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Toutouxc 10 hours ago [-]
Insider trading as a service. No one is going to take the US seriously for the next 50 years.
Waterluvian 10 hours ago [-]
Or possibly ever again. Eras like this one can be what kills an empire/great power.
I think one of the greater risks to a power like the U.S. is getting old enough where it's felt like things always were, and therefore always will be. When there is no-longer a grandparent at the dinner table who can even tell you when his grandparent at the dinner table spoke about the before times.
rubyfan 10 hours ago [-]
Right, the fact that the current administration had a 4 year hiatus only extended this period. Think about all the young people that grew up with this as normal.
ben_w 8 hours ago [-]
Grandparents telling about their grandparents is a very different timescale than two presidential terms with a gap of just one between them.
The "what changed in the 1970s?" meme graphs are the kinds of timescale for forgetting what is and isn't "normal" for your grandparents, and the Great Depression for your grandparents' grandparents.
Eternal growth? Nah.
Even the worst of times will be shortly followed by a recovery, soon enough you survive on savings? Pft.
The President surely wouldn't consider to order the removal of protesting veterans, with the Army Chief of Staff implementing this order with a contingent of infantry and cavalry, supported by six tanks, burning the belongings that the veterans had left behind after being cleared from where they had been protesting? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
Conscription? Concentration camps? These are also in the "grandparents' grandparents" timescale in the USA. Go back only a one more generation and you get lynching *postcards*.
reactordev 9 hours ago [-]
Reinforced by the Parnas', Lambert's, Kirk's and Loomer's on TikTok. Ready to vote in the next midterms. Thinking 9/11 was an inside job...
browningstreet 7 hours ago [-]
I remember tales of how backwards and corrupt the Berlusconi government in Italy was. There was a sense that “over there” it was another world, a bad and sad and incorrigible one.
Most Americans wouldn’t remember that, and yet we pulled, and continue to pull, an epic Hold My Beer in comparison.
What would it take to get a Million Man March again? One that occupied the lawn?
flossly 8 hours ago [-]
Sorry, as an outsider, I think it has been a clown show for much longer.
The whole Hunter corruption scandal in Ukraine + the laptop made it quite clear to me back then. And I can go on.
saulapremium 5 hours ago [-]
The Hunter corruption scandal is to the current administration as a drop of water is to a swimming pool. But I have no doubt that you can go on.
gopher_space 3 hours ago [-]
Quite clear that people don't understand the basics of forensics. Watching people ruin their professional reputation over something they desperately want to believe in was quite the education.
no-name-here 5 hours ago [-]
What do you believe happened re: Ukraine?
What was the absolute worst thing from the laptop?
> The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control over its Western provinces; modern historians posit factors including the effectiveness and numbers of the army (check), the health and numbers of the Roman population (check), the strength of the economy (check), the competence of the emperors (check), the internal struggles for power (check), the religious changes of the period (check), and the efficiency of the civil administration (check). Increasing pressure from invading peoples outside Roman culture (check) also contributed greatly to the collapse. Climatic changes (check) and both endemic and epidemic diseases (check) drove many of these immediate factors.
c7b 9 hours ago [-]
The decline of the Roman Empire, depending on how you define it, played out over centuries, if not a millennium. It is such a bad analogy for the kind of within-our-lifetimes collapse that is being speculated about here that it undermines the original concern. The decline of Germany as the leading scientific powerhouse in the first half if the 20th century would be a better case study imho.
ceejayoz 9 hours ago [-]
> The decline of the Roman Empire, depending on how you define it, played out over centuries, if not a millennium.
Sure, and before COVID-19 pandemics often took years/decades to spread around the globe. Agriculture took thousands of years to develop; iPhones were invented twenty years ago.
Things move faster in a world of eight billion people who can get anywhere on the planet in 24 hours.
jebarker 9 hours ago [-]
Hence you can’t take the starting conditions from thousands of years ago and assume they will evolve in the same way now
ceejayoz 9 hours ago [-]
Sure. It might be much worse and faster this time! People have nukes and machine guns!
