How is this thoughtful? (I can see how it's reflective.)
The last time the Dems controlled the Presidency and both houses of congress was the first two years of Obama's first term (Jan 2009 - Jan 2011). And prior to that the first two years of Clinton's first term (Jan 1993 - Jan 1995; which had limited success, for the same reason this will have limited success: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Reinv... ).
The last time the Reps controlled both houses and the Presidency was the first two years of Trump's last term (Jan 2017 - Jan 2019). Prior to that the first 6 years under Bush II (Jan 2001 - Jan 2007).
And the last time Dem appointees controlled the Supreme court was in 1969.
So I really, really cannot trust the thoughtfulness of any opinions or marshallings of fact in the linked article.
...I've now read the entire article and stand by my more general point. This person is looking at government from one limited perspective, as someone who has worked with people who've tried to work in it and reform it in the past. The fundamental barrier to government reform is in Congress, nowhere else. There's nothing special about Musk's ability to convince Congress to do things it doesn't want to do. Even if he threatens to primary them. Most of these people are in relatively safe districts. They have the name recognition in their districts. They can point to the things they've done for their districts. Most of them are not in any danger from a Musk-funded primary opponent.
The only thing that would truly reform government in more than bits and pieces would be enough Congress people, in both houses, who are not only of the same party, but are basically also of the same sub-caucus within that party. Fat chance getting that. Without that all you get is horse trading, which leads to the bits and pieces reformations.
>> The fundamental barrier to government reform is in Congress, nowhere else.
The most salient point here.
I had a huge conversation with a friend of mine last night at a Christmas party our mutual couple friends have every year. We both agreed on this and one thing we both understood was the fact that Republicans talk about smaller government, but at no time, either when they've had the presidency or been in control of congress have they ever reduced spending.
If you want to really reign in government, you either have to raise taxes to account for all the social program spending, or you have to reduce spending. Both are political suicide and no candidate ever wants to be on record saying they'll do either.
As an independent, I see both sides making the situation worse, but only one side saying they want smaller government, but then doing nothing to stand behind that principle.
When Republicans talk about "small government" what they mean is less social safety net and more privatization and they have been very successful at this.
They created the current "student loan" system for college, burdened USPS with the pension funding changes, and have held multiple states out of Obamacare expansion, they will definitely continue down that path and they might kill a lot more during this presidency.
So you'll definitely get smaller government, just might not be what you think it should be.
The people that voted for them expect that social security and medicare will only end for the "others", not for them, that's why they voted. They want to see their "enemies" suffer.
Replacing class war with culture war was the smartest move conservatives ever made, by the time these folks that voted against their best interests notice the mistake, they will go down the drain with everyone else, it will be too late to change course.
I never claimed to know what crazy cultists believe. I know they fear whatever they're told to. They won't notice, they'll blame others even when the guns turn on them and they're sent to die.
I’m still pissed they ripped out my local usps blue box during the Trump administration and never put one back on the spot after Biden got in. Now its probably never happening. Taking trips all the way to the post office sucks compared to walking it to the bin. Apartment so no way to do outgoing mail with the flag on a mailbox like a home.
>As an independent, I see both sides making the situation worse, but only one side saying they want smaller government, but then doing nothing to stand behind that principle.
it sounds like you're saying the side that consistently lies about something is slightly better because at least they're saying what you want to hear?
It's political doublespeak, meant to appeal to people's preferences.
If you take 100 random Trumpers, and ask them the below, you'd likely get yes for each one. but you can obviously see how they contradict each other. so you end up keeping everything the same, and re-allocating funds from one small thing to another.
"Do you want smaller government?"
"Do you want our military to be strong?"
"Do you want to take care of our veterans?"
"Do you want seniors to have their social security and medicare?"
Trump said he won't touch medicare or medicaid. Said he wants to increase military spending and not touch social security. That accounts for around 70% of the budget.
How do you make the massive changes he thinks DOGE needs to make out of the last 30% of the budget?
We're going to have to come up creative ways to get there like means testing for social security. If you're hell bent on "rich people paying their fair share." then how about we means test those rich folks and roll THEIR Social Security benefits down to people who actually need it?
