Trump said "they get it [data] very easily"

[Airbrush]

When a reporter asked Trump if Musk and his Muskrats, really NEEDED that access to Americans' sensitive data? Trump replied, "Well, it doesn't, but they get it [DATA?] easily. I mean, we don't have very good security in this country, and they get it very easily."

'Disgrace': Critics outraged by apparent confession at Trump's latest press conference

WHAT doesn't?!  WTF "IT DOESN'T"?!!  And WHO is "they" that gets "IT" easily?

YES, "we don't have very good security in this country, so I will exploit that weakness. I will hollow out security services, FBI, CIA, Inspectors General everywhere, and anyone who can oppose me" (which will please Putin and Xi.) "THEY (we) GET IT VERY EASILY" by having Musk and his Muskrats as blitzkrieg computer commandos working in only 3 weeks!

We will never know how much data they stole already. They were (or are) camping in several agencies, sleeping on cots, doing "hardcore" copying of data for future use and abuse. Even if every court rules they must stop, they will ignore the courts, because the courts have no police to enforce their rulings. Trump has new expanded immunity, so he and Elon may ignore ALL court orders, even from SCOTUS. Trump gets away with EVERYTHING because of expanded immunity, and his militia of Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, etc - (who owe Trump their freedom through inappropriate PARDONS) - they all KNOW THEY WILL BE PARDONED FOR ANY CRIME THEY COMMIT.

Edited Saturday at 07:39 PM by Airbrush

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, Airbrush said:

When a reporter asked Trump if Musk and his Muskrats, really NEEDED that access to Americans' sensitive data? Trump replied, "Well, it doesn't, but they get it [DATA?] easily. I mean, we don't have very good security in this country, and they get it very easily."

'Disgrace': Critics outraged by apparent confession at Trump's latest press conference

WHAT doesn't?!  WTF "IT DOESN'T"?!!  And WHO is "they" that gets "IT" easily?

YES, "we don't have very good security in this country, so I will exploit that weakness. I will hollow out security services, FBI, CIA, Inspectors General everywhere, and anyone who can oppose me" (which will please Putin and Xi.) "THEY (we) GET IT VERY EASILY" by having Musk and his Muskrats as blitzkrieg computer commandos working in only 3 weeks!

We will never know how much data they stole already. They were (or are) camping in several agencies, sleeping on cots, doing "hardcore" copying of data for future use and abuse. Even if every court rules they must stop, they will ignore the courts, because the courts have no police to enforce their rulings. Trump has new expanded immunity, so he and Elon may ignore ALL court orders, even from SCOTUS. Trump gets away with EVERYTHING because of expanded immunity, and his militia of Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, etc - (who owe Trump their freedom through inappropriate PARDONS) - they all KNOW THEY WILL BE PARDONED FOR ANY CRIME THEY COMMIT.

[Peterkin]

Astonishing! They're exactly what they looked and sounded like before the election. Only with all the resources and none of the limitations of the institutions and agencies of the Federal government of the largest power on Earth.  Like the recession of 2008, nobody could have foreseen this.

[TheVat]

If we get a new thread for every outrageous and chilling action emanating from Team Trump, we're going to have a lot of threads here.  Wonder if some small group of unified threads could be made.  Call them, what....Dystopy-a-Lago?  Musk Ox in the China Shop?  How I stopped worrying and learned to love the Don?  Postcards From the Edge of Fascism?  

(Also flashing on Bert Lahr, in the Wizard of Oz, what makes the muskrat guard his musk?)

[swansont]

5 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Trump has new expanded immunity, so he and Elon may ignore ALL court orders, even from SCOTUS

Trump can’t be prosecuted for illegal things done as part of official actions. That doesn’t extend to Elon, and the statute of limitations for some of these crimes will be longer than four years. Of course, Trump will probably pardon him, and others but that’s not foolproof, since state laws could be involved, and shoddy lawyering could leave loopholes. Trump’s immunity also doesn’t extend to international law. (Consider a scenario where the next president orders his delivery to the world court. Doesn’t matter if it’s illegal. Unlikely, but still possible)

But Trump is pissing a lot of people off, including Republicans*, and that number is going to get bigger as the impact of these actions spreads. Not all of them are going to delude themselves into thinking everything is fine. Cutting funding will cause layoffs, and we’ll echo the economic trajectory of five years ago, without having a disaster/alleged hoax to blame it on. Also won’t be at the end of the presidency, so no good times to color the memory. 

