Well, yes, that's the point. Authoritarians want to consolidate power and loot wealth, not improve things or make the world a better place.
Exactly. The past 163 days have only been about hurting people and cutting things down. There's no hopeful or optimistic rhetoric. Its just hate after hate after hate and blame.
You cannot build a great country on this. But you most certainly can tear one down.
Same choice faces everyone but there are no Lincolns around. Its a nation of hustlers, podcasters and youtubers who dont really fight for anything other than views, upvotes and likes.
I figured that was obvious after Trump and Obama were all buddy-buddy at Carter's funeral.
I mean, typically you don't have a friendly relationship with someone you think is ending democracy in your country.
Which is why when Obama and Trump looked like they were best friends, that action spoke way louder than Obama's words.
I think you should go up this comment thread and read this[0], it's not the words of Trump but the actions his administration take, they are authoritarian, it's clear to most people outside of the USA with a decent education.
Cynicism about "political mudslinging" as if these actions are all normal and could be taken by any administration, and would be condemned anyway by their opposing side is exactly the shift in Overton Window which legitimises authoritarian overtakes.
Please do read about any authoritarian rise to power in democratic countries in the last 100 years, even better if you read about "competitive authoritarianism" to understand why it might just so be this time is a little different...
Looks like those dividends are finally starting to pay out.
Please tell me this isn't the only data point you're basing your conclusion on.
It's social protocol that funeral attendees treat each other in a civil manner, even if they intensely dislike each other. I'm autistic, but even I know that social rule.
Obama had made his comments about "wannabe dictator" only a week or so earlier.
Actions speak louder than words.
Obama knows this; he's been on the receiving of Trump's petty vindictiveness too many times to count. And he could just as easily be placating Trump so that he doesn't issue an executive order to, say, require every publicly-funded university in the US to offer a "men's rights studies" major, simply out of spite.
And in reality he’s happy to have Trump as a friend and isn’t really worried about a dictatorship?
What's your point?
You're defacto not a wannabe dictator because you did anything ever that wasn't dictator-y?
That seems like a low bar.
We got exactly what we voted for — worldwide tariffs, sending the military to round up migrants, a military parade with tanks in DC, antivax boards — all of these things he talked about before election. Everything happening now with the dismantling of science programs and universities is exactly what Americans voted for.
Why do you think it's appropriate to say "Americans want..." and "We got exactly what we voted for..." when only 32% of Americans voted for Trump?
But yes, a big part of not voting people decided to not vote. If one decides to not vote one accepts the outcome and it it was know that the outcome would be Trump, and that Trump (or the people around him) would be more prepared and more unhinged than in the first term.
Take the derivative of this chart, you see the boomer decline is accelerating to a crescendo. They're about to experience a lot of loss in their lives. They already are. I think their impending doom has a lot to do with what's going on now, given their generation is and has been in charge for the past many decades. If you know you're not going to live to see the next decade, and you're in charge of the whole world, what would you do? What wouldn't you do?
The future is going to be interesting. We have a whole generation of millennials and genx who have had to live in the shadow of boomers for decades, and now that it's fading we're not ready for the spotlight. The boomer generation has been in charge since 1993. And yeah, I had to look it up but Obama is a boomer as well, albeit on the younger side. But we're expect to take over this whole ship pretty quickly, within the next decade or so. Personally I don't feel ready at 40 years old.
Yes, just under half the voters will say they didn't vote for him. But more people did, and that's how democracy works.
After the vote it's easy for people to blame the media, or to claim that he's doing things they didn't vote for. It's easy to just say "I'm not responsible for this".
But democracy means the people vote. The winner is the ones with the most votes. If you voted wrong, that's on you, and you need to understand that, and acknowledge it. Only by taking responsibility can you understand the power you wield, and maybe wield it more carefully in the future.
And no, none of the things he's found are a surprise. His character is no secret. His approach to politics is no secret. His policies are no secret. His willingness to grift is no secret.
A plurality of those who voted chose him. Those that didn't vote decided he deserved half their vote.
In truth I don't think it's stupid to say "Americans want this". Moderate Republicans are scared of being primaried. They know what their constituents want.
I don't think all Americans want this. But I think a lot of them do. No one is predicting a Blue senate in 2 years. Those red seats are safe. Because deep down a big chunk of America is happy with this.
This is the very essence of democracy. A govt of the people, voted by the people. Look at the govt. It's a mirror of the people who got them there, and keep them there.
I get this is frustrating if you are a minority voter. Minorities get stomped on by majorities- that's the very core of democracy.
