Contrary to popular belief, executive orders aren't laws and don't have the force of law. An executive order couldn't legally reduce the age of eligibility for Medicare.
The only reason Trump gets away with it is because Congress is complicit in the authoritarian fiction of the President's "plenary authority" even to the point of obviously illegal things like undermining budget allocations and not doing their actual jobs.
As soon as a Democrat gets in, Congress will miraculously become pedantic sticklers to the rules. This kind of corruption and blatant malfeasance is something only Republicans get away with, at least in the modern era.
With a big enough blue wave in 2026 and 2028, congress may be willing to turn a blind eye to a Democratic president doing extralegal things. I will not be shocked if this genie cannot be put back in the bottle. Throughout my life Republicans have been more creative about bending the rules, but the Democrats have reliably learned how to copy their game each time.
And SCOTUS, who deemed Biden's loan forgiveness an abuse of power, but not Trump's attempt to wipe out the entire department.
Dems keep losing, in part, because they're following the rules the other team is openly flouting. There's no real pleasant answer to that in any direction.
And I think it is entirely plausible that Dems are quickly concluding that if they continue to be the only ones following the rules, they may never win another election. I think we may be in for a rough ride.
You aren't missing anything, it's almost all about voter suppression, and a lot of that is about racism.
And it isn't even a secret. You can find quotes where politicians talk openly about it. I'm trying to be neutral here but when I say "politicians" I mean within one party.
Since my previous iteration of the comment was completely illegitimately flagged, here it is again:
> I read your Fox News article. It does not even remotely establish anything like "talking openly" about "racism". In fact, it explicitly portrays the "politicians" in question advocating for "a proof of citizenship mandate for the voter registration process, and a nationwide photo ID rule to cast a ballot", and describing these as "really commonsense provisions", which they would be in countries that didn't form as an amalgamation of existing states (provinces, cantons, whatever you want to call them). All the arguments I've heard against this bill have been absurd, for example a canard about women supposedly not being able to prove their (entirely optional) name change when they get married.
This is a completely reasonable argument to make and it is completely unreasonable to try to suppress it, even if you disagree. If you believe there is something in the Fox News article that supports your claim, feel free to quote it. If "you can find" these quotes, show me some. Like, from within the last few years, not from the Goldwater era, please.
I see that at least two people saw fit to downvote the above without comment.
I cannot fathom a legitimate reason why. Perhaps someone might care to, for example, quote the part of the article I overlooked, in which Republicans are supposedly openly discussing their supposed racist motivations for desiring "a proof of citizenship mandate for the voter registration process, and a nationwide photo ID rule to cast a ballot"? Or provide real evidence that the SAVE act would actually disenfranchise people who actually do have a legal right to vote? Or perhaps an argument for why the franchise should be extended to people whose presence within the American borders is already a violation of federal law?
But I thought AI was just a tool, literally no different than the printing press or the internal combustion engine. Why would the spotlight be put on a tool? How can a tool discover anything? Do we credit printers with writing books?
> Imagine if we had a competent dictator? We’d be in real trouble.
We just might. After a Democrat comes into office, gets blamed when the really bad consequences of Trump's policies manifest and gets run out on a rail, Republicans will sweep with a "return to traditional, serious business Conservatism" candidate who will really just be the next phase of Trumpism. I don't believe for a second that these people haven't been laying the groundwork for keeping the movement going after Trump.
After all, half the country still believes in everything Trumpism represents, they just want a President to follow through.
The only thing I've consistently used VR on is virtual biking/walking videos for when I'm on my exercise bike, and a Google VR app called Wander. I don't have the space for anything that can't be done sitting down and I don't have the memory to run VR Chat.
I agree it's a novelty, it's never going to be the mainstream thing that replaces all existing interfaces and transforms the very concept of reality like some people want it to be. But it is fun within its niche.
I think what's holding it back is price more than anything. I'm still hanging on to my Quest because it just isn't worth the money for me to upgrade, even though half the apps no longer even work (fuck you very much DeoVR.)
>But it's still funny that we expect the machine to be perfect, before it can do something for us.
We expect machines to be perfect at the things they should be perfect at, and when they aren't perfect we consider that a malfunction and try to make them closer to perfect. A calculator that can't do math correctly every time is a bad calculator. And until LLMs came along computers were just complicated calculators.
Now, however, we build the calculator with an LLM and just accept that it sometimes gets confuzzled and makes numbers up because "humans are no better at math."
It's not funny, it's the way things used to work and it's objectively worse that things can't work that way anymore.
Immigrants voting for harsh immigration policies and supporting ICE finding themselves and their family members targeted for deportation. People supporting data centers finding energy costs and noise pollution skyrocketing. Women and minorities voting for Trump and facing the elimination of womens' rights and their removal from the historical record and employment due to "anti-DEI" initiatives. Farmers facing the effects of Trump's trade war. Workers opposing any form of welfare, social safety net or workers' rights, even as they're laid off.
Go check out r/LeopardsAteMyFace, there are plenty of examples of people voting against their interests. People vote against their interests all the time because they've been indoctrinated and vote according to ideology, not rational self-interest.
Supporters being victimized by the refugees they voted to flood into their countries. Anti-nuclear environmental activists causing billions of tons of excess pollution over the decades. Jews, Asians, etc. voting for DEI policies only to be systemically discriminated against. Prison abolitionists, restorative justice, abolish the police, etc. voters that are victimized by violent habitual offenders. LGBTQ+ voters that support unfettered Islamic immigration.
Don't go check out r/LeopardsAteMyFace, they ban left of center examples of people voting against their interests. People vote against their interests all the time because they've been indoctrinated and vote according to ideology, not rational self-interest.
I don't want to eat the rich. Every rich person I've seen looks like they taste awful. Like how long would you have to cook Musk just to get the stink out of the meat?
The only reason Trump gets away with it is because Congress is complicit in the authoritarian fiction of the President's "plenary authority" even to the point of obviously illegal things like undermining budget allocations and not doing their actual jobs.
As soon as a Democrat gets in, Congress will miraculously become pedantic sticklers to the rules. This kind of corruption and blatant malfeasance is something only Republicans get away with, at least in the modern era.
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