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Comment by anonzzzies | Hacker News Reader

Everything that guy does is far worse than it might seem; wonder why no-one seems to care/do something as it's clear (and always was BECAUSE HE SAID SO before and during the elections) that normal procedures are not going to work. You would think if this was reversed, the right would be 'slightly more vocal' (and not only vocal). Or maybe it's just 'coloured' news (I am not in the US), but these things are happening and people are still thinking it's a good thing 'nice and forceful' or whatnot.

Anyway, scary when seen from across the pond, but I really don't know what's real and what's not. In my defence; I have US friends who tell me it's every bit as real and scary as the news tells it. They are, of course, not trump voters nor extremist left/right.

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It's very bad. The constitutional rule of law has been suspended, and the state has been captured by hostile interests. The complete abdication of responsibility of the part of Republicans in Congress has made this possible.

The judicial branch is still active and is issuing ruling after ruling that what Trump & Musk are doing is illegal, but it remains to be seen what force that has.

At some point this has to come down to the people. When does it become clear that the looting of the state needs to be stopped at all costs? The fear is Americans are overall too wealthy and comfortable, and too compromised by propaganda, to risk anything to stop it.

It may be the best we can hope for that a Democratic wave election is still possible in 2026, at which point we can begin to undo the damage and try to prevent a reoccurrence. That's an optimistic outlook.

There was an opportunity after his first term and nothing came of it. His actions were indicative enough and yet he's back again. People are asleep at the wheel and won't wake up until they crash, at which point it's usually too late. And if by some miracle they survive without being severely handicapped for the rest of their life they don't learn and repeat the mistake a few years down the line!

The slow system was not able to do shit in 4 years.

Not to mention that democracy (control by the people) itself is merely an empty label, like "control of the means of production", because people are also controlled (influenced to a great degree) by many things.

In this case, it seems, the neoreactionary movement convinced a critical mass of people.

Even though Trump's approval rating is the lowest of all presidents, and will likely continue to drop, but will that be enough to get an anti-Trump supermajority after the midterms? (Unlikely.)

"...and the state has been captured by hostile interests."

I'm not going to claim what he's doing is all good (though I find it hard to be upset by an attempt to make the federal government smaller). There's certainly a chance this all goes poorly.

But when you say hostile, to whom do you mean? A majority approve of what he's doing according to this recent poll:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/09/cbs-...

Trump and Elon are purposefully deconstructing the government offices that would regulate their business. Via whatever false promises and claims they made to the public, the net effect is that private corporate owners are dictating the law. If that's not regulatory capture I don't know what is.

> private corporate owners are dictating the law

Have you ever heard of lobbying? It's been around for a little while. At least the stuff this admin is doing is 1) visible and 2) has majority approval.

Your typical bigco buying a senator for laws is pretty well under the radar usually.

A majority of those who say "more please" when receiving propaganda "agree" with it. The interests of those receiving cover for their actions via that propaganda are not related to the interests of those being deceived.

I don't get what you're saying. Are you saying the people's approval doesnt matter because they're not smart enough?

Approval matters. Manipulation also matters. For example, if people are lied to that A will happen to get their approval, and the true intent is for B to happen, and B happens, and people are told that A happened, were their rights to choose trampled on? And it gets more complicated from there.

The centrists are definitely the most scared right now. If they can't trust their institutions what remains of the ideology? Their entire worldview is crumbling right now. Actually having to rummage around for values and some instinct of what power-building even looks like beyond "vote right" is going to involve a lot of the scary soul-searching and mirror-gazing that we normally chronically avoid as it's uncomfortable and unprofitable and we could be all at BRUNCH right now letting the technocrats bomb somewhere while we sip mimosas.

Or maybe we'll just continue to ignore all the contradictions in our society and hope and plan for the best. Who knows. I'm optimistic this could snap us out of the fever dream thats caused complete political deadlock for decades. We are very addicted to a comfortable life and any actual muscle to fight back will have to grow from nothing.

I do not see many examples in history where accelerationism delivered.

That's irrelevant, also "accelerationism" is a vague concept.

Ideologically driven politics are dead when the basis of what made that ideology real rather than just sth inside people's heads is missing. The current centrist ideology that fueled past administration is based on something that existed up to the 90s at most, and disappearing since then. The reason Trump has so much power right now is because the main political opposition (meaning the majority of the democratic party) had/has no touch with reality.

The democrats like to blame anyone and everyone but themselves. A big reason why we are here in the first place is because the Democrats are operating in a parallel universe and completely refusing to listen to the people.

Sorry? What does my post have to do with accelerationism? I am not arguing any of this is good. But what country has ever voted its way out of fascism? I'm sure there's a good example somewhere. Pinochet maybe? Typically the route goes liberal democracy votes in far-right power, far-right power doesn't let "moderates" regain control, far-right state can't find stability and people get fed up with a state that prioritises the needs of thew few over the many, state must be scrapped and rebuilt to restore any semblance of democratic rule. People who think you can moderate between the far-right, liberals, and all the long list of terms to the left of that—basically the entire political spectrum—are typically really bad at fighting the far-right because they take them in good faith. Which is dumb: you can't win an argument with an anti-semite (or other similar movements today) because it was never a rational belief but an enjoyable activity for the people to take out their miserable personal problems with hate and paranoia, and messing with good-faith liberals is funny and enjoyable and easy for miserable people. And who knows what the politicians actually believe when they'll say anything to get elected.

But, I will personally enjoy watching americans discover what america has always been on some level. Institutions are not going to fight for us. Institutions haven't wanted to give us most or the rights we take for granted today. We need to do more than vote if we want democracy to mean more than voting. We need to (gasp) be honest with our neighbors, not avoid uncomfortable topics, and critical of the people we vote for. For a country that prides itself on being a democracy we aren't very good at the fundamentals.

Ok sorry, maybe I was just too quick to judge your comment.

For those "centrists" who voted for this... I have nothing positive to say to them. Nor to those "centrists" who didn't vote at all because "both sides are bad".

I've got zero reason to think that this is going to snap anybody out of anything. I strongly suspect that they're busy coming up with rationalizations that this is OK and they should do the same thing next time.

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