TFNA 7 hours ago [-]
Historians today tend to emphasize that, even if the Western Empire ended in the fifth century, ultimately everything goes back to the Crisis of the Third Century. That took place with a short enough space that it must qualify as a within-our-lifetimes collapse.
c7b 3 hours ago [-]
I would agree with that stance and that classical antiquity ended then. But you still have to acknowledge that the Roman state, its culture and institutions not only survived but arguably came out even more dominant (with the exception of pagan religion), e.g. with a second political stronghold in the East.
There are many episodes in Roman history that people would have experienced as decline or even collapse within their lifetimes, including multiple sackings of the city of Rome itself. But in most of those cases things actually did bounce back and the Empire continued to dominate. That's kind of the point I was making. Empires would seem to be far more resilient than contemporary observers would think if one only looked at Roman history. But the problem is that the Roman Empire is a bit of an outlier in that regard. Ancient cultures of Central America would be interesting to study there (there were far more than just the Mayas, Inkas and Aztecs, most of them relatively short-lived, hence good case studies for the question of collapse). Unfortunately much less is known about them than about Romans.
bryanlarsen 9 hours ago [-]
Sure, but it's also likely that some (but not all) historians will put the peak of the American Empire in the 1960's somewhere, perhaps onat the moon landing. Declines often start out slow and are often indistinguishable from random noise until well after the fact, and there will be rises and falls after the peak.
senordevnyc 8 hours ago [-]
it's also likely that some (but not all) historians will put the peak of the American Empire in the 1960's somewhere
Yes, historians notoriously focus all of their analysis of the rise and fall of an entire country on the ratio of worker pay to productivity.
The health care cost one is so dumb I won't even bother with it.
ceejayoz 2 hours ago [-]
Scroll bar doesn't work, huh?
There's… substantially more than one chart on that page.
senordevnyc 2 hours ago [-]
Fair, I did not see that :)
I would assume that you can take virtually any society that goes through rapid change over the course of a few decades and make all manner of cherry-picked charts like this. Just ignore all the charts with shapes that don't fit your hypothesis (like they show divergence way outside 1971, or gasp, they show positive changes!).
Honestly, I find the attitude that the best times in America were 50-60 years ago to be baffling.
So let me ask it this way: you can be born at a random place as a random person in America. You can't control your gender, your race, your sexual orientation, your intelligence, your socioeconomic standing, your family, your health, nothing. The only thing you can pick is the year.
What year are you going to choose?
I'd love a serious answer too. I never seem to get one that supports the idea that America's best days are behind us, but maybe you'll provide some reasoning.
bryanlarsen 28 minutes ago [-]
I didn't say the best times in the US were 50-60 years ago.
I said that historians would consider the start of the decline was 1969 or 1973 or similar.
Declines start in the second derivative -- progress is positive, but the rate of progress increases is decreasing. It takes a long time with a negative second derivative to make the first derivative negative, but the decline started when the second derivative turned negative. And the second derivative made an obvious turn around 1970.
And it's also measured relatively. It 1969 it was obviously way better to be an American than a European or a Korean or Japanese. Even than a Russian, although it wasn't as obvious at the time. In 2026 I'd rather be born in Europe than the US if I don't get to choose to be born to rich white parents.
ceejayoz 2 hours ago [-]
> So let me ask it this way: you can be born at a random place as a random person in America. You can't control your gender, your race, your sexual orientation, your intelligence, your socioeconomic standing, your family, your health, nothing. The only thing you can pick is the year.
> The decline of Germany as the leading scientific powerhouse in the first half if the 20th century
Go on? WW1 and its consequences?
c7b 2 hours ago [-]
I think the educational policies are most interesting to compare. There was systematic attrition of academic talent driven by xenophobic ideologies. It started slowly and well before the 1930's, before it turned into an all-out purge. There was also ideological alignment of academia in multiple ways. The timing might not perfectly line up with what we're discussing now, but it definitely qualifies as within-lifetime, and I think the overall parallels are interesting.
roncesvalles 6 hours ago [-]
It is highly unlikely that the US is going to collapse any time in our lifetimes. Or even those of our children.
Also, let's not forget that the Trump admin is a problem of 2.5 years at most.
Trump has greatly stressed the safeguards in our system, but I don't think that he has broken them. That is actually an optimistic instead of a pessimistic signal -- an anti-statesman even in the highest office couldn't meaningfully damage the country.
ceejayoz 5 hours ago [-]
> Trump has greatly stressed the safeguards in our system, but I don't think that he has broken them.
