an initiative passed by referendum.

To work around that, the South Dakota legislature has declared a state of emergency. That will allow their repeal to take effect immediately and there would not be a veto referendum.

OK, think about that a minute. The anti-corruption act was passed by a direct vote of the people. You would think that a legislature trying to overturn that would be worried about how that appears, right? You'd expect that the bill would have just one or two sponsors, carefully chosen from legislators who are planning to leave office after their current term anyway and so who don't have to worry about pissing off the public too much. The rest who want to pass it could then at least see what the public reaction is before deciding if actually voting "yes" on this thing is politically safe.

No. It has something like 75 sponsors. About 50 from the South Dakota House and 25 from the Senate. They are apparently so confident that the public will not punish them for this that plenty of them are signing on.

All Republicans, by the way. (As were the 2/3 of the legislature that had to vote to declare that there was a state of emergency).

When your side does it: "government sucks, bureaucrats suck, politics is terrible."

When their side does it: "Their side sucks."

When it's time to vote: "Well, their side sucks, and government sucks. Maybe my side will fix it."

There is no 'my side' in government. Both the Democrats and Republicans are frauds, hucksters, and criminals.

Government sucks, period.

Maybe most people are not paying enough attention, but election results have no substantial effect on the policies or actions of the USA Federal government.

how can people be spouting this nonsense on a very article wherrr one side is standing in the way of science and the other would never do that. nonetheless the day that keystone and dakota pipeline are approved and an anti net neutrality fcc head is chosen. this seems like a way to dispel all conversation without requiring much thought.

Being anti-science isn't the only way to suck. Just before leaving office, Obama expanded domestic mass surveillance, for one example of many. The US is an oligarchy.

EDIT: Just realized you may be talking about "no substantial effect", in which case I agree with you that there are substantial differences. Neither party is of, for, or by the people though.

> The US is an oligarchy.

OK, I see this statement all the time and I just don't understand it. How can you say that when Trump, a man with exactly zero political experience, beat out a lifelong politician and wife of a President, not to mention the half dozen qualified candidates in the primary. Obama beat Clinton in the primary and McCain in the general when his only political experience he had was in the state senate.

i mean hes still a billionaire funded by billionaires. youd have a point of bernie won...

You don't see how a supposedly "anti-establishment" candidate who happens to be a billionaire (and is surrounded in his cabinet by other billionaires) doesn't reek of a system of crony capitalism and oligarchy?

If so, I have a few butt coins and a blockchain to sell you.

America's forefathers were all wealthy men, it did not mean they were oligarchs. Was George Washington an oligarch? Jefferson? Madison?

Yes.

Then why did they give the country to the people, then? Why did they make it democratic when they had the golden opportunity to create a monarchy or some other form of totalitarianism.

It would be a stretch to say they gave it to the people. They 'gave' it to their own class of people. White, male, land owners and the emergent bourgeoisie/industrialists. Universal suffrage was a _long_ way off, and arguably never fully arrived in the U.S. due to ongoing racial politics.

yeah, I almost didn't include that, but I think he still counts because he ran in on a wave of rampant populism, bowling over the entire Republican establishment in the process. He's absolutely an example of crony capitalism, but not necessarily an oligarchy. At the very least, not the same oligarchy as the political establishment.

> doesn't reek of a system of crony capitalism and oligarchy?

It reeks of political corruption. Money talks and Trump talked the loudest AND was populist. As a politician, you can't go wrong pandering to the largest groups (e.g. california). Clinton's promises didn't really make any headlines and were saddled by any comparison to Obama's failures to deliver whatever people imagined he was going to do for them.

Obama was US Senator for Illinois from 2005-2008.

He was an Illinois Senator from 1997-2004.

It's a strategy to delegitimize governance in general. I get pissed off with the government all the time, for a wide variety of reasons. But I am not pissed off with the idea of government, because I agree with thomas Jefferson's claim in the Declaration of Independence that 'governments are instituted among men' to secure inalienable rights through a process of mutual cooperation.

I'd be fine with government doing as you describe. For my entire life, we have lived under a system that is not that. The overreach of government is immense and it has the effect of crushing the individual and their spirit. I'm not suggesting I want total anarchy, but government as an arbiter and source of redress is like an 18th or 19th century concept it would seem.

I also think our government has been co-opted by Marxists, but I know I'll get shit for that.

Why the hate? Why do people want government to own their lives? Why do they (you) believe government contains solutions when we have observed with our own eyes it failing time and time again to produce worthwhile solutions to problems? And why stand in the way of commerce via onerous regulation and diktat? Is that not a Soviet style vs. an American style? I think the downvoters are simply scared and that's all.

