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Comment by nimbius | Hacker News Reader

If you look back at Germany in the 19th century, nations like Prussia and Austria had this sort of power struggle between the merchant class and the nobility at the advent of steam power.

in this case the de-facto US nobility (rank-and-file career politicians) are being usurped by the bourgeouise (billionaires like Musk) at the advent of AI and tech by promising the working class a combination of culture war policy and relief from the very capitalist excess they themselves endorse. by reducing congress and senate to a simple debate team (conversely similar to the German National Asssembly) the tech-elite are able to seize power once reserved for the crown.

the question will be, after four years, will they abdicate their power or concentrate it?

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I laughed when those people self-identified as accelerationists... but holly shit! they knew what it means and were honest.

Historically, they are just a bunch of rich morons that got lucky, got power, and decided to stage a coup. This is not some enlightened movement trying to replace the social norms. It's just your run of the mill personal power switch, and the only notable things about it are it's on a country that has been extremely stable before, and those people are stupid enough to willfully destroy it.

> it's on a country that has been extremely stable before

The US is a known bad design, nation builders working for the United States stopped trying to use this design for new countries in the 20th century, it doesn't work. It's inherently unstable and you previously got very lucky, although you have had a civil war and numerous close calls.

It's like oh, why don't we make coal-powered cars. Well because it's a known bad idea. We actually did try that, it's a bad idea, don't do it again.

And the bad design has severely limited our ability to self-correct.

While I absolutely do not like what is happening right now, I cannot agree with your general statement. Could you elaborate?

The US has proper separation of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. The legislative has a per-state and popular representation. Which part of this is "inherently unstable"?

The only part lacking a proper proportional representation (as in a parliament).

The US Executive is way more powerful than the other powers. It can act as it wishes, and consequences only come years later, if ever.

Also, the per-state representation doesn't seem to lead to good results at all. As you said, the popular representation isn't proportional, what is a more relevant flaw than anything before this point on this comment.

And that is before you get into the details that are actually bad. It's incredible that they managed to stay stable with that electoral system, for example.

That said, looks like they will have an almost perfect opportunity to fix some of those in a few years...

[Citation Needed]

I'd love to read about the new designs.

Literally every other existing democracy is newer. Dig in.

The core is the President is kept from becoming a dictator by nothing more than norms. If Trump staffs the military with loyalists, there isn’t much anyone can do to make him do anything. Most other countries have power over the military, particularly in domestic contexts, much more shattered.

In those "newer designs" there is no electoral college. Also various alternative electoral systems have been tried. The winner-takes-all system of the US is known pathological and inevitably results in a two party system. Democracies in Europe most often result in many parties and a necessity to form coalitions. Ireland even goes as far as using IRV and STV.

The issue isn't even in how votes are counted, it's in parliamentary versus presidential republics.

The latter inevitably slide towards autocracy. Too much power is concentrated in one person, who is almost impossible to legally remove before their term is up, and who will happily punish dissenters within the party.

In parliamentary republics, every PM is one internal party vote away from being deposed. You tend to see less of the tail wagging the dog in them.

>the question will be, after four years, will they abdicate their power or concentrate it?

You honestly think that's a question?

Power corrupts. You saw Trump, who in 2016 said he'd get everything done so he'd see no need to run again, he'd have Made America Great Again. He then tried to rig the 2020 election so he could stay in power, despite saying "if I lose the election you'll never hear from me again", and 4 years later, here we are.

These people are here to entrench themselves permanently.

I know that Trump was something of a bad loser when Biden was elected, and that he encouraged the riots on Capitol Hill, but I had not heard (from the media media here in Britain) that he attempted to rig the election. Could you provide a source for this please?

Possibly a reference to the fake electors plot [0], although there was also the phone call to the Georgia secretary of state asking him to find 11,780 more votes [1], the pressure he applied to his VP to reject the election results [2], the subsequent Jan 6 riot that disrupted the certification...

At least some of these were covered by BBC [3, 4].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_ph...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#Vote_counting_and_s...

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-55524838

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-55559172

He also tried to get the DoJ to label the election as suspicious. Don’t have an immediate reference for that but it was surfaced by the Jan 6 committee.

Thank you, vitus!

> the question will be, after four years, will they abdicate their power or concentrate it?

Musk, Thiel, and their friends clearly intend to consolidate power, and the people they associate with openly advocate for the creation of independent corporate fiefdoms with authoritarian control over society. There is no doubt at this point. These are not good people. They are oligarchs. They are the bitter nerds that just want power for themselves so they can be the bullies.

There are far more nerds (bitter or not) who were not so successful yet are far more clever than these "leaders" are, and they aren't the type to tolerate intolerance...

> will they abdicate their power

Yeah, no. This is a coup and they are all in. They would not be this blatant about taking control illegally and fast if they expected to leave any institutions to still enforce the law against them.

> the question will be, after four years, will they abdicate their power or concentrate it?

Why would they? Once they come for the judges and replace them with “real Americans”, there’s no bottom.

The Federalist Society has been a 40/50 year project to install a judiciary loyal to this coup project. This mix of Christian nationalist theocracy and unitary executive has been their aim all along.

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives.

They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”

  ― George Orwell, 1984

Yea, these guys don't seem like the kind to do any abdicating, voluntarily.

A lot can happen in 4 years though. Maybe self-inflicted catastrophic wounds will drive down support for Trump enough where it becomes possible for R pols and oligarchs to abandon him. Or maybe they'll choose the dark path, and go farther into repressive authoritarianism to stay in power.

The problem for Musk et al is that they are concentrating power directly to Trump, not themselves. They're shackling themselves to the leopard and betting it will never eat their face.

> Maybe self-inflicted catastrophic wounds will drive down support for Trump enough

They will blame women, minorites and especially trans people for all of that.

And when dust settles, those who supported Trump and Musk will see themselves as primary victims - and will blame minorites, women, democracts and trans people for consequences of their own actions.

"Why didn't you stop me from putting my hand in the pain hole?"

Looking at the human nature while interacts with Capitalism, looks like they will try to concentrate it.

I found it shameful that we hold so much a power hungry war while however as Memento Mori teach us, the only certainty is death, and that power is simply gone.

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