> then how about we means test those rich folks and roll THEIR Social Security benefits down to people who actually need it?
Best way to get otherwise reasonable people to stop supporting social nets. Making a welfare system designed to support only the least well-off is the first step to removing it.
>Best way to get otherwise reasonable people to stop supporting social nets. Making a welfare system designed to support only the least well-off is the first step to removing it.
Isn't that what it already does? I live in a very rich very blue state and even here the qualification criteria for just about any state program more or less exclude any poor household that's trying to get ahead (single mom with a full time job, two employed parents multiple kids or elderly dependents, etc). I know the adjacent less rich less blue states are even worse.
The myth is that social security is a retirement program, not a welfare program. The fear is that if you start means testing it, is no longer an entitlement, and people will perceive it as a welfare program instead of a retirement program, and that will be the beginning of the end.
> Trump said he won't touch medicare or medicaid. Said he wants to increase military spending and not touch social security.
Whenever you see a definitive-sounding Trump quote, take a moment to see if he's also said the exact opposite before you make any conclusions. Here's a good overview of this particular topic: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/donald-trump-m.... He's said he definitely won't cut entitlements, but also that he might, and he tried to make cuts when he was in office but didn't try that hard.
If you're trying to predict what he's going to do you can look at past actions, or what personnel he has put in place. Just reading what he says is useless.
>If you're trying to predict what he's going to do you can look at past actions, or what personnel he has put in place. Just reading what he says is useless.
I'd just like to reflect on how absolutely batshit crazy America is to have voted this guy into the most powerful political position in the world, again!
The whole thing is actually very impressive. Nobody actually knows what he stands for, other than he claims he's the best at it. Even after he did none of it when he was in the same position before!
> We both agreed on this and one thing we both understood was the fact that Republicans talk about smaller government, but at no time, either when they've had the presidency or been in control of congress have they ever reduced spending.
Absolutely. If Republicans were what they said they were, I’d still hate their rhetoric and a lot of their preferred social policies but I could put all of that aside if it meant reigning in the size, scope, budget (zeroing out the deficit and chopping away at the debt to bring it down over time rather than explosively growing it) of the Federal government and call myself a card-carrying member of the Republican Party. But that’s not the case, and I don’t really want to be associated with either of them in any way, shape or form.
If Elon Musk can do what nobody else has and convince Congress to downsize the Federal government, good for him. You can’t even scale the mission creep of the Federal government next to anything else because it has so thoroughly mission crept itself so many times people can’t even imagine it being any other way. I’m not holding my breath though, and in anticipation of Trump being sworn in and taking the Oval Office for himself once again and all the “crazy” things Musk says he wants to do with DOGE, real or not, I think people have just kind of forgotten that during his first term, Trump was very much a “what have you done for me lately” kind of boss who would fire people who weren’t performing at the level he wanted at the drop of a hat and sometimes in very inglorious and humiliating ways that came out of nowhere, even people who had bent over backwards to prove their loyalty to him during their time working for him.
I don’t think Musk is immune to that either; he has a lot of money and that money can be leveraged into power, but the Office of the Presidency has real power that Trump doesn’t need to spend any of his own money or Musk’s money leveraging because it is paid for by taxpayers with the Executive power vested wholly in him post-Noon on January 20th 2025.
> It is structurally impossible to reform the government.
Not for the reasons you describe (and plenty of government reforms do happen – they may not be the one you want, but that's not because reform is structurally impossible.)
> The filibuster creates a one-way ratchet.
This is demonstrably false, and also Senate rules have to be readopted every Congress on a simple majority vote, so if it was actually this big of a problem, a newly elected Republican majority could just eliminate or reform the filibuster on a simple majority vote, and then proceed to do whatever it was preventing them from doing. (And we know this can be done in practice as well as in theory, because the filibuster has been reformed multiple times since created as a result of the elimination of the majority-vote-to-end-debate rule in 1806.)
Any reform that cuts or substantially restructures government is impossible with the filibuster.