*farmers whose water he wasted in California  and others who used to sell to USAID, big pharma who use research from NIH, distillers and brewers who can’t sell to Canada anymore, just in a few weeks. Anyone who benefits from medical research (e.g. cancer). Who’s next?

[Peterkin]

I don't think any of this matters to Trump. He's not going to be around for the consequences. Whatever is done to the younger henchmen, afterward, won't repair a fraction of the damage they will have done by then.

[StringJunky]

I was considering putting a bet on Trump getting JFK'd, but apparently it's illegal. That's you Americans personal info they are waltzing.  through. All this in two weeks.

[TheVat]

20 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

was considering putting a bet on Trump getting JFK'd, but apparently it's illegal.

Perhaps some musician could slip a nasty note into a record sleeve?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Stalin

 

On the night of 1 March 1953, Joseph Stalin calls the Radio Moscow director to demand a recording of the just-concluded live recital of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23. The performance was not recorded; not wanting to anger Stalin, the director hurriedly refills the now-half-empty auditorium, fetches a new conductor to replace the original one, who has passed out, and orders the orchestra to play again. Pianist Maria Yudina initially refuses to perform for the cruel dictator, but ultimately is bribed to comply...

...When the concert recording arrives, Stalin finds a note Maria slipped in the record sleeve, admonishing Stalin and expressing hope for his death. He reads it, laughs, and suffers a cerebral haemorrhage. Despite hearing him fall, Stalin's guards, fearful of being punished for disturbing him, do not enter his office.

[dedo]

8 hours ago, Airbrush said:

We will never know how much data they stole already. They were (or are) camping in several agencies, sleeping on cots, doing "hardcore" copying of data for future use and abuse. Even if every court rules they must stop, they will ignore the courts, because the courts have no police to enforce their rulings.

All of this could be true, & the US could be on the brink of fascism -- or not.  There are many possible futures at any moment in time.  Someone else noted the possibility of "JFK'd".  This is a possibility & could even be a false flag if someone wanted to trick the US into attacking another country that the event could be pinned on.

Or DT could do what many of his voters hoped & voted for, & just clean up waste, solve problems, & eliminate perceived Dem extremism.  Unfortunately, human nature often replaces unpopular policies with even worse.  The Nazis replaced the Weimar.

In support of the "hoped for" category is the observation that sometimes DT backs off in response to feedback.  This is a good sign & points to the possibility of reversibility.  For example, the airlines developed training for controlling authoritarian captains to prevent accidents & the training worked.  This suggests that authoritarianism could be reversible.  

If not, and popularity falls like a rock, there is a chance of impeachment.

So there are many possible futures & all we can do is make educated guesses & try to contribute something positive if the opportunity arises.

[CharonY]

You are forgetting that much if it is no longer hypothetical. They are enacting things that they outlined in project 2025. This is less an educated guess, but simply just listing what they do now. What is your evidence that they will actually give up power and stop doing what they are doing now. Or do you not read the news and are merely blissfully unaware?

Weimar failed because it had insufficient checks and balances. And in US only the judiciary remains. But even that is undermined by SCOTUS.

As it turns out the pigeon chess strategy is superior.

 

[exchemist]

5 hours ago, swansont said:

Trump can’t be prosecuted for illegal things done as part of official actions. That doesn’t extend to Elon, and the statute of limitations for some of these crimes will be longer than four years. Of course, Trump will probably pardon him, and others but that’s not foolproof, since state laws could be involved, and shoddy lawyering could leave loopholes. Trump’s immunity also doesn’t extend to international law. (Consider a scenario where the next president orders his delivery to the world court. Doesn’t matter if it’s illegal. Unlikely, but still possible)

But Trump is pissing a lot of people off, including Republicans*, and that number is going to get bigger as the impact of these actions spreads. Not all of them are going to delude themselves into thinking everything is fine. Cutting funding will cause layoffs, and we’ll echo the economic trajectory of five years ago, without having a disaster/alleged hoax to blame it on. Also won’t be at the end of the presidency, so no good times to color the memory. 