So forgive me, but at least for 2 years we need to keep saying it - you voted for this. Because until lots of voters figure out just how responsible they are, they're not going to change. If you voted for this, take some responsibility.
Edit: I see you're getting down voted. I disagree either that too. Your point is coherent and a common part of this conversation. Voting here is about conversation, not agreement.
1. And why would voting for Trump get that?
2. It didn't happen either way
3. Stupidity is not an acceptable excuse
4. You vote for a person not a specific policy
You're not wrong as general rule of thumb imo, or in a straight sense of reality, but tell that to the evangelicals who spend their time slandering abortion.
However in this case you're presenting a false equivalency. Yes, there were issues with BLM. the people got out of control. But that's not authoritarianism- if anything it was a lack of authority with caused dome of those problems.
What you see with protests now is those with authority over-using that authority and wielding it as a weapon against the public.
And I'm not sure COVID lock downs are a useful measure of anything. It was a unprecedented event and countries all over the world had all manner of restrictions, lock downs, and so on. Millions of people died, over a million Americans. It's always going to be easy in hindsight to blame those in authority for doing too much, or too little, too fast or too slow.
Unlike most places, the US politicized the response, and even within the US the death rates varied from one state to the next. Anthropologists will be disecting covid data for generations to try and determine which approach was best.
For example At the first hint of a scandal democrats get pushed from office, whereas we've had plenty of Republicans continue in office despite obvious wrong doing etc.
So no, I don't think the next president would behave in the same way - there are fundamental differences in the way the parties are behaving.
Trump has a massive ego and I would have expected him to want the biggest rockets, and to pain them gold.
If he did then I would denounce him for spending money on space when America has trillions of debt.
I don't disagree with him on everything he says just because he said it.
So, with space, my honest take is that it was all just a Cold War thing all along. The space race never was about science and exploration, it was always about rocketry for making more devastating missiles. Sure, Voyager went somewhere, but it was all a cover.
It seems to me that China and India are doing space science things now. They can get on with it. We are never going to Mars or the moon to live, earth is our home, and always will be.
If you read that the Secretary of Defense of Turkey declined to commit to obeying court orders, you'd call it authoritarianism.
If you read about Viktor Orban sending actual troops rather than police to a city because of a flimsy pretext, you'd call it authoritarianism.
It's happening here, and it's real. It isn't consolidated yet, but it's pretty obviously what they want.
You know what illegal immigrants do?
Work. For shitty wages.
You know what that does?
Boosts the US' labor force and economy, which buffers the declining fertility rate [0].
The fact that anti-immigration (of any sort) folks never think beyond first-effects is mind boggling. Illegal immigration causes some problems; it also solves others.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr...
The effects you describe have higher order effects as well that can indeed have negative effects. Not saying republicans would give a crap about them, but they are undeniable. For wages developments and housing prices, topics that fundamentally influence basic needs very much in contrast to GDP growths, even if there are positive side effects as well.
I think compared to the EU these immigrants can only be a net positive because people are forced to ultimately care for themselves.
Putting aside the moral qualms about underpaying someone for hard, physical work, it's hard to argue that the American economy (and the average American) loses more than it gains from cheaper labor.
Housing would be a clusterfuck without illegal immigration, so I'm also hesitant to draw that connection too boldly. Would stopping all illegal immigration ease prices? A bit. Would it fix an undersupplied housing market and overconsolidated rental market that's driving price inceases? No.
I'm also not sure we see the math the same way.
Illegal immigrant = working, not consuming social services (outside of guaranteed entitlements like EMTALA), paying payroll and sales taxes
Tax cuts = ??
You think COVID stimulus would have made people understand that flooding more money into a system with limited supply capacity will just lead to price inflation.
The way to address quality of life for parents and promote having children is to decrease the economic cost of doing so.
PS: Bolding actual americans made me laugh. Actual Americans are anyone who works hard in this country.
https://timesofsandiego.com/military/2025/06/12/afghani-who-...
The guy worked with the US in Afghanistan. Do you not think he has a real case here? He'll get killed if they send him back.
Illegal immigration = the difference between legal immigration supply and demand for immigration (both external and domestic)
And the rioting / nativist arguments are political theater to score points.
It's a fact that most illegal immigrants don't commit crimes or riot, in the same way that most people in general don't. But distorting frequency and total count has long been a popular pathos argument.