The fact that republicans don’t eliminate the filibuster doesn’t change my point. It just means they have other reasons for wanting to maintain it. E.g. if republicans eliminated the filibuster to abolish the department of education, democrats would use that to pack the courts and impose nationwide affirmative action.
> Any reform that cuts or substantially restructures government is impossible with the filibuster.
The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (among other fundamental reforms of government) were proposed by when the filibuster was stronger (unlimited debate with no cloture available) than today. And, again, a simple majority of any incoming Senate can abolish or reform the filibuster to their taste – as they have, both creating it by abolishing majority-vote-to-end-debate in 1806, and then a century later by creating cloture, and then several times since by revising which matters are subject to filibuster and which are subject to debate limited by majority action.
> The fact that republicans don’t eliminate the filibuster doesn’t change my point.
The fact that they can by a simple majority vote proves that it is no obstacle, only at most an excuse, to them when they have a majority.
> E.g. if republicans eliminated the filibuster to abolish the department of education, democrats would use that to pack the courts and impose nationwide affirmative action.
Affirmative action was already established nation-wide, and the Senate already abolished the filibuster for nominees to the federal courts (Democrats did it for lower courts, Republicans for the Supreme Court.)
Which, again, demonstrates that the filibuster is not an obstacle to the majority.
If it’s just a matter of Senate rules, the Senate is empowered to effectively do anything they want under the Constitution.
The real issue is that once you set a new precedent, there’s no going back. The Democrats invoked the nuclear option for Federal judges below the level of the Supreme
Court, so the Republicans took that one step further.
Both parties understand that once they use the nuclear option or just adopt new rules at the beginning of the new session of Congress to disarm and disempower the minority because they have the majority, that that same precedent can be used against them the next time it is politically expedient to do so when they are in the minority position.
So the politics matter, because at the end of the day Senators still have to get along well enough with each other to get some Bills passed, most importantly the appropriations bills, not the biggest flashiest Acts of Congress they can muster and nobody or at least very few in the Senate truly want the filibuster gone.
If it were only about the rules, you are correct. If it’s about the politics, you might be correct on a long enough time scale, but it’s irrelevant in the short to medium term. Right now we’re in a holding pattern on the cloture rules because of promises of tick for tack escalation between both parties. It’s not as if one party is going to loosen them for themselves for one session of Congress and be able to reasonably expect that they will be tightened up to their benefit by their opponents once they’re a minority in the next session.
> Isn’t ending the filibuster a one-way trip also?
Given the history of Senate rules, probably not. We’ve gone from “simple majority to end debate” to “unlimited debate as long as any one Senator wants to continue”, to a 2/3 supermajority for cloture (which, in the time it has existed, has changed both how it is applied and which votes it applies to.) The change hasn’t been unidirectional, and any future change would have no special reason to be assumed to be. (OTOH, neither does the one-way ratchet rayiner initially described exist, so I guess the two are equally real.)
One can be both thoughtful and wrong, no? She apparently has years of working in the space, I thought the piece was well-written and substantive, it doesn't obviously reduce to canned arguments or ideological talking points, plus Stewart Brand recommended it. That's enough for me.
Of these four, which were more reliable votes on important Democratic policy priorities: Bernie Sanders, Angus King, Joe Manchin, Kristen Sinema?
Now which of the four were Democratic Party members at the time, and which were independents who caucus with the Democrats?
The problem with Democratic policy priorities wasn’t that their razor-thin Senate majority rested on independents who had been caucusing with Democrats for quite a while prior to 2021 – 30 years, between the House and Senate, for Sanders.
Can’t go down this line of discussion unless you and I can agree that in the 117th Congress of the United States there were these many Senators of each party affiliation.
50 Republican Senators
48 Democratic Senators
2 Independent Senators
And that integers can be ordered on a number scale which allows for integers to be placed on a deterministic scale where the number 50 is larger than the number 48 and thus cannot be considered the majority in any system where the two numbers are part of the same super set.
If you can agree to those statements of fact I can go into the nuance with you, but if you want to call that a Democratic majority and treat it the same as having an actually majority, then I have no interest in further discussion
> Most of these people are in relatively safe districts.