*farmers whose water he wasted in California  and others who used to sell to USAID, big pharma who use research from NIH, distillers and brewers who can’t sell to Canada anymore, just in a few weeks. Anyone who benefits from medical research (e.g. cancer). Who’s next?

Consideration of the impact on voters is only relevant if there are still fair democratic processes operating. I do not think this is a given in 4 years’ time.

[dedo]

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

What is your evidence that they will actually give up power and stop doing what they are doing now. Or do you not read the news and are merely blissfully unaware?

Since on another thread I pointed out that this admin. may have already met 2 of the 3 criteria for "dangerous leader disorder" in less than a month in office I don't think I am "blissfully unaware".  

However, I do always try to avoid dichotomous (black & white) thinking that can be seen in groups under pressure that some call "group think".  If you watched the movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy was pressured to attack Cuba by hawks who saw that as the "only alternative".  Kennedy resisted & found another way.  In contrast, in the run up to the 2nd Gulf War, the same dichotomous rhetoric was noted (by me) in US officials who said things like "attacking Iraq is better than doing nothing", as if those were their only choices.  Thus, I always look for more possibilities without discounting evidence (not proof) of the worst possible scenario that should be prepared for.

The defenses in the US currently is more than the judiciary.  The Congress is heavily influenced by public opinion & the Rep could get massacred in the midterms & even the perception of that can swing the Congress if they sense losses on the way.

Scotus also does not always rubber stamp DT & will also respond to changes in public opinion or even to their own sense of morality.

There may be other safeguards.

Hopefully, we won't be heading for the scenario acted out in last year's movie "Civil War", but even then the tyrant lost in the end.  Of course, Hollywood needs a positive emotional outcome to sell movies.

Edited yesterday at 07:43 AM by dedo

[exchemist]

3 hours ago, dedo said:

Since on another thread I pointed out that this admin. may have already met 2 of the 3 criteria for "dangerous leader disorder" in less than a month in office I don't think I am "blissfully unaware".  

However, I do always try to avoid dichotomous (black & white) thinking that can be seen in groups under pressure that some call "group think".  If you watched the movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy was pressured to attack Cuba by hawks who saw that as the "only alternative".  Kennedy resisted & found another way.  In contrast, in the run up to the 2nd Gulf War, the same dichotomous rhetoric was noted (by me) in US officials who said things like "attacking Iraq is better than doing nothing", as if those were their only choices.  Thus, I always look for more possibilities without discounting evidence (not proof) of the worst possible scenario that should be prepared for.

The defenses in the US currently is more than the judiciary.  The Congress is heavily influenced by public opinion & the Rep could get massacred in the midterms & even the perception of that can swing the Congress if they sense losses on the way.

Scotus also does not always rubber stamp DT & will also respond to changes in public opinion or even to their own sense of morality.

There may be other safeguards.

Hopefully, we won't be heading for the scenario acted out in last year's movie "Civil War", but even then the tyrant lost in the end.  Of course, Hollywood needs a positive emotional outcome to sell movies.

I commend your unwillingness to adopt black and white judgements, but I do think there is a danger, in what you say in your previous post, of Polyanna-ish passivity. Here in Europe, many of us are aware that many educated Germans told themselves that maybe Hitler would turn out to be mostly bark and no bite and might do some good. (In a narrow economic sense he did, of course.) Whilst I don't intend to draw an over the top parallel between Hitler and Trump, the danger of the phenomenon of hoping for the best is similar, in my opinion.

We have plenty of evidence that Trump et al are indeed intent on establishing autocracy in the United States.  

- There is Project 2025: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 , which actually sets out a road map for doing this, by a purge of federal government, including the Dept of Justice, and replacement of those purged with Trump loyalists.  

