Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

America is not “on the right track”

> We had a half baked coup attempt in 2020.

Which failed and had little popular or organized military support. We've had a lot worse throughout our history. McVeigh, civil war, et cetera.

> People are polarizing in ways that weren't around only a few years ago.

But compared to the polarization of late 1800's?

> The congressional deficit has ballooned to unsustainable levels. Our annual interest payments are ~400B/yr.

Much of that is left hand owing the right hand type stuff, and it's all in our sovereign currency. It's not nothing, but it's not nation-busting levels either.

> Social Security is projected to default next decade.

Only if you make really stupid assumptions.

> We’re back to fighting proxy wars with the Russians, which the supposedly progressive author presents as a positive!

Russia is self-destructing on the Ukrainian bulwark.

> We’ve destroyed South America and the Middle East in pursuit of our strategic goals.

Which we've been doing for the last 150 years or so.

> I hope we don’t provoke china into a war over Taiwan…

We're not substantially closer now than we were at many other points in the last 70 years.

> I love my country but shit is seriously fucked up right now.

If the country is seriously fucked up right now, it's pretty much always been seriously fucked up. I could agree with that statement.

> Which failed and had little popular or organized military support. We've had a lot worse throughout our history. McVeigh, civil war, et cetera.

Yes, it did fail. Thank God. But the coup plotters have been left to keep plotting for the past two years. If you haven't noticed, the person who committed the coup is still out there telling his millions of followers that he's the rightful President, and that the election he tried to steal was stolen. What happens when he does the same thing in 2024?

To say that McVeigh was worse than Jan6 completely missed what the danger was on that day. The danger isn't to be measured in number of lives lost.

Trump lost in 2020 and will lose again in 2024. Trump is losing ground amongst conservatives, even if only a little bit. The thing is the electorate is so evenly split, actually slightly in favor of the Democrats for president, that even that little ground practically assures a Democrat becomes president in 2024. In fact, the clowns that were just elected to the House are only going to reinforce the idea that Republicans are not the party of responsible governing.

And all that's true if the electorate were static. In reality the Republican's largest voting bloc, the Boomers, are starting their mass die-off. Remember, the oldest Boomers are now 77.

> Trump lost in 2020 and will lose again in 2024

Indeed he lost in 2020, but he still nevertheless almost became President through illegal administrative tricks, abuses of power, and physical force.

Although the 2020 administrative coup failed, the autopsy of that election and the subsequent Jan6 insurrection show exactly the weak points in the plan and why it failed. It wasn't due to some resilient institutional safeguards, like the DOJ, FBI, or even National Guard. All of those institutions failed to protect us. The coup attempt failed because rank-and-file people did their jobs, rather than bend to overt political pressures. Clerks, elections officials, secretaries of state, the VPOTUS - individual people doing their duties and upholding their oaths of office.

By and large, since 2020 these people have been purged and the power of their offices have been usurped by state GOP parties where they have control. These places will never again have the problem of elections officials doing their duties rather than bending to partisan political pressures.

> Trump is losing ground amongst conservatives, even if only a little bit.

If Trump is the nominee, he will have all the support he needs.

> In fact, the clowns that were just elected to the House are only going to reinforce the idea that Republicans are not the party of responsible governing.

Many of those clowns are in fact insurrectionists. Remember, the purpose of the mob on Jan6 was to stop the lawful functioning of Congress to certify the 2020 election. But what may seem clownish is in fact exceedingly dangerous. Republicans have proven they will use their slim majority to completely stall the function of Congress when it serves them politically. There's no need for a mob to stop the business of Congress anymore, there are some elected Representatives who are empowered to throw a wrench into the whole machine if it serves them politically.

The fact that these people were just elected proves their electorate doesn't even care that they're completely ineffective. They can behave as irresponsibly as they like, and they'll be reelected.

> And all that's true if the electorate were static. In reality the Republican's largest voting bloc, the Boomers, are starting their mass die-off. Remember, the oldest Boomers are now 77.

You're not the only one who notices this. You don't think the rise in pro-authoritarian, pro-political violence, anti-democratic rhetoric from Republicans is a coincidence, do you?

> You're not the only one who notices this. You don't think the rise in pro-authoritarian, pro-political violence, anti-democratic rhetoric from Republicans is a coincidence, do you?

You are quite correct. The Republicans are acting like a wild animal trapped in a corner. The Democrats have been a bit, ah, slow, to update their playbook accordingly. The next two years will see us move from one preventable "crises" to another. They may as well make the most of it - their shenanigans are only going to cost them more conservative moderates. I think this Congress will be the last one where the Republicans hold a majority. The big question is how long will it take conservatives to realize the Republican party is no longer viable and create a new party? How will they gate keep the bozos?

I cannot possibly understand several of your points:

The coup attempt is somehow a GOOD sign for American politics?!

The debt is absolutely an existential threat. The “right hand left hand” BS is directly responsible for the growing wealth gap.

Social security is not sustainable. The default projections are not controversial. Go look it up!

We’re single-handedly financing the war in Ukraine.

The president announced he would defend Taiwan with force but don’t even recognize it as a sovereign nation. The CCP has begun unprecedented military activity around Taiwan. They’re violating their air space on a daily basis probing for weakness. Same as always?! What planet are you on?

None of these are truly new - even the quarter-baked coup attempt (see FDR times.) As for outrageous debt, that began with the US itself.

Which raises the possibility that we're looking at the nasty part of a regular oscillation.

However. The very low birthrate is genuinely new. Drugs/homelessness not new but astonishingly severe. Steep housing prices due to collusion (vs manufactured homes, housing laws, and more) are a large cause of both.

I don’t understand your argument. Just because times have been bad in the past doesn’t mean that America is “going in the right direction”

Did you read the article?

Also the 6 rounds of QE post 2008 is absolutely %100 unprecedented in US history. We have never ever increased the money supply like this. This activity combined with an abundance of cheap credit is what’s creating bubbles in housing, equities and other assets.

So I've said there's decline, but that might be temporary, then given reasons why it might not be temporary. Are you even sure we disagree?

QE is a very recent invention. Inflation, such as during the Civil War, not at all. The money supply went full bonkers - and during the revolution itself; much worse, still. A "Continental" (the dollar of the time) came to mean "worthless."

Yes, much of this is bad.

But none of it is new or unique.

So what? I still argue the US is not headed in a good direction even if we assume nothing novel is happening.

We’re discussing the article right?

> We’re single-handedly financing the war in Ukraine.

Single handedly helping a country defend itself from an invader that is attempting to eradicate it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com