Similarly, enculturation and assimilation is a broader topic than a flag. And more over, the US explicitly and unambiguously grants freedom of expression as a right (all persons in America, not just citizens). So saying "I hate this country; I support ____" is and has always been an option as an American.
[0] https://apnews.com/article/chicago-migrants-black-latino-bid...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/nyregion/adams-migrants-d...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/investigations/an-american-education...
[4] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/02/15/how-american...
Here I was expecting data about how all these illegal immigrants are causing crimes everywhere at higher rates than americans, or how many cats and dogs they've eaten but I guess there's no actual evidence of a crisis.
Nope, that's just your brain on right wing propaganda. Nothing of the sort has happened to justify throwing away the rule of law as this administration is doing. It is like murdering someone because you're annoyed that they chew with their mouth open, just an absolutely, wildly disproportionate response to what has happened. Coincidentally (to riff on the GP) it is almost word-for-word the propaganda Orban used in the mid 2010s to consolidate his authoritarian rule of Hungary.
that's a lie.
there were fewer illegal immigrants in 2022 (under Biden) then in 2018 (under Trump) [0]
[0] https://ohss.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2024-06/2024_0418_o...
Authoritarianism means oppressing the masses, having an undemocratic government and acting against the will of the people. It happens in Venezuela. It happens in Turkey. It happens in Hungary. It doesn't happen in the US.
If anything, what is happening in the US is exactly the opposite: Trump, who won the popular vote, therefore a representative of the oppressed majority, is waging a war against their oppression (as masses seems it) by the authoritarian deep state.
If I go to any American factory right now and ask random blue-collar workers how they feel about, for example, public NASA's commitment to "unity, diversity and inclusion in workforce recruitment, hiring, training and management", what will be their average position on this question?
So if we try to be fair with terms, here it is quite obvious on which side we have an authoritarian institution, whose views are shared only by a narrow group of the elite and those sections of the population that receive money or are otherwise influenced by the authoritarian government, and which side is fighting against those authoritarianism
You should learn more about the electoral system under authoritarianism. In any free election, Orban or Erdogan have no chance.
Orban and Erdogan do win elections, but the playing field is far from level.
In both Hungary and Turkey, the judiciary has been systematically brought under the control of the ruling party. Independent courts are a cornerstone of democracy because they ensure that laws are applied fairly and check the power of the executive. When this independence disappears, so does accountability. Free press is another essential pillar. In these regimes, the government or its allies own or dominate most media outlets. Critical voices are marginalized, harassed etc. As a result, voters are often exposed to only one narrative, the government’s making truly informed choice nearly impossible. NGOs, academic institutions, and opposition are often harassed, defunded, or labeled as enemies of the state. This further reduces checks on power and narrows the public discourse. Gerrymandering, changing election laws, and limiting opposition access to media or funding are common tactics. Even if voting itself is not rigged, the entire process leading up to it is skewed.
So when you say "in any free election, Orban or Erdogan have no chance" you're implying the elections are genuinely free and competitive. They are not. These leaders win not because they represent the will of a fully informed and free electorate, but because they control the information environment, the rules, and institutions that should hold them in check. That’s not democracy, it’s authoritarianism dressed in democratic clothing.
Heck, Orban was already prime minister in 1998 before the current stint, similar to Trump.
This is an absolutely wild way of framing what's happening. The oppressors trying to paint themselves as the oppressed. Who exactly are "the right" oppressed by, and how exactly are they being oppressed? Immigrants? Gays and Transsexuals? Science researchers? DEI HR departments? Because that's who they seem to be going after. These guys historically have not been oppressors.
What's happening in the US may not be authoritarianism, but it is definitely a powerful group, now that they are in power, inflicting cruelty against many smaller, weaker groups who cannot fight back.
Countries have laws that govern how they are nominally meant to operate.
When the ruler of a country breaks the laws that are supposed to constrain his behavior, and faces no consequences, what do you call that?
For the fight against terrorism or any other shit de jours that caused the current outrage.
So now any reference to laws sound hollow. It doesn't mean anything. What mattered is what governments used their power for.
We have an undemocrstic government. Thousands of polling stations have shut down since the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. Voter rolls have been purged in key swing states. As a result of these things millions of people were unable to vote. Trump has unilaterally rescinded monies appropriated by Congress and duly signed into law. That alone is authoritarian.
…therefore a representative of the oppressed majority, is waging a war against their oppression (as masses seems it) by the authoritarian deep state.
Only a delusional person can possibly believe this. There is no oppressed majority in the U.S.
