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Comment by bilbo0s | Hacker News Reader

I thought HN User burnte was being hyperbolic in the assertions that post put forth.

Then I read a few articles.

sigh.

I mean, I guess we'll try to find competent and sane leaders again in 4 years. I don't know? There's not much else we can do at this point if this is the level of irrationality you're dealing with.

I'll add in way of explanation to non-US citizens that in the US, we've always had a fixation on certain minorities, one in particular, that has teetered on what I would call "unhealthy". That's where a lot of this comes from. Still monumentally irrational behavior, but I just wanted to offer some explanation of the national psychology driving these kinds of non-sensical actions.

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No, you need to think about how to participate in street politics and explore legal avenues to throw sand in the gears of the economy. If you're represented by a Republican especially, you need to pester them regularly with complaints so they know that loyalty to the administration is going to exact an increasingly high price on their political future. Passively sitting things out until your ~biannual voting opportunity is about the worst thing you can do.

I think do nothing except vote is a trap. It shows how weak our political immune system is that people think it's only about elections.

Call or write your Congresscritter. Concisely express your concerns. Seriously short. Someone listens/reads the message, ticks a box that summarizes your concern, tallies the checked boxes. It isn't personalized like some might wish but your opinion is counted.

If the actual response exceeds the expected, then some feel good pandering might occur. But in large numbers of complaints, it can move the needle.

If everyone did it, there'd be more responsive government than merely voting. Of course not everyone does it. But in aggregate your call/email has an effect when you do it regularly and tell others they should.

What if even 1/10th of the complaints on social media went to Congresscritters? They'd respond differently.

Join a peaceful assembly. Join two.

If we do nothing that is permission. What comes next is election shenanigans because why not? What stops that if the people have already shown they don't care?

> There's not much else we can do at this point if this is the level of irrationality you're dealing with.

You're giving up too easily. You can:

- fundraise

- boycott

- divest

- strike

- sue

- register voters

- drive people to polls

> I mean, I guess we'll try to find competent and sane leaders again in 4 years. I don't know? There's not much else we can do at this point if this is the level of irrationality you're dealing with.

There are absolutely not going to be free and fair elections 4 years from now. People really need to start preparing for this reality.

I still think it's possible we'll have free elections still, assuming the SAVE act fails.

If it passes, as a democracy we're probably failed beyond repair in my lifetime.

The man who presided over Jan 6th and the fake electors plot is definitely not going to accept an unfavorable outcome to the election now that he has much more power than he did in 2020.

Honestly, I don't get the logic behind opposition to the SAVE Act. In nearly all functional democracies (and many poor-functioning ones), you are required to show a state-issued ID document.

If the failure of the SAVE Act was the only thing allowing a Democrat victory, then there's something seriously wrong with the American democratic system.

I mean don't Americans have at least one document issued by the state proving that they are, you know, American?

"Q: Is it true that under the SAVE Act married women will not be able to register to vote if their married name doesn’t match their birth certificate?

A: The proposed SAVE Act instructs states to establish a process for people whose legal name doesn’t match their birth certificate to provide additional documents. But voting rights advocates say that married women and others who have changed their names may face difficulty when registering because of the ambiguity in the bill over what documents may be accepted."

https://www.factcheck.org/2025/02/will-save-act-prevent-marr...

Hah, seriously? Is that even a valid excuse?

Nearly every country I know of has solved the married woman name-change issue. The US literally does not have a process to manage official name changes?

It's literally so darn simple everywhere - previous official issued ID, marriage license copy, 2 newspaper ads stating the name change. There might be minor variations here and there depending on the country, but that's all you need to get your name changed anywhere on official documents. The real headache comes in changing previous unofficial documents afterwards, such as certificates, etc.

This is literally not an excuse for the Arsenal of Democracy.

In April 2025, Trump called for investigations into pollsters who determined that Trump has a low approval rate, calling the pollsters "criminals".[1] If Trump criminalizes publishing data that shows disapproval for his party, then there would be no public data that works as a checksum to detect rigged election results.

1. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-me...

> There are absolutely not going to be free and fair elections 4 years from now.

That's overly alarmist. The one thing the US has going for it when it comes to elections is that they are run by the states, not by the federal government, which insulates them from a lot of possible election meddling.

Things like the SAVE Act are incredibly concerning, though. It's unclear if the worst provisions of it are even constitutional, but it's also unclear if SCOTUS will actually do the right thing if SAVE gets passed.

And certainly people are going to end up being disenfranchised, regardless of what happens, and of course more of them will be left-leaning voters. Higher voter turnout tends to give the GOP worse electoral results; they know this, so they focus on voter suppression. It's disgusting.

So yes, I think we should be worried, but your statement is overly alarmist and not helpful.

Would you have believed a few months ago that the US government would be trying to strong-arm foreign nations who are nominally allies into compliance with its policy preferences? Here's another recent example of that: https://www.dw.com/en/france-voices-shock-at-us-calls-to-dro...

I have been warning for years (often here on HN) that the US risks tilting into a failed state due to political extremism, and its generally been dismissed as an impossibility - there is no way, people insisted, that an extreme fringe could reshape the American polity because of the Constitutional guardrails, the rock-solid institutions, the societal norms. Well it's happening right in front of us now. Just this week we're seeing the National Science Foundation dismantled, the nonpartisan Librarian of Congress arbitarily fired, the President demurring on TV when asked about his duty to uphold Constitutional guarantees of due process.

