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Comment by fzeroracer | Hacker News Reader

Well, there's one critical flaw which is that Trump is also fucking up with the military. A lot of military members are going unpaid, and many more are going unpaid and their family isn't receiving snap benefits. An authoritarian trying to seize power without the backing of the military is bound to lead to failure, and even though money is being funneled into ICE enmasse they're an untrained legion of goons with little access or ability to use actual military equipment.

If push comes to shove we're not going to get an authoritarian takeover, we're going to get a military coup. Unless they wake up and realize they need the guys with the hardware to do their whole fascist takeover thing.

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People who support the guy aren't rational. He could personally take their every cent, say they're lucky that's all he did, and he wouldn't lose a single supporter. If the military went unpaid for half a year, all his supporters in the military would shift the blame to someone else.

But it’s totally not a cult, no. Just a party, taking care of you. You love the party. The party loves you.

ICE is being paid

ICE is effectively just a government-paid gang designed to harass immigrants and any citizen they think is a bit too uppity. They don't have any actual power to do things like holding down a city or enforcing martial law without the aid of the actual military or national guard. They have guns but not THE guns.

A bigger budget can fix that.

They raided a building in Chicago with a Blackhawk helicopter

Didn’t they illegally take funds from the CIA to pay the military and ICE?

It seems to me like this is ideal for them. They break the law to pay for the stuff they want, let everything else rot. Why the Democrats have allowed this is beyond me.

> Why the Democrats have allowed this is beyond me.

Republicans control all three branches of government. What can Democrats do except filibuster and budgetary maneuvers like they're already doing?

Democrats already tried (briefly) going along with the inhumane BBB and Republicans kept cutting and disregarding the law anyway.

Democrats should be counter-messaging every hours of every day, on all media, to create actual dissent within the electorate. They're acting like they can't do anything but watch idly. It's insane that with all that happened, Trump still sits at ~40% popularity. Americans won't realize how shitty the situation is until you tell them, and make sure to blame Trump and the GOP every step of the process.

Insurance premiums on the rise? Thank Trump for that. No planes for Thanksgiving? Blame Vance. Etc.

Democratic representatives are speaking out almost daily. Voters are protesting in force at least monthly.

Yet too many live in filter bubbles and take the talking points they're given. My conservative parents sound very reasonable when they react to unfiltered news, at least in the moment. But then the talking points arrive and they down play or change their outlook completely. It's like a Borg mind which sometimes has high latency.

And I can relate. I lived with that mindset. Teaching myself to twist information to fit the worldview and compartmentalize to dodge the dissonance. Visiting only the safe outlets who would reinforce the comfortable and familiar perspective. Thankfully public schools, the Internet, patient coworkers, and curiosity popped my bubble.

So because the democrats have no power except to make things worse, that’s what they should do?

They have publicly said that the only thing they are negotiating for is one more year of health care subsidies. That’s a noble goal, but the country voted, and they don’t want affordable healthcare. If the Democrats ever have power again, then they can make policy again as well.

> ...the country voted, and they don’t want affordable healthcare.

Can we say those voting for Trump in 2024 were saying they don't want affordable healthcare? There were many issues on the table and it wasn't a landslide.

Repealing Obamacare has been a _very explicit_ policy position of the Republican party for over a decade. They spent the entire last election telling anyone who would listen exactly what they would do, and now they are doing it. Yes, elections matter, and they have consequences. The midterm elections are in one year. That's the next chance the electorate has to change their mind.

The thing is, the last time the Republicans shut down the government for whatever pet project it was they wanted, I was furious. They lost the last election, yet they were trying to jam their agenda into law anyway through, essentially, blackmail. I'm not so hypocritical that I would be okay with it now because it's "my side". My side is functioning democracy at this point, and that's what the Democrats are risking with this shutdown.

> My side is functioning democracy at this point, and that's what the Democrats are risking with this shutdown.

Which side is yours? Hopefully not the side fighting in n court to take back SNAP benefits already distributed to needy families.

How are the Democrats putting democracy at risk when they cannot control any branch of government? And all their attempts to appease Republicans end up with Republicans pushing further anyway?

Turn on the news. The party agrees with me. I’ve been saying it since this folly was started, but they finally realized that you can’t negotiate with someone when your threat is their ideal outcome.

They want flights cancelled. They want people to starve. They want the FDA and the CDC shut down. They want chaos. More chaos is more excuse to take more control. It’s the classic fascist playbook. See : Reichstag fire.

The Republicans have tried to pay the military, the Democrats blocked it.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/07/politics/shutdown-congress-fe...

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