His sentencing for 34 felonies was voided because the justices he personally appointed to run some of those safeguards decided he should be immune to them. Come on.
cindyllm 6 hours ago [-]
[dead]
specproc 9 hours ago [-]
The US isn't Rome, it's Constantinople. Rome was Europe, the 20th century was about the colonial appendage achieving supremacy over the former imperial centre.
If you want a lesson in what to avoid to maintain dominance, it's internal conflict, that's what wrecked the European empire.
Good luck with that. Trump and Co will dig in. When they fall, there will be blood.
nozzlegear 6 hours ago [-]
> Increasing pressure from invading peoples outside Roman culture (check) also contributed greatly to the collapse.
Who is this supposed to be?
jebarker 9 hours ago [-]
This is not convincing. Many of these are debatable when you actually pull apart what is meant then and now. But there’s also a long list of things that are different about the Roman Empire and US (and the world) today.
ceejayoz 9 hours ago [-]
> This is not convincing.
Yeah, we heard that about climate change, too.
We may be Cassandras, but that doesn't make us wrong.
A_D_E_P_T 9 hours ago [-]
You could look even earlier. There are a lot of similarities between Trump's style and Emperor Commodus's. And to paraphrase Cassius Dio, Commodus took an empire of gold and transformed it into one of iron and rust.
Every time I hear people praise the stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius I am reminded of the fact that he failed in his most important duty: To plan well for his succession.
leereeves 9 hours ago [-]
The two worst Roman emperors ruled hundreds of years before the fall: Caligula from 37 to 41 CE, Nero from 54 to 68 CE.
Not many people could name, or recognize the name of, any emperor from the last hundred years of the Western Roman Empire.
So I don't think Rome is a good analogue for the suggestion that the Trump era is going to kill the USA.
ceejayoz 9 hours ago [-]
Sure. We had Nixon.
Most collapses start slow, and I tend to doubt this one is finished.
Waterluvian 9 hours ago [-]
I expect things to actually get better by some measures for a little while as the U.S. liquidates its holdings of international political and socioeconomic influence. A sort of short-lived glut from voluntary cannibalization.
flossly 8 hours ago [-]
There a quite popular narrative saying JFK's murder was a coup, and the US is still couped to this day (voting does not truly matter: the dark budget agencies make the policies anyway, those votes into office simple have to follow suit).
datsci_est_2015 9 hours ago [-]
I think the whole “empire collapsing” is a bit of a dramatized phrasing, though historians can correct me. I think it’s much more death by a thousand cuts, and the UK is a great analogue in that regard. Look at Brexit, for example. Or Black Wednesday, from which the US’s esteemed Treasury Secretary profited handsomely.
The UK’s decline has taken centuries, though, and there are many events that one can point to. I think I agree with the grandparent’s comment about grandparents, about the arrogance of how things will continue to be a certain way.
ceejayoz 9 hours ago [-]
> I think the whole “empire collapsing” is a bit of a dramatized phrasing, though historians can correct me. I think it’s much more death by a thousand cuts, and the UK is a great analogue in that regard.
Didn't the UK's empire notably collapse quite rapidly?
datsci_est_2015 7 hours ago [-]
Did the US? I would argue it’s been going on for 80 years, in tandem with the rise of the military industrial complex. Go back much further than that, though, and the argument starts leaking into whether the US was ever great to begin with (assuming “great” = “empire”, loosely).
But the US was never really an empire in the traditional sense, no? More of a cultural hegemon / terrorist petrostate.
ceejayoz 7 hours ago [-]
> Did the US? I would argue it’s been going on for 80 years, in tandem with the rise of the military industrial complex.
That's pretty fast, historically.
> But the US was never really an empire in the traditional sense, no?
Not to get weighed down in pedantry, but the Wikipedia article is “American imperialism”, not “the American empire”. Taking imperialist actions is a low bar for determining what is or what is not an empire. I wouldn’t call Yugoslavia an empire, as an example. Even the USSR is tough to call an empire, for some reason. Maybe because it collapsed so quickly.
