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Comment by isaacremuant | Hacker News Reader

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The US has transcended “both sides are bad” sorry mate. Elon is evil, full stop.

Yes. That is a common narrative from democrat leaning people. The same ones who called me a terrorist sympathesizer for not wanting to invade libya. The same ones that now think Trump/Musk are more evil than Bush who illegally invaded Iraq because that's what the narrative tells them.

Forgive me if I laugh at your "full stops" and other absolutist statements.

Cried wolf/nazi/evil too many times.

The article is exactly this sentiment: the experience of how how evil takes over isn’t sudden, it’s insidious and slow and happens by inches. Those around you are not crying wolf, they understand history.

You’re wasting your breath. If people are going to claim democracy is being dismantled but only by republicans, then they’re a lost cause

I know which is why I seldom engage on politics of this nature but seeing HN turn into Reddit made me react, at least for today.

Lots of people on the left who believe Bush was the worst president this country has seen in recent history, that Obama largely continued Bush’s foreign policy, and that Trumps co-conspiracy with billionaires may end up similarly to a Boris Yeltsin in the US, with large amounts of the state apparatus sold to the highest bidder or most loyal, trampling on the rights and safety net offered by the govt in the process (and likely will be no better on foreign policy, given he wants to turn Gaza into "The Riviera of the Middle East"). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Don’t really sympathize with the whining about hypocrisy or how you claim to be personally victimized by people who are hypocrites.

> Don’t really sympathize with the whining about hypocrisy or how you claim to be personally victimized by people who are hypocrites

I was with you until this strawman. You don't seem to have a point after agreeing with me.

I used to think the hacker news crowd would be beyond “Elon is evil, full stop.”

Sometimes it do be that simple.

But what is happening right now is not really the same as to what happened the last four years, is it? If we forget about partisan wars for a second, are there precedents to what Trump is trying to do? Genuine question, I'm not a USA citizen and I can't keep up with everything.

Lawfare against political opponent, arrest and imprisonment of people who were trespassing as though they were insurrectionists, a president that was actually dysfunctional and the executive powers was in the hands of unknown and unaccountable individuals, the hiding of the state of the president, selection of candidate for president without going through democratic process of primaries, many billions of dollars of loans forgiven without authority and against court judgement, pressuring with threats private institutions to censor themselves and their users and customers, using spy agencies to spy on political opponents, lying and misleading the public regarding scientific knowledge of matters of health. This is just what came to mind.

Musk and even Trump cannot just step in and cut spending, programs and agencies. That's congresses job. Even a president cannot say “oh, we aren’t funding USAID/DoEd/EV tax credits”. Those things are law.

Allowing that to happen basically makes the president king. It allows them to have veto power over all spending laws both current and previous and a veto that’s unable to be overruled.

“Oh, you passed social security? No, you didn’t. I’m not giving that out”. Not only this but it gives the president extreme leverage over Congress. “I’m holding funding for this specific program ransom until you do thing X”.

Interestingly enough, that’s what Trump got impeached for during his first impeachment. Withholding funding in an attempt to extort someone. If this is allowed to happen then our constitution and government fundamentally will change.

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