Investors' faith in US bond and equity markets is, unironically, the most powerful immediate-term check on the current administration. The longer-term check is the midterm elections in 2026. If they really screw things up, as they appear to be doing, that's their deadline for fixing them.
The republicans purged a lot of people from voter rolls. They're going to do the same in 2026.
If you want to vote, anticipate dozens of hours over several months making sure you weren't removed from the register.
Why are they so against people voting? The number of actual fraudulent vote cases prosecuted was very, very small, but the measures taken against voter fraud have been disproportionate.
When government IDs are universal, we can require them to vote.
Here's a study from about a year ago: [0].
Upshot is that 21% of Americans 18 and older don't have an ID that matches their name and address. Disenfranchising a fifth of Americans isn't something I'd accept.
Note also that it's 23% of Democrats, 16% of Republicans, and 31% of independents. You can see why Democrats are anti-ID-check while Republicans are pro-ID-check as a general rule.
I'm not from the US, but all the countries I've lived in require some form of ID. As far as I know, US is the only country in the world that doesn't. So, I have an honest question: why would you want people who don't bother to have a valid ID to vote at all? Do you expect them to be responsible people, good members of society? People who pay more in taxes than they receive from the government?
I don't know enough about US to be sure. But in any country I've lived in, the answer would be no.
Part of the issue is that ID’s are expensive. When I moved from one state to another a couple years ago, a new driver’s license was $50. There’s a long history of poll taxes used for voting suppression in the US, so any kind of pay-to-vote concept is tough. (The easy answer, of course, is to make ID issuance free.)
Then there’s the issue that states have widely different levels of competence regarding ID issuance. The REAL ID Act [0] required states to start issuing IDs based on more robust requirements by 2008. That deadline has been delayed through 2025, and is likely to get pushed back again.
When I lived in Kentucky (stereotypically poor and rural), there was a major issue that birth certificates were handwritten and never digitized, and existing driver’s licenses had been issued based on what you claimed your name was. When they started validating birth certificates as a part of REAL ID, people ran into issues when the name they had been using for their whole life didn’t match what was handwritten on their birth certificate.
Basically, identity documents are local (and often hyper-local; my own birth certificate is certified by my county, not even my state). Dragging the whole country into something resembling modernity is a major project that will exclude big chunks of people that are otherwise “responsible”.
Making the right to vote dependent on that whole system happening to work out OK for you just doesn’t seem like a good idea.
> Part of the issue is that ID’s are expensive. When I moved from one state to another a couple years ago, a new driver’s license was $50.
That doesn't sound that expensive at all. It's actually on par with other countries across the world, if you account for difference in average income. I wouldn't want a person who doesn't have $50 for a proper ID to be able to vote anyway.
However, I agree that (1) tying id to driving is weird, and (2) random circumstances completely out of your control should not stop you from voting.
I am totally fine with disenfranchising people who don't have up to date IDs. The cost of a perception of illegal ballot stuffing is high and the benefit of these voters is marginal at best.
There's a good amount of evidence that more turnout would help Republicans in general, even before (at least if you applied the "socio-economic voting preference determinism" logic that one tends to apply).
It's good to be against voter suppression because voter suppression is bad, even if in theory it doesn't help "your side". One would hope that doing that work would convince some people you're on "their side", but it's quite nebulous.
Because the GOP isn't a monolith. Lots of them are still operating under a playbook 2024 proved obsolete. Race is no longer an almost-perfect proxy for partisan affiliation [1].
Does blocking non citizens from voting count as “suppressing voter turnout”? It’s all just politics and words, and we’ve picked our side and so we use the language that best supports it. Is someone pro-life, or are they anti women’s rights? Is someone pro-choice, or are they pro-baby-murder.
How does one actually convince someone of the “rightness” of their side? It somehow starts with love your enemies, though if I say that to my more right wing friends it means capitulate to whatever the progressives want. All I know is the spirit of the age is evil.
Passing laws to make it harder to vote, and easier to challenge a persons voter registration and ballot, and then running an operative campaign to specifically target voters on the other side of the political spectrum is a bit different than "just politics". Legal, sure. Ethical, moral, fair, absolutely not.
Eh, it’s all politics. I’m sure they are trying to win however they can, don’t sit there and be so naive to think the other side wouldn’t be perfectly happy to let illegal immigrants vote if it benefited them.
I’m all for fairness. For example I think we should weight votes, where everyone gets one vote for each dollar of taxes they pay.
I also want to see all landlords structure rental contracts so that the renter pays the property taxes, if rent was 2k a month but there are $500 in property taxes a month, rent would become $1500 plus $500 property taxes. That way the immediate effects of voting for tax increases is felt acutely and their blame can go on themselves instead of their “greedy landlord”.
> I’m all for fairness. For example I think we should weight votes, where everyone gets one vote for each dollar of taxes they pay.