- One of the authors of Project 2025 , Russell Vought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Management_and_Budget, has been appointed head of the Office of Management and Budget. Vance wrote the forward to the document.

- There have already been purges, both in the DoJ and FBI, of professionals assigned to to the criminal investigations involving Trump. The politicisation of the FBI in particular is a cause for concern, as this organ of state security can easily be used for  surveillance and persecution (cf. J Edgar Hoover), in this case of those who challenge Trump. In particular it could be used to intimidate unhelpful judges.   

- The access of Musk, not even a government official, to the Treasury payments system creates conflicts with his business interests and invades the privacy of individuals.

- The dismissal of the 17 Inspectors General removes independent oversight, which will enable corruption and malpractice to flourish.

- There are well-established links between Viktor Orban and Republicans. Prominent Republicans have visited Orban to learn how he managed to turn a liberal democracy into what he himself proudly calls "illiberal democracy".  They see Hungary as a model. This is now a country in which Orban's Fidesz party controls much of the media, the judiciary and the universities and  is considered by many observers to be well on the way to autocracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Fidesz

- Since Trump's inauguration, there has been a blizzard of executive orders, many exceeding presidential authority, at a rate far exceeding the rate at which they can be challenged in the courts. This blitzkrieg approach certainly looks as if could be intended to overwhelm challenge and establish "facts on the ground" before it can be stopped.

Evidence mounts by the day that is consistent with the hypothesis that the objective of Trump's administration is to bend formerly independent institutions  and indeed both legislative and judicial pillars of the constitution, to the president's will, enabling autocracy. Perhaps the most important aspect of this is that autocrats find ways to stay in power indefinitely, by suppressing the opposition and/or bending the electoral system. So the biggest risk of all is that, even if the public decides it has had enough of this approach to government, they may find themselves powerless to throw these people out - which in the end is the crucial advantage democracy has over other systems.   

So, looking at this in a scientific spirit, it reminds me of climate change: how much evidence does one need, before seeing an imperative to act? There's always a temptation to leave it a bit longer and see, but the process - if the hypothesis is right - has an irreversible quality to it which makes that a dangerous attitude.

I take note of what you say about Congress providing safeguards. As of now there is little evidence of this. One can hope that in the mid-term elections there could be a rebalancing towards resistance to an out of control Executive. It seems to me that if this is to happen, people need to start objecting and highlighting the dangers now, before the population becomes acclimatised to the outrageous things being done. (One also has to hope that over the next 2 years Trump and his team don't find a way to neuter, or delay, the mid term elections. For instance declaring - or even engineering-  a "state of emergency" is always a good old favourite with autocrats.😉)     

 

  

Edited yesterday at 11:11 AM by exchemist

[dedo]

3 hours ago, exchemist said:

I take note of what you say about Congress providing safeguards. As of now there is little evidence of this. One can hope that in the mid-term elections there could be a rebalancing towards resistance to an out of control Executive. It seems to me that if this is to happen, people need to start objecting and highlighting the dangers now, before the population becomes acclimatised to the outrageous things being done. (One also has to hope that over the next 2 years Trump and his team don't find a way to neuter, or delay, the mid term elections. For instance declaring - or even engineering-  a "state of emergency" is always a good old favourite with autocrats.😉)    

Yes, & I commended someone on another thread for coming up with an idea for organized resistance.  It can take time for organized resistance to work as in civil rights or women's suffrage, so the sooner it begins, the better.

Also, being alert for "sudden emergencies" is prudent as that is a known technique for autocrats to consolidate power.  Putin is accused of doing that.

Nevertheless, although my ideology is more conservative than liberal, I believe my assessment of risk is higher than even most liberals, not from ideology, but from research of the problem behind It, which may be from cumulative factors in social norms discussed more in other threads.  Currently, I put the estimated risk of SHTF at up to 90% in the 21st C., most likely to occur before 2050.  That is unfortunate, because similar systems have been solved, but only with intentional action & that discussion has not even begun.

