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Comment by ethagnawl | Hacker News Reader

That these concerns are being dismissed as partisan shows how far through the looking glass we truly are. Either _the party of law and order_ doesn't understand how risky this activity is, doesn't care or both -- any of which are _extremely_ troubling. We should also all be sure to keep this in mind next time they're crying crocodile tears about TikTok or DeepSeek.

I just emailed my representative (Mike Lawler) and I suggest everyone who's concerned about this activity and capable of offering compelling insights into why this activity (active data breach) is so concerning do the same. Perhaps they're somehow blissfully unaware of the security implications of these folks accessing data (it's only read-only access, though, so don't worry! /s), copying it to ... wherever?, running it through ChatGPT or tinkering in production on critical Cobol systems is and we can enlighten them.

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> Either _the party of law and order_ doesn't understand how risky this activity is, doesn't care or both

If they hadn't already obviously ceded that title before 2025, they certainly did when over a thousand duly convicted violent partisan offenders were pardoned.

These weren't just random people, they were accomplices of the person who pardoned them.

We're in an autocratic United States now, where no crime, no matter how violent, committed by members of the regime will be prosecuted.

a president cannot pardon or commute state crimes. most states have crimes against violence

The majority of governors are all in on this new Republicanism. They can pardon any crime that Trump can't. Blue state governors can be leaned on extremely hard and most will have to give in if their Federal dollars are on the line. This isn't 2006 anymore.

> Blue state governors can be leaned on extremely hard and most will have to give in if their Federal dollars are on the line.

This is especially true if the courts roll over and reverse the Impoundment Act, which is exactly what the Project 2025 author and OMB nominee is pushing for. The president would be able to bankrupt any State, any entity that relies on federal funding, regardless of the wishes of Congress.

And arguably they could just do it: ignore any court judgment, and watch Congress do nothing. We know he won't ever be impeached and removed, so it's sort of a foregone conclusion that impoundment power can be seized at any time.

The crime in question occurred in a non-state, so that isn’t much help here.

It doesn’t matter if you write or call your representative. He knows that if he goes against President Musk, Musk will throw his unlimited funds at someone so he gets primaried and even before that Musk will use his bully pulpit - Twitter - to berate him.

He is in a D+3 district that usually votes Democratic. That would usually moderate him. But see above about he would have to first survive a primary.

Threats of violence is what drives all those inexplicable last minute vote changes in congress, simple as that.

The Musk+Trump duopoly seems insurmountable. Trump has an a cult like hold on the Republican Party and Musk has enough money + Twitter to control the narrative/scare politicians in line to convince enough independents to keep them in power.

Our only hope is that the Cheeseburgers and high cholesterol gets the best of Trump.

And that Democrats grow a spine.

This isn't Musk+Trump, it's Musk+Thiel+Yarvin+Heritage+Vance, with Trump as a hood ornament. His job is simply to sign whatever they put in front of him and play golf.

Cholesterol getting the best of Trump isn't going to derail this, since Vance is more than happy to continue the amassing of unchecked executive power.

"You won't have to vote again."

The difference is that it is never about policy with MAGA voters. It’s about Trump.

You see how quickly MAGA voters went from “America first. No foreign entanglements” to “let’s send troops to the Middle East to clear out Gaza” as soon as Trump said we should do so?

Anytime that Trump hasn’t been on the ballot since 2018, Trump voters stayed home.

Presidents have always been about personality and not policy. Biden and Bush I being the exception in my lifetime - or at least since Reagan.

> The difference is that it is never about policy with MAGA voters. It’s about Trump.

This is why there's an effort to centralize power in the executive at a blistering pace, so the opposition can be permanently defeated even without Trump.

Watch for three things: ignoring the courts, snuffing out the influence of non-party sources of authority (the press, academic institutions), and centralization of police power. I don't think they're going to wait past April before they do all three.

When Trump dies, do you think they will they stay home forever? Because he will die eventually (and is already past male US life expectancy), and I’m curious if the cult disbands at that point (if facts and policy don’t matter to them). If so, we’re really just defending against harm caused during his remaining life expectancy (unknown) and term (<4 years).

Look at all of the other Republican candidates in the last primary. None of them would have ever gotten the cult like following if they had made it through the primaries.

I’m not saying another Republican will never win. But they will be your bland mostly inoffensive Republicans like Haley (2024), McCain, Romney, Bush I and II and Dole.

You might disagree with them on policy around the edges. But they won’t bring the destruction of Trump.

Desantis tries his best to be Trump and he flamed out marvelously on the stage. Even in Florida (where I live), he is losing his grip on the legislature.

I really hope that both sides comes out of this and re-focuses on the people. I strongly doubt it, but we could do with some healthy debate on what the purpose of government is and focusing on providing those services and improving the day to day existence of all of us.

I worry if it goes back to business as usual, it's just ripe for the next generation of con artists to show up and we'll go through this all over again.

The other wannabe Trumps don’t have the draw/sway with MAGA folks that Trump does. DeSantis tries and tries but he’s perceived as just a weirdo for the most part. Vance likewise. There’s something uniquely compelling about Trump to the MAGA crowd.

They (Trump and Maga folks) are authentically clueless. The other politicians have to act dumb and it just doesn't connect with the MAGA folks.

The next Luigis could be the Hamburglar and Mayor McCheese, who aim directly for his heart and don't miss.

What you're not mentioning the personal and intellectual flaws of these idols and their followers, and the tens, if not hundreds of millions of people in the US, and billions all over the world. How the chances "seem" right now is rather moot and very likely to be wrong one way or another; historians can say that later on. It is what it is now. It's not like you're suggesting to invest energy into A rather than B, so instead of idly musing about chances of success, try to focus on what increases them.

And why the senate didn't convict trump in the second impeachment about the insurrection he fomented. There is reporting of Mitt Romney that several republican senators indicated they didn't vote to convict because they were afraid what his minions would do to them and their families. They also mentioned they didn't have the funds to pay for private security the way that Romney had been doing for some time.

There's a word for achieving political ends via violence or the threat of violence. We should've been using that word heavily then, and we should be using it heavily now.

"Law and order" has long been code words for using the power of the state to enforce hierarchies that benefits those shouting "law and order".

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