Now that I peruse a bit, I guess scholars use the term “imperial power” to get away from the colloquial baggage of the term “empire”.
gopher_space 3 hours ago [-]
> I think the whole “empire collapsing” is a bit of a dramatized phrasing
Ragnarok is an existential issue mainly for the ruling class. Collapse is a change in the social order more than everything just suddenly being on fire.
E.g. We developed a nice little niche during the dotcom boom, and the subsequent bust was a goldmine for us. From my perspective the sole effect of that "collapse" were cheap Ducatis and Herman Millers on Craigslist.
What do you think the collapse of rome looked like to a farmer or blacksmith in some remote hamlet?
I had to think carefully, but I think they’re implying that the worst thing the US has done is invent Twitter, and comparing it to the worst thing that Europe has done (implying that that’s the holocaust), and that Europeans specifically(?) are being hyperbolic about the state of the US given the contrast between the two?
alephnan 9 hours ago [-]
People are still buying German cars and Hugo Boss clothing aren’t they?
ceejayoz 9 hours ago [-]
Germany made it illegal to display Nazi symbols and espouse their beliefs. (And hung a few.)
A bit of a lesson learned, in part, from not spanking the Confederacy's leadership enough.
thisislife2 3 hours ago [-]
As a foreigner to the US and its politics, it is both refreshing and depressing to see Trump as a President. It is refreshing because Trump is straight-forward and transparent that America has always been a country for the rich, run by the rich. In the final political outcome, his foreign policy politics really isn't anything different from other past Presidents (Democrats or Republicans) except that unlike them, he doesn't strive to pretend to be goody two-shoes. It is depressing because once the facade of democratic political theatrics is ripped apart by the President himself, Americans will invariably lose faith due to the ugly and cynical politics it exposes.
gchamonlive 9 hours ago [-]
In most areas (drug enforcement, basic education, healthcare, gun culture...) nobody should have been taking the US seriously maybe since Reagan. Finance, science and war were the only areas you could count on the US but now they went full Roman on the rest of the world not even that anymore. War is the only thing that's left I think.
gota 9 hours ago [-]
The US also arguably lost the Iran war. So far it can't claim any minor fraction of a victory, at least; seems to be the general consensus.
It doesn't win wars, but it provides the necessary equipment for carnage and stalemates all over the globe. Remember war is just a pretext, the objective is always profit, so as long as a lost war is very profitable it's a success in their books.
MisterTea 8 hours ago [-]
IMO the last real war the US participated in and helped to win was WW2 giving it a massive ego. And even then it was drawn in via Pearl Harbor. After that it was a bunch of "wars" it fabricated to satisfy its ego with various (often poor) outcomes.
flossly 8 hours ago [-]
As long as the profits of weapons contractors go up, it's considered a win. Most senate members are well invested, so they agree...
dylan604 9 hours ago [-]
If everyone has the same conclusion, how is it an argument? Nobody thinks the US won in Iran except the morons that started it. Maybe bigOil feels like its a win as their profits are soaring???
gota 9 hours ago [-]
No, I mean - the US has arguably already lost. It (almost unanimously) has no sign of winning. But it could, maybe, still win in the future.
In short the argument is: can the US still win in any sense?
dgellow 9 hours ago [-]
> nobody should have been taking the US seriously maybe since Reagan. Finance, science and war were the only areas you could count on the US
That was plenty of reasons to take the country seriously! Also, the US has been the most powerful cultural exporter for a very long time. It’s still the case, whenever anything becomes huge in the US we get our local version in each European countries. Our far right parties are parroting American right politics, even copying the terminology as is
gchamonlive 9 hours ago [-]
Have you seen the state of AAA gaming and blockbusters lately? Even music is being utterly destroyed by the streaming platforms and record labels greed, so yeah it might have been in the 80s up until the 2010s, but enshitification got the best of the US I'm afraid so not even culture anymore. It's just decacence.
It's not all US, but as you said things start in the US and trickles down across the rest of the world, so that's also true for its decadence.
saturn8601 4 hours ago [-]
Nothing is really replacing this elsewhere though (although I do concede China is trying hard).
