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Comment by make3 | Hacker News Reader

to be fair, trump is fucking up a lot of you guys' institutions, like foreign policy, immigrant policy, ecological policy, gender & racial (civil) policy, etc.

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More importantly, pointing out the damage being done to America's democratic institutions and civil society should not be dismissed as hysterics or simply "panic."

The consequences will be greatest in the long term. That we aren't feeling them yet does not absolve the situation.

I guess this is the calm before the storm.

Can you give specifics? As far as I know, nothing's changed. They still have democracy in America, and it still works in exactly the same way it used to, doesn't it? They still have civil society don't they? There are occasional riots and ongoing violent crime but that's been the norm for decades at least. Do you predict a transition to a single party system or more crime in the long term because of Trump's actions?

Without specifics and concrete problems, it's just more hysteria like the OP was talking about.

> As far as I know, nothing's changed.

As a single example to start, I would recommend looking into the staffing problems at the the state department. A lot of people don't think about the state department, but they are the first line of diplomacy on the world stage. There are hundreds of positions left unfilled, a severe lack of focus, the requirement of keeping up with major foreign policy pronouncements through twitter by the POTUS and a disengaged secretary of state with very little experience. World diplomacy is the kind of thing that does not blow up overnight, but has a ripple effect for years and possibly even decades to come, as we've seen with our middle east policies.

All of American democracy shouldn't have to crumble into ashes before we express concern.

For some recent historical context, the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/us/politics/top-posts-rema... reported in May 2013 that "John Kerry is practically home alone at the State Department, toiling without permanent assistant secretaries of state for the Middle East, Asia, Europe and Africa" and "One of the worst backlogs is at the State Department, where nearly a quarter of the most senior posts are not filled, including those in charge of embassy security and counterterrorism."

The key difference is that the Obama administration was working on staffing the state department (a difficult task to be sure), whereas it's become clear that the Trump administration and Rex Tillerson are doing the opposite, focusing on cuts and issuing a hiring freeze instead.

Tillerson has also proposed a 31 per cent cut to the department’s budget and an 8 per cent staff cut.

So the context you provide requires it's own context.

All of which does not speak to the volatile situation of the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the world making improvised foreign policy declarations over twitter.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/magazine/rex-tillerson-an...

That might be a problem, but it's not democracy or civil society. Maybe they'll get a worse deal on some international agreements or whatever else could be caused by not enough diplomacy, but there'll still be democracy and as much safety for the people.

Could you name one actual policy or law that has been passed which has made a significant difference, so far, in any of the issues you claim Trump has 'fucked up'.

The only thing I can think of that might actually have caused some issues for some businesses would be the rejection of TPP. And that is something almost all Americans wanted abolished.

Tweets, Executive Orders, and hyperventilating journalists do not actually affect US policy.

The repeal of the clean power plan seems like it could lead to many deaths: https://qz.com/943988/trumps-rollback-of-the-clean-power-pla...

Not sure if that’s proximal enough for you. It’s true it will take some time to feel the effects of Trump’s choices. That doesn’t mean they’re not quite harmful some of them.

anything that is changeable within the term of a presidency is also easy to undo within the term of a presidency.

It's easier to break things than rebuild them.

You shouldn’t be comparing DEMOLISH vs BUILD though. You should be comparing DEMOLISH plus BUILD vs RETROFIT.

It’s sometimes easier and cheaper to demolish and build a new house than remodel the existing one.

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