PS:  I was also an "exchemist" as I majored in chemistry undergraduate thinking that it would be easy before being proven wrong by physical chemistry that was anything but easy.  

[swansont]

7 hours ago, exchemist said:

Consideration of the impact on voters is only relevant if there are still fair democratic processes operating. I do not think this is a given in 4 years’ time.

What happens in 2 years’ time will have a large impact

[exchemist]

16 minutes ago, dedo said:

Yes, & I commended someone on another thread for coming up with an idea for organized resistance.  It can take time for organized resistance to work as in civil rights or women's suffrage, so the sooner it begins, the better.

Also, being alert for "sudden emergencies" is prudent as that is a known technique for autocrats to consolidate power.  Putin is accused of doing that.

Nevertheless, although my ideology is more conservative than liberal, I believe my assessment of risk is higher than even most liberals, not from ideology, but from research of the problem behind It, which may be from cumulative factors in social norms discussed more in other threads.  Currently, I put the estimated risk of SHTF at up to 90% in the 21st C., most likely to occur before 2050.  That is unfortunate, because similar systems have been solved, but only with intentional action & that discussion has not even begun.

PS:  I was also an "exchemist" as I majored in chemistry undergraduate thinking that it would be easy before being proven wrong by physical chemistry that was anything but easy.  

Haha, always good to have another chemist around to balance all the physicists we seem to have.😁

As a Brit, I am really alarmed by what seems to be taking place in the USA. In Poland,  Donald Tusk has found that reversing the damage to the media, judiciary and government caused by the aptly named far-right PiS party is very difficult, slow work. Once independent institutions have been compromised, popular trust in them evaporates. Without trust in institutions, arbitration and compromise between differing groups becomes impossible, and the rule of law itself can break down - providing a pretext for dictatorial oppression.

Like you perhaps, I used to consider myself broadly conservative: what we used to call a pink Tory. But politics has shifted so far that I now find myself left of centre! In the UK, the old centre-right has collapsed, all its talented, educated exponents having been driven out of politics by Johnson and Brexshit. So now we have a sort of idiot Right, or the Labour party.

12 minutes ago, swansont said:

What happens in 2 years’ time will have a large impact

Let’s hope that process is allowed to proceed without manipulation, then.

Edited yesterday at 02:15 PM by exchemist

[iNow]

8 hours ago, CharonY said:

in US only the judiciary remains. But even that is undermined by SCOTUS.

Not that any of us needs another body blow here, even once the courts make a decision it falls to the justice department to enforce those decisions. The justice department is under the executive branch and guess who controls that?

7 hours ago, dedo said:

The Congress is heavily influenced by public opinion & the Rep could get massacred in the midterms & even the perception of that can swing the Congress if they sense losses on the way.

Decades of gerrymandering largely renders this “protection” moot. Those congress reps are pushed by their electorate to show 100% fealty to their dear leader else face not just primary challenges but active threats to their lives and the lives of their loved ones 

[Sensei]

Your post is misleading on many levels. Which is due to your dislike of TFG.

 

They did not gain "access to sensitive data of Americans".. They gained "access to current and former government employees"..

Every company has a database of current and former employees. And HR and accounting people use them.

 

How to download all the data from the database?

Easy! One line of code:

SELECT * FROM 'table_name';

and you have all the columns and all the records.

Or simply copy the file directory if they had physical access to the server.

No one had to bypass security if they received it (server access credentials) from POTUS.

 

I can't imagine the work of such a department/agency (which is tasked with finding where the money is leaking and stopping it) without access to people's data.

If you have a fuel leak in the fuel tank you are looking for holes. The existence of DOGE or its equivalent makes no sense without data.

 

How they would send a quit offer if they didn't know who to send emails to (i.e. they didn't have first names, last names and email addresses) and who to send letters to (i.e. they didn't have first names, last names, home/correspondence address).. ?

Send an offer to resign via Twitter/X.. ?

I can imagine what the rumors will be if they do it this way..

 

DOGE is like the HR department. It needs to have access to government employee data to perform its operations.

 

It's hard to wonder current and former employees that they don't want this department to run smoothly, because it will mean that they will lose their money..