Lets start with movies: Most top grossing movies are still American based and centric. I was reminded of this recently when Obsession came out and I tried to get my German friends to watch it. They missed so many subtle 'Americanisms' in the movie that it really gave me a new perspective on how ingrained the culture is. 10 years ago living in Europe I was amazed at how much American music French people listen to and sing to. Even on random French shops its nothing but American music playing. I don't believe they suddenly switched to French music. (Is there some pop artist in France stealing the charts right now? Im curious to learn). And this is the country with Académie Française.
The Chinese are trying: Ne Zha 2 was quite nicely animated and it grossed an impressive amount but that seemed more like a one trick pony given that it really attracted massive Chinese audiences and they seem to know how important the film was. This is just an opinion but it was not a memorable film like I'd expect from a Disney classic.
Then there is food: Its fascinating how Luckin had its massive comeback and has forced Starbucks to retreat in China and other markets. Mixue might do something similar to chains like DQ and Baksin Robbins, (lets see what happens). I have yet to see the Chinese Mcdonalds but maybe its in the shadows waiting for the right moment like a lot of Chinese companies.
In terms of Gaming, it still seems like despite all the BS, the market is still treating Western game publishers as the gold standard (and mainly American ones at that). The market dynamics are different for Gaming vs others because gaming is so diverse. Maybe there isnt really a leader given the ease of competition. Same goes for music. Streaming seems like what the market wanted or else they would have stuck with physical media.
gchamonlive 3 hours ago [-]
Replacement isn't a prerequisite for decadence just as much as decadence doesn't imply replacement. The Roman empire fell without being replaced. If you look at the numbers maybe it's the best they've ever been, but all production has decayed a lot in terms of quality. No wonder enshitification was word of the year in 2023.
realusername 9 hours ago [-]
> War is the only thing that's left I think
I would have agreed until the Iran war, the US used up so much of the missile stock that even the army isn't fully intact anymore
The US gained almost immeasurable power and influence by virtue of the 2 World Wars and being largely directly unaffected by those wars, whereas Europe was levelled, particularly by WW2. And that power came from selling weapons.
The world order was reset after 1945 and designed largely by the US for the benefit of the US, particularly the financial system. People will often mistake cause and effect. A common one is the petrodollar. The US dollar isn't strong because oil is traded in it. No. Oil is traded in the dollar because of demand fo the dollar. The world oil market could switch to Euros or RMB tomorrow and the net effect would be that people would hold USD and trade it for whatever currency as needed and convert any such currency immediately back to dollars.
But underpinning this has been the appearance of integrity in the US financial system and, in particular, the Federal Reserve and the SEC. That trust and that system is being rapidly destroyed for a few billion dollars in personal profit. All of this was enabled by an ideological Supreme Court who invented out of thin air the concept of presidential immunity to make the president a king in a country that rebelled against a monarchy.
We're living in times that will be written about in history books as the end of the post-1945 era, particularly with the Iran War. I, for one, called this the most disastrous US strategic defeat in the entire of US history and it's not even close back in April. And I stand by that.
There was a time when corrupt heads of state kept up appearances of not being corrupt. It was done in secret through layers of secrecy. That's gone now. The corruption is very much out in the open.
It's not to see this as anything other than China's rise to global prominence and the irony is they just had to do nothing while letting the US commit suicide.
ihumanable 8 hours ago [-]
I think that's been the most baffling thing about the rise of MAGA.
It was a global order built by the US to place the US in positions of power and privilege in every way imaginable.
And the MAGA group looked at it and said "we are being taken advantage of! We have to spend a rounding error worth of money on food aid and Voice of America?! I don't want soft power, I want rock hard power!!!"
They looked at a game with unfair rules that were written by them to benefit them and said "this is unfair.... to me!" Then went about dismantling nearly a century of work that unfairly stacked the deck in America's favor.
The US-Israel-Iran War is an interesting inflection point. They pulled out of every soft-power play, putting every chip in on hard-power military strength and now they are getting wrecked by cheap drones and Iran just being willing to stick it out and not fold. Venezuela will probably go down as the point in which they believed their world view was winning, no need for any diplomacy, just go in and abduct the president and take the oil. Iran showed them the limits of that kind of thinking, if they were more introspective they could learn from it.
everforward 7 hours ago [-]
The outcome in Iran was obvious to anyone paying attention. We knew Iran would close the strait, but we also haven't truly won a guerrilla war yet. Vietnam went poorly, Afghanistan went poorly, we've only historically done well in the more economically-defined traditional wars where there's an obvious target to fling a billion dollars worth of arms at.