I don't think that any of them are in safe districts. I think that they are in districts that are invulnerable to partisan attacks (i.e. they will not change from Republican to Democrat or from Democrat to Republican) but they're all vulnerable to principled attacks because almost none of them are very popular or inspire much turnout. They just bus the same old people in, and show up to the same churches, and that's enough to get them through another primary.
If the new administration's principle is "cut social spending", though, which it seems to be for some reason, there's absolutely nobody vulnerable to that. Everybody wants to cut government waste and corruption, but there's no such thing as cutting spending. Without cutting actual waste, cutting services, neglecting infrastructure, raising taxes, or cutting imports/growing exports, the only way to cut government debt is to raise private debt, and people in the US are already in debt to their eyeballs.
And the mobility scooter brigade that has always given Trump its biggest mandate did not do it to get their Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and VA benefits cut. If they could cut it off for just black people or just Mexicans, fine, but if they see cuts, they're going to punish administration-backed challengers, not take out incumbents.
I have no idea why a lot of pundits on the right seem to this this election was a mandate for crypto (our next systemic crash) and cutting social spending. Or privatizing the Post Office, after what happened in the UK? They might get away with that because it's bipartisan, but it will weigh the party that does it down for decades. If they actually do any of this, they're going to get killed at every level and the White House is going to turn over again in 4 years.
After botching the handling of Covid and trying to overturn an election the electorate seems to have only been angry at Trump for 1 election before deciding to give him another go. You must have seen the videos of Trump supporters lamenting that he wasn’t hurting the right people when they were harmed by his policies, and their only feelings on it were that it was an honest mistake and he’ll fix it with time.
Nothing about our current political winds is in the realm of predictability as far as how the electorate will react
>And the mobility scooter brigade that has always given Trump its biggest mandate did not do it to get their Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and VA benefits cut.
Yeah,it has always puzzled me why people vote against their own interests, but for some reason they do. And not only once, repeatedly. Maybe it's "ok, I'll get less money, but these guys I hate will get even less, or they'll get deported, so it's a net positive"? No idea...
>Never in the history of mankind have people starved quietly.
It’s more like never in the history of mankind have a group of people capable of wielding power starved quietly. Yelling on the internet doesn’t do shit.
We have yet to see if the current tranche of Americans will wield power or not in that direction given they’ve recently voted in the one of two parties who even discusses cutting social security as a serious idea
Based on what I've been reading, current speculations trends toward thinking the mystery Congo ailment is malaria plus malnutrition plus possible some regular seasonal respiratory viruses.
The 1917/18 H1N1 pandemic started out pretty benign, then got much worse, before becoming relatively benign again.
A regular seasonal flu vaccine is likely better than nothing, likely thanks to similarity in the neuramidase protein (the N1 of both H1N1 in the seasonal vaccine and in the H5N1 bird flu). These aren't the same N1, from what I gather, but are mostly similar enough.
I think the greatest chance of this turning into a "nonproblem" is for these developing countries to skip ahead of the developed countries (particularly the US). Most countries are a lot smaller than the US and can do even better than cars with E-bikes and good public transportation infrastructure in the cities. In the country I would think cars are less needed given the percent of the population who are farmers or the like. I would think a community owned or rental car kind of situation would be a lot more efficient and cost effective than private ownership.
For right now housing improvements and household appliances deliver a lot more value. They, too, will use power, but they can also save power through efficiency advances.
The car is a symbol of freedom and wealth in the US. The fun part about rising nations speed running US industrialization/wealth is that they can also skip the marketing-influenced/embellished parts. Just because US marketers were too great at selling the ideas of the "nuclear family" and suburbs designed only for lots of cars (subsequently accidentally destroying much of the urban environment), doesn't mean that's the best way to sell cars in a rising nation. Different nations, different national ideals, different ways to view wealth (and freedom). US marketing still isn't "manifest destiny" for the world's views, even though it likes to think it is (even with the US military backing it).
Basically everywhere in the world everyone who can afford it gets a car as soon as they can. The only exceptions are some of the megacities like London in which it's impractical due to congestion / on street parking being scarce.
