volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@WJBL It's important to recognize that it's even worse it's not that the project 2025 agenda is being followed, is that there is no plan at all.

Trump absolutely is not following that plan. I like one person who pointed out that the guy is notorious for not liking to read, so why would we expect that he has read that thing? He says he doesn't know anything about it, and I take it at his word that he is that out of touch.

There's no project 2025 agenda being implemented. There's just chaotic lurching as the president is a moron who doesn't understand anything and doesn't really care.

@AskPippa

@remixtures But I really rush to emphasize, the Biden administration put up a ton of practical speed bumps that shut down a lot of hard science research in the US. It didn't get nearly enough coverage, but it really frustrated a whole lot of US scientists.

And now a lot of that research is being unleashed. A lot of the roadblocks have been taken down in the last couple of months much to the celebration of many researchers, and a lot of researches now starting to get back on track.

I understand why some academics are feeling like they want to leave, but in practical terms, on the ground, regardless of the attitude of the president, a lot of research is finally being allowed to proceed when it was being bungled before.

I really wish this was getting more reporting.

@Linux@mastodon.au

Yeah I think it's important to draw attention to this drawback of this platform, that it's all arranged around giving power to instance admins instead of users.

So many people left other platforms because they thought administrators had too much power, but here we are, it didn't have to be that way, but it is, this platform repeats the errors of the others.

@Linux@mk.absturztau.be

@cynblogger The critical thing that so many people are missing and so much reporting is getting wrong is that Congress does not have the constitutional power to mandate disbursement of funds.

Congress authorizes spending, as no money can be spent from the treasury without Congressional authorization, but it violates separation of powers to say that Congress can require spending.

This is very important for the checks and balances in the US system.

As for Social Security in particular, it's tragic, but generations have been misled about how it works. And that really stinks. They have been lied to, sold a version of the the program that is just false. They have been taxed as if it was a savings program when in reality it was just another tax and just another government program subject to continued funding like any other.

It's really important to start correcting these lies because it's a powder keg waiting to go off at this point.

@ZhiZhu

@BlogWood Well?

Sounds like the definition of an echo chamber..

@bmacDonald94 Well that's silly.

Why would the most probable change be a more violent world? People generally have self-interest in peace as violence degrades quality of life.

And then we see over time the world has become less violent.

So it seems like a foolish statement both in theory and in practice.

@carnage4life I often hear about this stuff being conspiracy theory or related to project 2025, but people promoting that kind of idea seem to have been sheltered.

This stuff didn't seem like conspiracy theories as experts had been calling for it for generations. People have been pointing out how problematic so many of these problems were. Project 2025 didn't invent this stuff, it has been clearly a problem for so long, with these moves being championed administration after administration.

A lot of people just have been out of the loop and didn't realize that so many have been pushing for it for so long.

Trump is just executing on these proposals that have had pretty solid support for generations from experts who kept trying to sound the alarm on how messed up it was.

@Durff honestly if America was great before Trump then he wouldn't have been elected in the first place.

Impeaching him might be fun, but it's not going to make America great again. It'll just be more of the stuff that got him elected in the first place.

@tend2wobble we just need to clearly recognize the conflict of interest in this sort of thing.

@ajaykaul10 No. Not really.

Keep in mind that so much of what people are complaining about is this administration relinquishing power, relinquishing control, even as a lot of folks want the presidency to have more control over the country.

So no, we are moving away from oligarchy, and a whole lot of people are upset about that because they were used to using that power.

@TheOldGuy The problem is, the churches don't have enough money to afford it so you wouldn't get it.

@nberlat.bsky.social But that just gets into the eternal issue of special interests concentrating to elect one representative who would have to go up against all of the others vs spreading out to sway all of them a little more in their direction.

It's a strategic question of putting all the eggs in one basket or not, and there are arguments in both directions, with no objective answer.

If the people move out then all of the jurisdictions have those Ds shifting their policies.

@504DR If that was true then he wouldn't have ruled against Trump in case after case, ordering lower courts to prosecute the guy and generally rejecting the stuff Trump was asking for.

Yes, social media is full of misreporting about what the rulings actually say. But that's no excuse to believe these conspiracy theories that just don't jive with the record in front of us.

@RememberUsAlways

@RememberUsAlways people like to point to gerrymandering, but that explanation doesn't hold when Senate elections aren't subject to gerrymandering.

No, we choose these people. The representatives that fail us constantly get support from voters who campaign for them. Just everyday voters do actually elect these people.

Any day of the week congresspeople could act against the administration. They are empowered to do so. But we go out and vote for people who decide, meh, this is fine

We voters vest these folks with that authority, and that's how they use it, so here we are.

But maybe if we stopped letting them shift the blame to the courts we might someday demand that they use that authority differently.

@RememberUsAlways Right. But that doesn't change anything here.

We elect morons, and the reason we elect them is kind of secondary to the fact that we are, indeed, electing morons.

Personally I'm a lot more frustrated with the democratic representatives we reelected who are complicit with this administration. But that's the group we voted for, so this is what we get.

@RememberUsAlways No you're absolutely wrong about how that goes.

The courts were intentionally not given executive powers. They were intentionally not vested with any power to check the executive. These unelected judges are only able to issue opinions, and that's all by design. We don't want to give huge amounts of executive power to people that aren't accountable to election processes.

Instead the power is given to the legislative branch which can impeach and otherwise engage with the executive.

So no, by design the courts absolutely do not have any power to check the executive. Not only are they not the final check, but they're not empowered that way at all.

It's up to the people that we elect to Congress to act against the executive if they see fit.

It is so critical that Americans understand how the government is set up if they care about this kind of thing. And it is really a shame that so many don't understand how functions are distributed between the three branches.

@RememberUsAlways No not at all.

If we elected a wet paper towel that's what we get. Yay democracy.

The premise doesn't fall apart. We get what we vote for, so this is what we got.

It's how the system works. We should probably stop reelecting morons, but we do reelect morons, so I guess we like this.

@Nerde No that is absolutely not what happened, despite so much misinformation that went around social media.

The courts absolutely did not rule that the laws don't apply to the president. The courts say the exact opposite of that.

The more you promote that sort of misinformation, well that actually does undermine holding presidents to account.

But it's a lie. Whoever told you that is either wrong or actively lying to you, either way you should stop listening to them.

@RememberUsAlways wrong branch of government.

It's Congress, not the courts, that have the power to smack Trump down.

And really it undermines democracy to get that wrong.