 

Aiming to reduce government spending is by all means very desirable. Especially if this money is spent on foolishness, or even fraud.

 

A country in which debt reaches nearly 100% is some kind of total pathology.

You spend what you have, not what you will/may have in two years..

All of this crap is based on the assumption (which may be wrong) that the economy will at least not get worse next year, and that tax receipts and other profits will be at least the same, not worse.

 

 

For the future I would recommend you to be more objective.

 

Edited 23 hours ago by Sensei

[MigL]

17 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Astonishing! They're exactly what they looked and sounded like before the election. Only with all the resources and none of the limitations of the institutions and agencies of the Federal government of the largest power on Earth.  Like the recession of 2008, nobody could have foreseen this.

Not too surprised by the lawlessness, maliciousness and opportunism of D Trump, his boss E Musk, and the rest of his ass-kissing cabinet; the world is, unfortunately, full of people like them.
After all, I remember 8 years ago, and the circus that was.

I am very surprised at the stupidity of about half the American electorate ( Republicans ) who again chose to support this moron, and some of the other half of the electorate ( Democrats ) who chose to stay home on election day, either having forgotten the 8 previous years, thinking D Trump had changed his ways, or maybe simply not giving a damn.

These people are in for a rude awakening over the next 4 years ( or longer ) because elections have consequences.

[Sensei]

9 minutes ago, MigL said:

I am very surprised at the stupidity of about half the American electorate ( Republicans ) who again chose to support this moron, and some of the other half of the electorate ( Democrats ) who chose to stay home on election day, either having forgotten the 8 previous years, thinking D Trump had changed his ways, or maybe simply not giving a damn.

These people are in for a rude awakening over the next 4 years ( or longer ) because elections have consequences.

How would they (Republicans electorate) know? They listen to Fox News, etc. ...

 

Biased media, have it that they are biased. When "our" politician is in power only what he has done good is shown, and what he has done ineptly is distorted, or not mentioned at all. When an "enemy" politician is in power, exactly the opposite is done.

 

Musk complained about censorship on Twitter, and when people started writing him on X in those Fact Checks etc. that he was telling untruths, their posts evaporated and/or their accounts were blocked..

 

Point of view depends on where you sit.

 

Edited 23 hours ago by Sensei

[dedo]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

As a Brit, I am really alarmed by what seems to be taking place in the USA. In Poland,  Donald Tusk has found that reversing the damage to the media, judiciary and government caused by the aptly named far-right PiS party is very difficult, slow work

I am alarmed as well.  Did not know about Poland & glad they turned away from far right.  Clearly there is psychopathology that is more widespread than one country.  Authoritarianism is rising just as in the early 20th C.   That might be an interesting thread in politics or medicine categories to discuss what is the psychopathology, how it works, & possible solutions.

Edited 23 hours ago by dedo

[MigL]

6 minutes ago, dedo said:

In Poland,  Donald Tusk has found that reversing the damage

What an unfortunate name for the PM of Poland; sounds like an amalgam of DONALD Trump and elon mUSK.
How will anyone take him seriously ?

[Airbrush]

5 hours ago, exchemist said:

I commend your unwillingness to adopt black and white judgements, but I do think there is a danger, in what you say in your previous post, of Polyanna-ish passivity. Here in Europe, many of us are aware that many educated Germans told themselves that maybe Hitler would turn out to be mostly bark and no bite and might do some good. (In a narrow economic sense he did, of course.) Whilst I don't intend to draw an over the top parallel between Hitler and Trump, the danger of the phenomenon of hoping for the best is similar, in my opinion.

We have plenty of evidence that Trump et al are indeed intent on establishing autocracy in the United States.  

- There is Project 2025: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 , which actually sets out a road map for doing this, by a purge of federal government, including the Dept of Justice, and replacement of those purged with Trump loyalists.  

- One of the authors of Project 2025 , Russell Vought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Management_and_Budget, has been appointed head of the Office of Management and Budget. Vance wrote the forward to the document.