Nobody is hating on you, just expressing disagreement with a sloppy argument. I understand without fully sharing your view of government as seriously antiquated, but then you blew any credibility you had by throwing in 'marxists' as an insult. This is no more credible than a bunch of leftists trying to shut down an argument by making an umbrella insult of 'capitalists'.

Marxism strikes me as an incomplete and therefore flawed socioeconomic theory, but all other economic theories have glaring deficiencies of their own. Capitalism works very well within limited parameters, but has glaring faults of its own, and market fundamentalists are capable of being just as blind and pigheaded as any Marxist I've ever encountered. We don't beat up on Adam Smith or David Ricardo despite the incomplete nature of their economic insights. Serious economists, including conservative ones, take Marx seriously without necessarily buying into all his ideas.

Because both parties have been nearly identical on the very things that impact your life and liberties more than anything else.

Foreign wars, drug wars, domestic spying, debt, military industrial complex, militarization of police state and the like. On these things, they are the same.

The parties differ on topics that we are instead the most strongly emotionally attached. That being religion and social issues. However, even on these, in reality the differences are often in rhetoric only. When the votes are cast, they often align.

its easy to say that as a rich white guy but when you're a young woman who needs access to family planning birth control, a kid who can't afford school lunches, or someone with a pre-existing condition, or any minority really, it really does matter. funny you mention stuff like drug wars, when most likely the incoming administration will crack down on states with legal marijuana when the other party would never do that. not to mentioon, you will see the police state militarized like never before. remember, the current guy is going to reinstate torture as well as stop and frisk and talking about sending the 'feds' into chicago already.

but yes, if you're a privileged white male the only things that affect your life are the ones that affect your pocketbook.

>but when you're a young woman who needs access to family planning birth control...

I don't think a lot of poor minorities would agree your issues are more important than having spending your life in prison, your life possessions taken by the state by an unjust drug war and police state. Nor the millions of lives completely and utterly destroyed by our foreign wars. None of these people have any kind of privilege.

The progression of government power increases in the same direction with each administration. It was the other side who massively increased drug related incarcerations during Clinton's administration.

How quickly we forget how alike the sides are: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obamas-war-on-pot-...

You can't see that trillions spent on all these wars, domestic and foreign, leave you with less support for the exact things you mention.

The privileged class is the government class. They exempt themselves from the laws we have to follow and will they continue to accumulate wealth and power.

If you're an LGBT person, it makes a huge difference. Or if you're a women who has to make the agonizing decision to abort a pregnancy it makes a big difference. You'll see what will happen with Republicans in charge now.

The idea that "government sucks" is part of the problem. If you just assume that the system will never work, it becomes pretty easy to just accept it.

Because government's only tool is the use of force, it will always suck for whoever disagrees with the present regime in any given time and place. This is not a politically-biased value judgement, just a simple, irrefutable statement of fact.

The only way to minimize the net suckage is to minimize the power we give our government. Notice that I didn't say "eliminate it" or "drown it in the bathtub" or anything like that -- just constrain it within Constitutional boundaries.

Neither of the two major parties is even remotely interested in permitting that to happen. So, yes: they both suck.

One party is portrayed as increasing the scope and power of government while the other advocates for smaller, but we know that this is absolutely not true in terms of government spending and headcount. There is no party that has advocated explicitly for more government for no reason. The issue is around what we as a society consider a minimum viable government and how we can go back after a new agency had been created. It just sounds like rotting code and a bunch of microservices written by different generations of teams instead of just a single team picking a vision and sticking with it. In my view, going back and forth from one ideology to another as different parties rotate has resulted in an effective system that has the worst of both liberal and conservative ideologies implemented.

Okay so I completely disagree with this, so try harder to convince me! Let me bring to the front, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsten_Gillibrand. She's a democrat, but of course a good republican would work here too. SO you painted with a tremendously broad brush, but of course Kirsten isn't a criminal. You're suggesting she is though? Is John McCain is a criminal? Who specifically are the criminals..?? Lets start with that... but I think maybe you're trying to make a point that everyone is twisted and greedy and these are such profoundly human traits that believing in a political party is a foolish choice because off course humans are evil, and the party leaders will automatically be "frauds, hucksters, and criminals" and a good person in politics is a myth. Maybe you should just come out and say that instead? Is that what you really meant? You don't really care about politics, you just think people are bad yea?

When "it" is flat out lying, it's bad. "Period".

I tend to think some things like gag orders are also mostly bad, whoever is responsible.

The same reason why a company's employees typically aren't allowed to make public statements.