Iran isn't stupid, they know there's not much point in building massive arms factories to make complicated weapons. The factories will just get bombed, and the weapons will probably still be inferior. They can just sort of stand there, though. We don't have the appetite for a boots on the ground invasion, and even then they can just kind of wait til we leave and go right back to it. We don't really have a winning hand here without resorting to war crimes, and the costs of that vastly outweigh any successes. We'd be international pariahs to a degree that I don't think most Americans realize is possible.
ElevenLathe 7 hours ago [-]
Arguably Iran's ability to manufacture pretty sophisticated weapons in relatively large quantities (and faster than the US) is one of the main reasons they won.
AnimalMuppet 6 hours ago [-]
Nit: We have won a guerilla war, as the guerillas - the US Revolutionary War.
saturn8601 4 hours ago [-]
Your intro contradicts your conclusion and thats why I think this story isn't as clear cut as you make it. The US gained that reputation because of trust. China does not magically have that same trust. The relationships that countries build with China appear to be built on a bed of sand. Case in point: A lot of African/ME countries took bribes in the form of Belt and Road(among others). Then came the public show of support for China. When China started to struggle after Evergrand, they slowed down support or asked for repayment. All of a sudden, a lot of support for China disappeared from these countries. Can you provide any clear evidence that China is really building a lasting trust that is mutual with any country? Even the EU is treating China as a potential short term economic partner and not as an ideological ally.
Its really sad how the US has acted these past few years. Its an insult to the sacrifices of those that came before us. But time is long and it appears China has to do a lot of soul searching to see where they really want to be. I don't feel confident the more I look. They have serious problems that dont seem solvable anytime soon.
micromacrofoot 9 hours ago [-]
The messed up part is that it's not even technically insider trading as long as they release the same information publicly shortly after... so they're not actually breaking any laws. So much of the way the US government has operated is based on some shared standard of moral sense that the current administration lacks completely.
DaiPlusPlus 9 hours ago [-]
> it's not even technically insider trading as long as they release the same information publicly shortly after... so they're not actually breaking any laws
No, that’s a canonical example of insider trading: acting on pre-release inside information before it’s made public; it doesn’t matter if it’s days, hours, or even minutes before it goes public.
People have been convicted for executing trades when they saw or handled earnings reports in-person hours before they’re released[1].
Insider trading requires breach of duty, if you don't have fiduciary duty with who you're trading against it's not insider trading. The required chain in the link is someone inside a contractual agreement providing information.
It's right in your own link, the filing-agent employee was convicted because he stole information he was contractually obligated to protect. Remove that obligation and there's no case. Truth Social owns the posts and is selling them with the source's blessing, nobody's stealing anything.
As much as I hate to say it, what they're doing with Truth social is very likely legal. The president does not have any contractual financial obligation to these companies, if he posts "everyone sell Intel, I'm going to regulate out of existence" to a group of people who paid him for this post early... there's no breach of contract anywhere.
8 hours ago [-]
Aurornis 9 hours ago [-]
> No one is going to take the US seriously for the next 50 years.
I hate this obvious pay-for-access thing as much as anyone, but this isn’t going to define the US for the next 50 years. The second the next president is in office every other country will adapt to working with them, just as been happening every 4-8 years.
ceejayoz 9 hours ago [-]
The American population has demonstrated that they'll nominate an insane criminal to power at random. Twice! I think that's gonna stick longer than the Bush to Clinton style transitions.
Aurornis 9 hours ago [-]
I’m talking about the people with decision making power and the businesses working internationally. I have no doubt that certain individuals in other countries will be holding grudges against the United States for the rest of their lives long after the country has moved on, but it doesn’t really have any effect. If you’ve spent some time traveling the world every country has older generations who have some grudge against other countries for events that happened prior to most people being born and the younger generations don’t care. The world changes and most people move on.
hgoel 9 hours ago [-]
They're also talking about decision makers. They're going to operate with the consideration that Americans might elect another mad man. Anything requiring more than one presidential term's time will be much more carefully hedged.
saturn8601 4 hours ago [-]
Maybe thats better in the long run. The Cold War kept the US more on its toes and that benefited the world. We have another situation where dumb decisions the US makes will have a faster feedback loop.
ceejayoz 9 hours ago [-]
> I’m talking about the people with decision making power and the businesses working internationally.