- There have already been purges, both in the DoJ and FBI, of professionals assigned to to the criminal investigations involving Trump. The politicisation of the FBI in particular is a cause for concern, as this organ of state security can easily be used for  surveillance and persecution (cf. J Edgar Hoover), in this case of those who challenge Trump. In particular it could be used to intimidate unhelpful judges.   

- The access of Musk, not even a government official, to the Treasury payments system creates conflicts with his business interests and invades the privacy of individuals.

- The dismissal of the 17 Inspectors General removes independent oversight, which will enable corruption and malpractice to flourish.

- There are well-established links between Viktor Orban and Republicans. Prominent Republicans have visited Orban to learn how he managed to turn a liberal democracy into what he himself proudly calls "illiberal democracy".  They see Hungary as a model. This is now a country in which Orban's Fidesz party controls much of the media, the judiciary and the universities and  is considered by many observers to be well on the way to autocracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Fidesz

- Since Trump's inauguration, there has been a blizzard of executive orders, many exceeding presidential authority, at a rate far exceeding the rate at which they can be challenged in the courts. This blitzkrieg approach certainly looks as if could be intended to overwhelm challenge and establish "facts on the ground" before it can be stopped.

Evidence mounts by the day that is consistent with the hypothesis that the objective of Trump's administration is to bend formerly independent institutions  and indeed both legislative and judicial pillars of the constitution, to the president's will, enabling autocracy. Perhaps the most important aspect of this is that autocrats find ways to stay in power indefinitely, by suppressing the opposition and/or bending the electoral system. So the biggest risk of all is that, even if the public decides it has had enough of this approach to government, they may find themselves powerless to throw these people out - which in the end is the crucial advantage democracy has over other systems.   

So, looking at this in a scientific spirit, it reminds me of climate change: how much evidence does one need, before seeing an imperative to act? There's always a temptation to leave it a bit longer and see, but the process - if the hypothesis is right - has an irreversible quality to it which makes that a dangerous attitude.

I take note of what you say about Congress providing safeguards. As of now there is little evidence of this. One can hope that in the mid-term elections there could be a rebalancing towards resistance to an out of control Executive. It seems to me that if this is to happen, people need to start objecting and highlighting the dangers now, before the population becomes acclimatised to the outrageous things being done. (One also has to hope that over the next 2 years Trump and his team don't find a way to neuter, or delay, the mid term elections. For instance declaring - or even engineering-  a "state of emergency" is always a good old favourite with autocrats.😉)     

 

  

AMEN

[Sensei]

28 minutes ago, dedo said:

Did not know about Poland & glad they turned away from far right.  

PiS ("Law and Justice") is not the far right...

Far right burns Jewish flags in the streets, beats or verbally insults foreigners, etc. etc.

From an economic point of view they ("PiS") are the equivalent of the US Democrats (increase taxes, take from the rich give the poor more money, increase government spending, increasing the impediments to doing business and taxing everything, increasing bureaucracy, etc., etc.).

From a worldview point of view they are US Republicans (against abortion, against LGBT, two-sexes only, against migration, pro coal, gas and oil, human-made climate deniers, creation of laws that hinder the operation of RES., etc., etc.).

 

18 minutes ago, MigL said:

What an unfortunate name for the PM of Poland; sounds like an amalgam of DONALD Trump and elon mUSK.
How will anyone take him seriously ?

Donald Tusk predates TFG by 30 years in politics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Tusk

 

He was president of the European Council:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Tusk#President_of_the_European_Council_(2014–2019)

(who is the highest-ranking politician in the EU, if you are not familiar with the political structure of the EU)

 

German chancellor, EU president, first-term POTUS in 2017.

Too amused faces for the circumstances as far as I'm concerned - when POTUS talked about the termination of the climate agreement by the US.

Edited 22 hours ago by Sensei

[MigL]

13 minutes ago, Sensei said:

He was president of the European Council:

Did not know that; then again, they rotate those positions fairly quickly.
He just became Prime Minister of Poland in '23.

Doing a much better job than some of those other Eastern European leaders ( like V Orban, or R Fico ).