You are joking right? Honest, question, what life experiences have you had that make you think that this would be a good idea. It would effectively mean a handful of billionaires would control the country.
> I also want to see all landlords structure rental contracts so that the renter pays the property taxes
It is a free market. Outside of a handful of places with rent control, nothing is stopping them from doing that. And if you think splitting out property taxes as a separate line item will somehow make tenants think that landlords, the vast majority of whom increase their rents to the absolute maximum that the market will bear, are somehow not greedy, I think you have a pretty bad handle on what it is like to be in the renter class.
> It would effectively mean a handful of billionaires would control the country.
Is that not what we have already. Do you really think your vote matters?
I don’t think my tenants ever thought I was greedy. And I don’t think a vast majority of landlords who aren’t some big corporation are. Though people will think they are regardless, so just want them to sure the accusation of greed with that of the bureaucrats, and the public schools who simply flush money down the toilet.
I think if landlords structured rental contracts that way (and maybe give a $50 discount if you choose that option), you will see a huge amount of school levies fail which is a net win for society.
> Is that not what we have already. Do you really think your vote matters?
At least in the current setup, they are required to maintain and fund a vast propaganda apparatus, lobbying efforts, and political organizations in order to secure their power. And even with all that effort, they still only have a tenuous control over our institutions. Your proposal would literally just hand the keys over to them.
> I don’t think my tenants ever thought I was greedy
As a lifelong renter, who has for the most part had relatively good relationships with my landlords over the years, I can assure you that they do. At the very least, they probably don't have a very positive opinion of you, even if they are nice to you in person. After decades of financialization of our housing market, we now have an entire swath of our population locked out of the housing market. And if you think these folks like handing over a significant chunk of their income each month to a bunch of rent-seekers, I think you are solely mistaken.
So when I kept guy in the detached studio as a tenant when I bought the house, and just kept his rent what he was paying already and didn’t raise his rent over the 4 years I had the place, when I could’ve easily gotten 30% more in the market, he still thought I was greedy?
Or when I liked the idea of just giving him every December free for Christmas he thought I was greedy.
Or when he asked if he could pay half rent and then two weeks later pay the other half cuz his baby mama got arrested and he had to take care of his daughter and instead I just said why not just have a free month, he thought I was greedy.
Dang, I guess I should’ve just gotten all the money I could’ve if tenants feel that way regardless.
Why are you bringing up nonsense hypotheticals when there's real voter suppression. Trumps stolen election ignited states to create many new restrictive voter laws and threw out millions of votes in swing states alone.
You sound like those who voted for Trump in 2020.
But you might be right, but then so they may have been.
Trump won because enough people were sick of the garbage they heard from the progressive left being crammed down their throats.
How people can think a billionaire like him relates to the average guy, is quite crazy, but just shows how incredibly bad the democrats are at actually relating to the people.
I didn’t vote for him the first two times, but after I saw his immediate response to the assassination attempt, I knew I would this time. There are millions like me.
I’m all for making it more difficult to vote. Let’s just be ruled by a set of elites like we already are, but at least be honest about it.
If I get what I truly want it won’t really matter as much who is president because the federal government would have like a 1/10 of its power and a 1/10 of its budget, and states and local municipalities would have far more say. Ultimately I think the 18th century anti-federalists were right. I hope Trump just lays waste to the federal government agencies and completely neuters it.
> I hope Trump just lays waste to the federal government agencies and completely neuters it.
That would be completely illegal and unconstitutional. If that's the way things are going to go, you're definitely not going to like what will happen when the power is wielded by someone who doesn't align with you politically.
And I've got a brand new shipment of bridges to sell you if you think Trump is out here about to neuter the power of the federal government. He is consolidating power.
I don't think your comment fully considers the recent history of presidential power. Biden argued in court against Trump to not consolidate power at the executive level. He was against Trump's idea of presidential immunity. Then he refused to use the power given to him, and on his way out of office implored the country to reconsider.
He also signed into law bills that were passed explicitly to reduce the president's power because of the way he saw Trump abuse it.
> And to gut dept of education and usaid, both very solid ideas so far.
You may agree with these ideas now, but you should go through thr proper channels to get rid of them. Otherwise, things you like will just disappear by fiat the first time a progressive is in office.
Imagine if the US misses bond payments and defaults because of bureaucracy problems (not lack of money). It would completely explode the interest rates of any loans they have and completely tank the US government for years.
It appears to me that Trump is doing phenomenal, and my I didn’t like the other side vote for him, is turning into I kind of like him and would more actively support him. He seems like a strong president, especially compared to his predecessor, and the promise to “make America great again”, seems like it might becoming more of a reality.
If he can negotiate an end to the Ukraine war, in a relatively soonish timeframe, I will be very happy. But it’s kind of a game of chicken, a high risk high reward type gamble, that could be very dangerous and lead to worse things, so I’ll just have to wait and see.
Ultimately I read comments here and I think the “other side” is blind, which they likely think of me.