As am I.
At a certain point, you get bitten enough times that you decide the angry cobra isn't a great pet. It may be really cool, sometimes! But sometimes it hurts you, a lot.
> If you’ve spent some time traveling the world every country has older generations who have some grudge against other countries for events that happened prior to most people being born and the younger generations don’t care.
Some end this way, sure.
For an alternative, see Gaza.
ricardobeat 9 hours ago [-]
The people with power put this government in place. The point is that there might be no “moving on” from here, just a new normal.
chermi 5 hours ago [-]
As we know, nothing ever changes. But wait, you just said something changed...
ceejayoz 5 hours ago [-]
What President prior to Trump was convicted of a felony?
9 hours ago [-]
CaptainZapp 9 hours ago [-]
> The second the next president is in office every other country will adapt to working with them, just as been happening every 4-8 years.
That may well be, with one big difference.
Nobody and no country will trust the US or their commitments ever again.
Aurornis 9 hours ago [-]
> Nobody and no country will trust the US or their commitments ever again.
How do you explain all of the people and countries who are currently trusting the US and their commitments?
This is always a strange belief to hold when the current evidence is so overwhelming against it. The rest of the world and the people making decisions know that this administration will come to an end. Something about each new headline convinced a small number of people that this one event is actually the end of the entire country for the next 50 years, against all visible evidence
ceejayoz 9 hours ago [-]
> How do you explain all of the people and countries who are currently trusting the US and their commitments?
You've never seen a crime flick where the soon-to-be-murdered victim goes "I won't call the cops, I swear! Don't hurt me!"
If nobody was trusting the country, the economy would collapse.
The Greenland drama was dumb, but there is zero reason to think it’s a next 50 years thing. Is the force even still there, or are they gone? Nobody takes the Greenland thing seriously already, and 50 years have not passed.
ceejayoz 9 hours ago [-]
Why?
I don't trust a wood chipper or angle grinder or fireworks on the Fourth of July, so I'm extra careful around them. Doesn't mean I don't use them.
> Is the force even still there…
Yep.
senordevnyc 8 hours ago [-]
OK, so apparently the claim that "no one will ever trust the US or their commitments again" means that businesses and governments will still enter into all manner of trades and alliances and business arrangements with the US, but in their heart of hearts, they won't actually trust the US?
ceejayoz 8 hours ago [-]
Think of it this way:
You loan a friend $5k. They promise to pay it back. They don't.
You may still hang out! But you may never loan them money again unless they give meaningful evidence they've changed.
The US probably has one concrete chance left to prosecute, convict, and jail these folks to rebuild trust. My vibe from the Democrats is that they'll whiff that opportunity.
senordevnyc 2 hours ago [-]
But...countries, individuals, and companies the world over are loaning the US money right now. They're trading with the US, they're doing joint military exercises, they're forming new alliances, they're visiting the US, they're sending their kids to school here, they're buying real estate here.
Don't get me wrong, I loathe Trump and what his band of nutjobs has done to this country. The damage is deep and long-lasting.
But we're not quite yet a global pariah that no one will touch with a ten foot pole, nor are we (as some other commenter hilariously suggested) a failed state. Not yet. Not really even close.
Honestly, these discussions usually look more to me like what people wish was true, probably because they're both angry and powerless, than any kind of sober assessment of reality.
All that said, it'll be interesting to look back on this moment in a decade or two and see where it was going. History is notoriously difficult to predict.
EDIT in response to your links below: of course these all have been impacted!
We're talking about the claim that "Nobody and no country will trust the US or their commitments ever again."
Which is nonsensical, as proven by all your handy stats showing that many, many people, companies, and countries still trust the US.
"Foreign student enrollment at U.S. universities for the 2026 spring semester fell by 20% from last spring, according to a new report by organizations including U.S.-based international education nonprofit NAFSA."
"Foreign buyers continue fleeing the U.S. housing market, with their activity falling 14 percent between April 2025 and March 2026 to the second-lowest level since the National Association of Realtors (NAR) started tracking purchases in 2009."