Like it or not, Donald J. Trump is now President of the United States and the public relations of the executive branch are his prerogative.

Given his positions on climate change, deregulation, and energy production, he clearly doesn't want civil servants from certain agencies, many of who's jobs and powers he is threatening to cut, putting out communications that undermine his agenda.

I think this is what "running the government like a business" means. Companies are tightly controlled from the top so they want to apply the same blueprint to government.

Except that if his administration wasn't so far behind on staffing up the department, they'd already have their communications people in place and wouldn't need to put in a "gag order". On top of that, it's Washington, DC, if you tell them not to talk, that's probably the best way to get civil servants to start leaking. And then good luck trying to control the message.

> Except that if his administration wasn't so far behind on staffing up the department,

"Except" sounds like you're trying very hard to disagree while specifically agreeing, for some reason. The failure to staff is the silent reason he made the proclamation (as Trump maybe imagines in his own mind).

Well I'm disagreeing that it's similar to how other, more competent, administrations have done things in the past. Whether it's how things are done in the corporate world or not is kind of irrelevant as government plays by different rules. I also think it's a bad idea on its face since it leads to overreaction in the media and won't have its intended effect since it only encourages unattributed leaks rather than normal communication where the people running the government at least know who is saying things.

> I also think it's a bad idea on its face

Definitely. Leaking information isn't just righteous, it's fun and can be monetized...there's just too much incentive.

> support of roughly 50% of the population

"Didn't vote" was roughly 43% of eligible voters. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were only able to garner support around 26% each.

Thus, it's not like either party is close to having a mandate of "50% of the population". I'd guesstimate it's more like a third.

http://brilliantmaps.com/did-not-vote/

What's scary is that none of the modern US presidents haven't really gotten close to 50% at all, so you can never say any of the recent US presidents represents the interests of "most Americans". It's more like, "represents a vocal minority". And thus, a vocal minority can elect a figure who can run roughshod over the entire system.

I'd wonder, however, if a system exists where elected leaders regularly obtain the direct approval (i.e., vote) of 50% of all eligible voters. I'm pretty sure the US system isn't it, and won't ever be.

Why should we care about someone's opinion if they can't even bother to spend 30 minutes every two years to express it?

Um... because that person might actually lose their job or a significant portion of their income in order to "express their opinion". In many places lines were several hours long. If you're a hourly employee working retail, there is no guarantee or protection that your boss must give you time off to wait in line to vote. Or must pay you for that time because the election system can't get their act together and ensure everyone can do it in anywhere near 15 minutes.

As a resident of OR, where all votes are done by mail, I am baffled why the entire country doesn't vote by mail. If that were the case, I'd predict at least a 5% jump in activity:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/2012/1106/Voter-turno...

> I feel bad for anyone that has legitimate conservative viewpoints on things like fiscal policy.

Most of us that feel that way either are libertarian (which never has hope of winning anything) or suck it up and vote Republican.

The real issue here is we have no voice, zero. Because both major parties are so ghastly to many Americans that we have to vote for a "lesser evil". I'm proud I voted libertarian to at least keep my conscience as clean as I could.

FYI I'm in California, so literally we had choices between two Democrats with the same views for.. Senate was it? Either way, my vote didn't matter

The real CA Senate vote happened during the June primaries, which decided the candidates that would appear on the November general ballot.

It's actually not a terrible system. A lot of folks are typically reluctant to vote for a third-party candidate because it feels like throwing your vote away.

Instead, CA's new "top two" system gives you a chance to freely vote for a third-party candidate (in the primaries), and if that candidate loses, you get to re-cast your vote for one of the more popular candidates during a second round.

It's just different than what we're used to. It's not perfect (I'd prefer to see something like approval voting, or instant-runoff voting), but I think it's an improvement.

Requiring vote during primaries and restricting it to the top two is a horrible system. It effectively eliminates competition in politics (which was the point), there are zero additional benefits

It's posturing.

Maybe it is just me, but I find the way folks get to these conclusions fascinating.

Just as an example - outside of people like John Muir ( who was a somewhat obsessive ... guy ) , ALMOST NOBODY was an "environmentalist" prior to say, 196x ( call it 1965 ). Zappa claims that (his) "Nine Kinds of Industrial Pollution" was the first use of that word in any popular ( read; non-scientific) literature/media.

The whole idea just sort of appeared, out of nearly nothing. What's interesting is that one of my favorite filmmakers, Adam Curtis, does an essay film, "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace" where he ties environmentalism to ... the then-rising computer industry. The tools of Systems Analysis were turned on Nature, and we discovered Preferred Equilibria.