You identify a bunch of looming electoral problems yourself. The problem is that it doesn't require a great deal of electoral corruption to sway the outcome. Some states will cheerfully go along with the executive's agenda, those that don't will be denounced as having rigged their own elections. The whole hysteria about illegal immigrants is based on the specious claim that one party is importing them wholesale and somehow converting them into voters to steal elections from conservatives forever. The right has been selling that argument for over 30 years, going back to Newt Gingrich.

>Would you have believed a few months ago that the US government would be trying to strong-arm foreign nations who are nominally allies into compliance with its policy preferences?

What do you mean? Hasn't the USA pretty much ALWAYS done this?

>The whole hysteria about illegal immigrants is based on the specious claim that one party is importing them wholesale and somehow converting them into voters to steal elections from conservatives forever.

In fact, the whole hysteria is based on the existence of tens of millions of illegal immigrants who are committing huge numbers of crimes and are systematically discriminated against because of their illegal status. And when your political opponents so loudly try to deny such an obvious for everyone problem, it is stupid not to take advantage of it.

I don't know, maybe I don't understand American politics, but from the outside everything seems pretty clear to me.

The USA has not always done this. It has historically thrown its weight around (see any history book) but has historically maintained a far greater emphasis on diplomacy and international comity rather than the outright bullying we see now. You will note that I specifically referred to the US' behavior toward nominal allies. If you disagree, please provide some examples.

> millions of illegal immigrants who are committing huge numbers of crimes

A trope wholly ungrounded in fact, which has been debunked any number of times.

https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU01/20250122/117827/HHRG...

https://www.cato.org/blog/new-research-illegal-immigration-c...

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6241529/#S14

>historically maintained a far greater emphasis on diplomacy and international comity rather than the outright bullying we see now.

What are you even talking about?

The US military budget is bigger than the next nine countries’ military budgets combined. It's always been outright bullying.

Or do you seriously think that such a budget was just for a beauty?

> based on the existence of tens of millions of illegal immigrants

Oh, hello Trumpist Number. Like apparent “millions” who died in the Ukraine war.

>Oh, hello Trumpist Number. Like apparent “millions” who died in the Ukraine war.

And this kind of reaction is the main reason why the Democrats lost even the popular vote. Nice work.

Thanks. I live on another continent.

> That's overly alarmist. The one thing the US has going for it when it comes to elections is that they are run by the states, not by the federal government, which insulates them from a lot of possible election meddling.

Ah, that's reassuring. I'm sure Republican state officials won't allege mass voter fraud in 2028 and discount votes they claim to be from illegals when it seems like the election isn't going their way. And I'm sure there won't be violence threatened against election workers from the voters for harboring such fraud, either.

If I'm a working class person without much in the way of assets, what does preparing even mean here?

Oppose government actions that restrict free speech and free press. Do not assume that free elections are an independent variable that don't depend free speech and a free press.

Can't say it here without getting flagged.

From the personal safety viewpoint, the single best thing you can do as an American today is leave the country. Being working class without much in the way of assets precludes the more lucrative destinations, but there are still many countries out there that are pretty easy to emigrate to, even if quality of life there is lower than what US can offer today.

And where do you go to? Have a look around, most of this planet is screwed up at this point beyond repair.

To any country with a reasonably stable political system and society that is not bitterly divided. Ideally also the one that is not significantly involved in any major geopolitical power struggles, and is self-sufficient when it comes to basics (i.e. can feed itself if needed).

For example, New Zealand.

>Still monumentally irrational behavior, but I just wanted to offer some explanation of the national psychology driving these kinds of non-sensical actions.

I don't quite understand what is irrational and non-sensical in such behavior. It is quite expected, rational and natural.

Demanding other nations follow our laws is “rational”? And “natural”?

Uh.. yeah..

Agree to disagree.

In fact, I think our entire unhealthy fixation on minorities is irrational. But hey, obviously enough voters believe in this trump nonsense that it will continue unabated.

>Demanding other nations follow our laws is “rational”? And “natural”?

From a political point of view, in the current circumstances - yes.

>unhealthy fixation on minorities is irrational

Who has unhealthy fixations? The current administration? This "fixation" brought it popular vote win. The Voters? They were voted exactly against unhealthy fixation on minorities.

> From a political point of view, in the current circumstances - yes.

A kind message from RotW to the US - bugger off.

If the US has a gripe against certain minorities, keep that cancer to your borders.

I think Americans, left or right, are in a for a rude awakening when these four years are up.

>A kind message from RotW to the US - bugger off.

And if they don't? The US military budget is almost the same as the military budget of all other countries combined. And as you probably understand, for a good reason.

Why would the US bugger off with such a military budget? If the US were ready to bugger off, they wouldn't have such a military budget.

>If the US has a gripe against certain minorities

Looks more like domestic populism. It doesn't seem like the new administration is doing well, the trade war is going badly, peace between Russia and Ukraine is not in sight - so they are trying to score cheap points by provoking the Democrats to make various unhinged, crazy and delusional statements about minorities. Just so that current administration could at least look not so bad compared to their opponents

The US overpays for a lot of its defence equipment. Given that recently a $125 million French aircraft was downed by a $50 million Chinese aircraft at least 3 times, it remains to be seen how cost effective the US military arsenal actually is in a prolonged fight against its main adversary.

As for Europe, USA's main adversaries are not really our problem - in fact, one of America's newfound allies is a problem for Europe.

So why exactly should Europe follow America's laws? Because world police or some thing?

> I guess we'll try to find competent and sane leaders again in 4 years.

Why do you think these people will let us do so in 4 years? Whatever else they have in mind, none of them want to go to prison afterwards, and I think it's virtually guaranteed that by the end of this term, they will all have a rap sheet long enough to seriously worry about that.

(Trump will surely do blanket pardons, but he can only pardon federal crimes, not state.)

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