You would know this of course if you had travelled so I can only really assume that you haven't. Drop a pin randomly on a point in Europe and it's overwhelmingly likely that you can't even get to that spot without a car.
> Drop a pin randomly on a point in Europe and it's overwhelmingly likely that you can't even get to that spot without a car.
Really makes you wonder how the Europeans coped for several millennia prior to the car.
Cutting to the chase; train, bus, bicycle, walking can get people pretty much every where in modern Europe, save those few places that require serious climbing skills.
By "can't" I obviously mean that it's impractical not literally impossible. Of course you can technically walk to anywhere that a car can go and more places besides.
The point remains. People buy cars as soon as they can unless the built environment forces most of them not to (e.g. London, NYC, Tokyo).
Even in London most people buy cars as soon as they have a family unless they're skint.
Habits can change and transport habits will very likely change in near future (course of a human lifetime).
Already, for a few decades now, more humans live in urban settings rather those that live outside city bounds - the rising trend is for more energy efficient urban transport, in non US setiings that leads to improved mass transit and cheaper rates for lighter vehicles.
> Of course you can technically walk to anywhere that a car can go and more places besides.
May I ask where you are from and where you live now? I come from one of those "rising nations" you allude to and every single friend and family I have there now own at least one car. FWIW, they all live in cities which were there even before the cars were invented.
If you think rising nations can skip cars, then I am afraid that you don't really know such societies.
This is really only true in the US, and only in the last 70 years. I can think of more than a few symbols that would be more fitting for those values than a car.
To me, a car symbolizes willful ignorance, ugly selfishness, jealousy, and insecurity. It's also a tragic reminder of our inability to organize and collaborate. It's really a disgusting thing that we're trapped in. To me, freedom is riding the train.
I recognize my heterodox perspective is uncommon, but I exhibit it here only to demonstrate that the counter-meme exists already in the wild.
Loud YES! And it only recently came off patent. This was really important for thermalcycler companies such as Bio-rad, which probably wouldn't be the name it is without those patents.
And it is not like patents prevent academics from doing research, either, as there are academic exceptions. In fact, the patent filing process forces the inventors to disclose how their invention works in detail, which makes it easier for academics to build on those ideas if they want to. It's only commercial applications that are really bound by IP licensing agreements, to my knowledge.
> We have hundreds of years of Presidential elections to show that individual votes are insignificant.
Enthusiasm, like apathy, spreads. One person enthused about voting can inspire quite a few more people to vote, and a few of them to be enthusiastic about voting, which spreads even further.
Ethics are only morality if you spend your entire time in human social contexts. Otherwise morality is a bit larger, and ethics are a special case of group recognized good and bad behaviors.
The last time the Dems controlled the Presidency and both houses of congress was the first two years of Obama's first term (Jan 2009 - Jan 2011). And prior to that the first two years of Clinton's first term (Jan 1993 - Jan 1995; which had limited success, for the same reason this will have limited success: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Reinv... ).
The last time the Reps controlled both houses and the Presidency was the first two years of Trump's last term (Jan 2017 - Jan 2019). Prior to that the first 6 years under Bush II (Jan 2001 - Jan 2007).
And the last time Dem appointees controlled the Supreme court was in 1969.
So I really, really cannot trust the thoughtfulness of any opinions or marshallings of fact in the linked article.
...I've now read the entire article and stand by my more general point. This person is looking at government from one limited perspective, as someone who has worked with people who've tried to work in it and reform it in the past. The fundamental barrier to government reform is in Congress, nowhere else. There's nothing special about Musk's ability to convince Congress to do things it doesn't want to do. Even if he threatens to primary them. Most of these people are in relatively safe districts. They have the name recognition in their districts. They can point to the things they've done for their districts. Most of them are not in any danger from a Musk-funded primary opponent.
The only thing that would truly reform government in more than bits and pieces would be enough Congress people, in both houses, who are not only of the same party, but are basically also of the same sub-caucus within that party. Fat chance getting that. Without that all you get is horse trading, which leads to the bits and pieces reformations.