I don't even know how you'd evaluate Curtis' claim. It's a pretty whacky idea. But something about it... plus a few searches here and there, and sonofagun, there are no actual references to "pollution" prior to the '60s. That's hardly rigorous scholarship.

The reason I picked "environmentalism" is because then things like what "conservatives" hold up were similarly invented even since then, to show that it's not a partisan phenomenon. I think moderate environmentalism has immense value. But it fascinates me that it's sort-of a fabricated idea.

But we, as a species, apparently just do this. Isn't that what the original "meme" was ( before cat pictures )?

However, there were areas with very heavy smog, and laws were put in place to try and address this before 1960.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_1956

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/4-5/52/enacted

Clean Air Act 1956 1956 CHAPTER 52

An Act to make provision for abating the pollution of the air.

Very interesting - thank you!

It's apparently coal burning chimneys that were of concern there. "In effect until 1964" - which is even more interesting. My understanding is that in 1952, the effects of privation from WWII were still acutely felt. I wonder if the rising economy didn't make better fuel more affordable.

I think you had people with environmentalist views prior to the label. In fact plenty of people would have identified as "naturalists" in the early twentieth century. Ken Burns documentary on the national parks shows this pretty well.

Oh, absolutely. But they were unusual. Often kind of grumpy and a bit misanthropic.

Burns' films do seem to file out a few heroes ( meaning there seem fewer even than they were ) but there were not that many other people, especially in government, who felt that way. You had many more "man has Dominion Over Nature" types, like Floyd Dominy of the Bureau of Reclamation.

Also; within Burns' film ( which is, as always, excellent ) note the rather large changes in management style over the years - and we're still learning . The part about how litter alone caused problems was pretty entertaining. I'm old enough to remember when people just littered.

What's different now is that environmentalism to some level is now nearly universal. Even people who oppose the EPA have some belief in the importance of the environment.

> Oh, absolutely. But they were unusual. Often kind of grumpy and a bit misanthropic.

Stop projecting. Animal conservation was a hugely popular movement in the late 19th and early 20th century in the United States. John Muir and Guy Bradley were national heroes, and those are just two that we remember today. Roosevelt's environmental policies received wide public support. Campaigns against hats made out of birds grew so large and so quickly that this almost-universal fashion trend ended entirely and for good by the 1920s (http://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/07/15/4228...), something that hasn't happened today with anti-fur and anti-ivory campaigns.

Environmentalism has long historic roots:

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

After the industrial revolution there was quite a pick up in valuing the natural world.

The Nazis were into environmentalism. Claiming that the German people had a bond with the natural world that was broken by pollution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecofascism#In_Germany

They used the German word pollution in a non-scientific way.

Romanticism in general has had an interesting relationship with Nature, which accounts for a lot of the 19th century ( and some of the 20th century ) points on the first list.

It should be fairly easy to see that with the aid of mass media, its much more prevalent than it was.

> Could anyone here make a legitimate argument why these gag-orders are a good idea?

They're temporary and intended to have more clear follow-up later.

I don't even think this is stretching what's reasonable. He's the head of the executive branch and they're a federal agency reporting to him. If an evangelical right-winger created a "Department of Bible Studies," I would expect a Democratic President taking office to potentially ask them not to release any public statements until the new administration has met with the department to clarify what their role and priorities will be.

Besides, the story at hand is that the "gag order" was rescinded and the actual policy sent out is very similar to the previous administration's. It doesn't mention who sent out the original e-mail, why, or under what authority. If the administration overrules it 24 hours later, it's quite possible it didn't come from them.

It's too bad another political party continued defending gag orders for other reasons. It's a slippery slope and it suited them at the time. Now it'll be harder to take that power away.

>" However in the last few day he has had his press secretary lie to the American people, suggested the US should commit war crimes, and forbid government agencies from speaking to the public."

He's also signed executive orders that will line his own pockets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwFmVOY6cKk

> I am consistently baffled how a political party can make so many decisions that are objectively wrong and still garner support of roughly 50% of the population.

No party in the US has support of "roughly 50% of the population"; the two largest are around 25% by polling [0]. With turnout at the last election around 55%, the voting in the last election is also consistent with each major party being supported by around 25% of the population eligible to vote.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx

America is a faithocracy. You only have to manipulate people into believing something to get your way. There is no critical thinking among the masses to challenge this behavior. There is zero political downside as long as we have bread and circuses.

Despite the derision on here, I think the answer is quite simply that the new executive branch wants to get its cabinet up and running and make sure that the messaging by these agencies is in line with the political positions of the leadership. I think the media is making more of this than really exists (as usual) and that these agencies need to remember who is in charge and who ultimately funds them and for what purpose.