Well, I’m on the other side of the Atlantic, so probably not the other side you meant so take it for what it’s worth.
Your president has threatened war on Denmark, a close ally to my country (think your relationship with Canada until he started threatening them with war too). If I knew nothing else about him that would be enough.
I’ve been using American web hosts since the ’90s. I’m currently in the process of moving away from Digital Ocean
to a European host. I’m cancelling as many other services (Netflix, Strava, etc) as possible. Not much, about $300-400 less per month from me to the US.
I’m happy I got to visit New York a few years ago.
Yeah I don’t get the Greenland thing. I think it is all grandstanding.
But I appreciate dictator Trump. If they wanted to go to war with Denmark they would just crush them openly, rather than as they do today with countries who disagree with them, where we covertly undermine them to get what we want.
Though maybe I’m a bit of an enigma, I don’t think the US should’ve declared independence from Britain, and wish we still had a monarchy. Problem is kings need to be noble, which none of our politicians, including Trump, seem to be.
Oh well. Peace to you on the other side of the pond.
Because you found a person with opinions different to your own?
I think most of what Trump is attempting will work out poorly, for America, Trump, and the world in general. I can't prove that and there are so many presumptions in my world view, my estimation might be incorrect.
Trump was elected. I think a lot of that support came from people who had been voting for either Kang or Kodos for years and knew the outcome of that wasn't going to be what they wanted. I believe those people know exactly what kind of person Trump is, but that Trump acting in his own self interest might cause government action that is at least not-as-bad as the alternative of a perpetual status quo.
I don't think that is the case, but I think it would be unreasonable to declare that someone who believes something different is wrong simply because I think my opinion objectively carries more weight.
I appreciate your post, and I think there is some truth to what you're saying. The problem is that... It's hard bordering on impossible for me to process what these people see good in what he's doing. I've tried, mind you, I've really truly tried. But this whole thing sounds insane to me. There is no way for me to erase the bigger picture from my mind that I get to the point... "yeah, he's doing a good job."
The second point is I feel a lot of these people are NOT arguing in good faith. If someone is not arguing in good faith, being "understanding" would just embolden them.
I have a hard time expressing why I like what Trump is doing. It might just be to see those squirm who put us through Covid lockdown hell, or just someone who is so willing to do whatever openly.
An example I like: they deport a bunch of Colombians here illegally, Socialist Colombian President refuses to let the plane land, Trump immediately says we are going to hammer them with tariffs and other things, Colombian President apologizes and says they won’t get in the way.
He is just exerting American dominance openly. He took us out of the WHO, ends the dumb climate accord. The idea that we should put our own people first.
Now it all might blow up in our face as the world gets sick of the American bully, and that will crush our empire, but I’m also ok with that, because it might be the only thing that will allow us to rebuild from the ground up.
Well, at least you're honest about it, it's somewhat refreshing. How do you feel about the way he is treating your traditional allies? Canada, the EU...
Well I don’t like Trudeau so I’ve enjoyed his trolling of him as “the governor of the great state of Canada”. For the most part I don’t mind, but we will come to regret it if war actually breaks out. I think for the most part it is all superficial, and yes tariffs (which are terrible for an economy), will not do well long term, but have already forced Mexico and Canada to act at least, and I think that was the intent. Essentially saying you need us more than we need you. If/When that is no longer true, it is going to come back to bite us if we’ve completely burned all the bridges with our allies.
As it is the United States military is so dominant around the world, NATO should just be considered an overseas American army for example, and Trump is essentially just exerting the us dominance in a blunt way, but it has always been wielded, but is always prettied up to not sound like what it is. A giant military empire of force. Trump is just showing us what has always been behind the curtain of the US government, and the US use of power.
I think long term it will weaken the American empire, but will also make us less reliant on globalization, but I think if all the individual EU countries took a mindset of “our citizens first” like Trump it will be a good thing.
Trump put us through Covid lockdown hell. Awfully strange to re-elect the guy responsible for the worst of Covid.
What happened with the Colombians was the President said "you cannot land them here in chains and handcuffs" and Trump threatened tariffs, then cancelled the tariffs, then caved into the Colombian President's demands and removed the handcuffs from the Colombian citizens. Fox News and conservative media spun this as a "win" because Trump made a threat and also because they misunderstood why Colombia refused the plane.
The rule of law is more important than your specific policy preferences. If leaders you like can do whatever they want without following the law, leaders you don't like can do the same thing. We have a solution to that problem in this country. We have a legislature that passes the laws that everyone is subject to. Whatever you like in the current administration is less important than their lawlessness.
Laws they’re subject to unless the president pardons them.
Mostly we pass as many laws as possible, then only enforce them when it is politically expedient.
The government in passing so many laws has made the law a joke. Maybe the right wing are the progressives now and they’re just going to tear everything down?
I’m enjoying the show. Can’t wait to see what Musk digs up.