By similizing the American electoral system to those in authoritarian countries, you trivialize the suffering of people oppressed and often physically exterminated by authoritarian regimes around the world. Millions? Seriously? Try talking to any refugee from an authoritarian country about this. Just please be as polite as possible and choose a smaller person, I'm afraid that because of your extremely offensive position towards their suffering, they may try to cause you physical harm.
>There is no oppressed majority in the U.S.
Of course not, the US seems to be a fairly authoritarian-free country. It's just that if we assume that the US has these tendencies and try to be fair with the terms, it is quite obvious from whom they come, and against which majority the attempts at oppression are directed.
You don't get to ignore due process just because crimes are alleged. That's the whole fucking point of due process - to ascertain exactly what has happened and not just take some thug's word for it when they want to boost their arrest numbers.
There’s a spectrum of authoritarianism. Not all instantiations involve mass murder or other forms of mass suffering.
Your argument boils down to: others have it worse therefore you have no right to complain.
Consider that if we don’t stand up now and complain now that the foundation will be set for the infliction of mass suffering. Your reasoning is quite bad.
This much is accurate.
Once again, how would this be described in the press if it were another country:
"Secretary for the Homeland said 'We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city'"
And then had a sitting Senator thrown out of the room and handcuffed.
Yeah, that's authoritarianism.
Are you arguing that the Cold War being the driver of our investment into space invalidates further attempts to explore it?
Also, as per the debt, NASA's is a fraction of the military budget, and the current budget proposal would increase the debt further, so any argument for decreasing science funding in the name of fiscal responsibility rings hollow.
Sure, but he has to weigh the cost of funding intellectual elites against the benefit of what they can make for him. His base wants smaller government and doesn't want intellectuals. So, the move is to defund NASA and fund a military parade on his birthday. This undermines the future, but the future past 3.5 years is not his problem.
You can see this clearly in certain individuals with obvious narcissistic personality disorder where withdrawal of approval results in an insanely irrational tantrum where they basically revert to toddler-level psychology. If you're like "wait, is this a grown man/woman?" the answer is yes -- but it's one having a "drug" withdrawal fit.
Unfortunately this often makes narcissists very successful at social climbing. They're hyper-motivated to advance because that's how you get the next fix.
There's some evidence that neglectful or abusive parenting during certain developmental phases might predispose one to it, basically creating a very deep emotional imprint of "you aren't good enough and must constantly earn love." There's probably more to it than that but I could see that being a factor. For adults there's probably also an ideology / belief system dimension.
To just blatantly ignore the decades of widely documented science NASA has done or contributed to is wild. I understand it raises your taxes by 0.5%, but really?? NASA is responsible for a significant portion of what we know about space and our neighboring planets, and that's if you ignore the amount of research and discoveries they've made about Earth, the planet that "always will be" our home.
Even if you ignore the actual scientific discovers, NASA and the space race are (partially or) directly responsible for inventions that benefit your everyday life. CT Scans, improved insulin pumps, scratch-resistant lenses, baby formula, memory foam, etc. You can find a collection of their contributions to your life here[0], though the page seems broken for me.
In 2021, for every dollar we put into NASA, it generated ~$3 in economic value. To say all NASA does is build rockets is just incorrect, NASA's benefit comes from the science they actively do with satellites, telescopes, probes, rovers, etc.
> Sure, Voyager went somewhere, but it was all a cover.
Past a small "Trajectory Correction Maneuver" thruster (which was fired only in 2017 and then 1980 before that), Voyager 1 isn't a rocket or have any other military impact. I'd happily argue the Voyager program is one of the greats feats of human achievement in history. It's in interstellar space for crying out loud!
Frankly, why even call yourself a hacker if you're anti-scientific progress and anti-technology?
Senile or not, he is most definitely in charge of the chaos.
Surely you understand that narcissism doesn’t somehow exclude authoritarianism? Rather the opposite, right?
> I don't disagree with him on everything he says just because he said it.
At this point, doing so is a better strategy than deferring judgement, while even more "shit" continues to "flood the zone". I'm a libertarian, and I gave this guy a benefit of the doubt for far too long. When looked at from a non-partisan view, all of his policies have been somewhere from neutral to bad to terrible for America. Referencing real problems and frustrations, yes. But completely ineffective or even self-defeating for actually helping with those problems.
> So, with space, my honest take is that it was all just a Cold War thing all along
> It seems to me that China and India are doing space science things now. They can get on with it
So you're content to just give up on the current cold war then? Throw in the towel and hand world leadership to China? Why?