> The only people in government that seem to agree with them also happen to be bigoted, anti-science, authoritarians.

I don't support Trump, but the first thing in understanding the movement against the DNC and the establishment is understanding that it is not primarily rooted in bigotry, anti-science or authoritarianism. If you stop there, you are selling yourself short on understanding current world politics. If you want a nugget of something to stimulate your mind: Hillary's primary foreign policy objective was to escalate the Syrian proxy war with Russia.(1) Is it really that surprising? Bush's primary foreign policy objective was to start a war, primarily in the middle east and centered Iraq. Actually, the Bush administration desperately tried (and succeeded in mainstream media) to hide the fact that Iraq was at the same time, desperately trying to prove they did not have chemical weapons and offering to bring inspectors and sign the OPCW. No such weapons were every found (what a surprise).

Also, some of the perceived bigotry is perhaps actually perpetrated by people who believe they are fighting against bigotry. For example, right now Blacks are admitted to med school with an average MCAT score around 61%, while Whites and Asians are admitted with an average of about 91%.(3)

So it's not as black and white as your remarkable viewpoint.

1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE45OsLNVAQ&feature=youtu.be 2 - https://theintercept.com/2016/12/15/if-donald-trump-is-so-up... 3 - https://www.aei.org/publication/acceptance-rates-at-us-medic...

The fact that affirmative action exists for med school admissions does not prove or disprove the assertion that Trump's movement is rooted in bigotry, anti-science or authoritarianism.

I think you can understand the point though but you tossed it to the side and made your own.

Edit:

As Elon Musk wrote in his support for Rex Tillerson: 'he should be given the benefit of the doubt unless proven otherwise.' Assuming an entire movement of half of the nation is rooted in bigotry, etc, is at best naive and insulting. Give people the benefit of the doubt and try to understand where they're coming from. Divisiveness leads to increased conflict. Everyone who supported that movement (and I'm not one of them), or aspects of it, Elon Musk included, is not a bigot, anti-scientist, whatever convenient thought criminal you want them to be.

Perhaps I'm confused but your third link makes no mention of race.

Sorry wrong link. I fixed it.

You mis-read the comment you're replying to; you both agree.

The US military is the largest "economy" in America. It employees massive numbers of people, it requires a huge amount of industry, and massive connected government contractors to supply everything. The only thing that keeps this engine running is war. It's fundamentally baked into the system and it won't be easily stopped even if there was any political will to stop it (and there isn't).

Good point, and I can admit that you are right, I misread his comment. He is making a legitimate point about representation in government. I took it to mean: 'all Trump supporters are...'

I agree with you about military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned of.

For example, right now Blacks are admitted to med school with an average MCAT score around 61%, while Whites and Asians are admitted with an average of about 91%.

Bigotry from that group predates Affirmative Action, so don't use that as an argument.

Aside from the fact that one would have to be more than a bit muddle-headed (or simply lacking perspective and generally naive) to think that there might be some net "anti-bigotry" effect to expect from the Trump administration -- the document you link to doesn't support what you're saying. (It doesn't in any way mention the ethnic background of applicants, or how they scored differently).

>the document you link to doesn't support what you're saying. (It doesn't in any way mention the ethnic background of applicants, or how they scored differently).

Thanks, I linked the wrong tab. I added a link to a different article.

The American Enterprise Institute isn't a reliable source. It's a think tank that exists to provide intellectual 'cover' to the political desires of certain conservatives; it's propaganda for intellectuals.

That doesn't make your statements wrong, but IMHO it doesn't support them.

the link is to statistical data. the numbers are reality.

> the link is to statistical data. the numbers are reality.

Statistics are regularly misused to deceive, and that assumes the data is accurate.

ok convince me you're right. what is misrepresented in the data I linked to?

A fair question in a way, but consider that life is too short:

* You could post data from %somerandomblogger% or the Russian government, and challenge me to find the flaws. Not a game I'd like to play; find a good source instead. My time is limited; I'm going to stick to information from excellent sources.

* One goal of propaganda is to overwhelm and distract your target with misinformation. Attacks are far cheaper than defense; i.e., you can make things up much more quickly than someone can verify them and respond. That's not your goal, but at least sometimes it's AEI's.

* AEI could easily create or twist data in ways that would take me all day or longer to unravel. See #2.

Just because you disagree with someone, it does not mean that they are wrong, or that they are Russian propaganda. You have otherwise shown no basis for your disagreement with the facts outlined in the data you were given than that. I gave you the opportunity to contribute something more and instead you cemented your position this position that you've "already made up your mind."

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