> Honestly, these discussions usually look more to me like what people wish was true…
Indeed! See above.
ceejayoz 1 hours ago [-]
> We're talking about the claim that "Nobody and no country will trust the US or their commitments ever again."
> Which is nonsensical, as proven by all your handy stats showing that many, many people, companies, and countries still trust the US.
Hurr durr, yes, it's not an instant process. You slayed the strawman, saving you from engaging with the points everyone's making!
The collapse of the USSR took decades, too. Were they trustworthy? Is the used car salesman trustworthy, or do people just need used cars still, for now?
Hell, you don't trust my links, yet you engage (well, sorta) with me here. Right?
Paradigma11 3 hours ago [-]
Yes, but it will be much more expensive and inefficient compared to the trades and alliances with nations that are trusted. Basically the US is a failed state. Functioning nations can make agreements that survive leadership changes. The US is not one of those.
senordevnyc 2 hours ago [-]
Ah, now the US is a failed state. As in, the government has lost control, state monopoly on violence is gone, armed groups have taken over, no public services, etc. Just like Somalia, Yemen, etc.
Makes sense.
Aurornis 8 hours ago [-]
> Doesn't mean I don't use them.
And the goalposts keep moving. You’re proving my point by admitting that you still use it.
ceejayoz 8 hours ago [-]
Consider: I may also try and make/buy safer tools so I don't ever have to use them again at some point in the future. I may hire someone else (China!) to do the work.
A lack of trust does not mean an immediate cessation of use, but it does meaningfully change the relationship.
"I use x" is not evidence of "I trust x". Sometimes it's evidence of "I have no choice but to use x for now".
If you put in your notice at a job, and they desperately double your salary to keep you, do you trust that they're happy to keep paying that, or do you reasonably assume they're probably gonna start interviewing for a cheaper replacement?
> And the goalposts keep moving.
Falsely conflating usage with trust is a goalpost move.
If you'd posted "people still trade with the US", I'd have heartily agreed. But that wasn't the question.
saulapremium 4 hours ago [-]
>If nobody was trusting the country, the economy would collapse.
Trust is a complex term. You can work and trade with parties you don't trust, like so many countries do already. But a process has definitely begun, and it will without any doubt have very real implications for the US.
>Nobody takes the Greenland thing seriously already
I can assure you that Denmark still takes this thing extremely seriously.
chermi 5 hours ago [-]
Is that how history works? Anything bad in any society's history defines them forever going forward? Germany would like a word.
Unless of course you're hoping this is the outcome, that the bad behavior persists. In which case I'm quite confused on your position.
tzs 2 hours ago [-]
Yes, other countries will keep working with the US, but with a different attitude. They will be much more weary of doing long term things with the US unless they will get enough benefit in the first N years (where N is the remaining term of the current president) for it to be a net win even if the thing stops abruptly after that.
Trump 2 is a breakdown of the separation of powers and checks and balances that were supposed to give the US continuity. With that no longer functioning any deal you make with the US is really a deal with the current President which future Presidents may or may not honor.
It doesn't matter how reasonable the next President is because just electing a good President doesn't fix the underlying system. If other countries don't see that fixed so that another Trump cannot happen they will not consider the US to be reliable for long term things.
9 hours ago [-]
thisisit 7 hours ago [-]
You are debating one hyperbole with another hyperbole.
After all not everyone has Trump as President who thinks the only way to work with allies is to bully them. Will this particular thing going to define US for next 50 years? Probably not. Will countries say fuck it and stop working with US? Definitely not.
But will they ever have same amount of fear or trust or reverence for the US? Absolutely no.
That is now lost. While Iraq and Afghan war wasn't exactly a win for the US, the Iranians have shown that Americans can be had if cards(hands) are right. They now know Americans are completely blind to a president who would sell his mother for the right price and still defend him because they feel invincible and instead of offering a seemingly innocuous job to President's son like Burisma they can now blatantly bribe a jet, pay for access openly and no one in America will care because they believe they are infallible.
whywhywhywhy 9 hours ago [-]
If insider trading is your concern then the country hasn't been serious for a long time, everyone in government does it and it's never punished even when exploited to the levels of 9 figures of assets.
Should just be legalized at this point so we can all take advantage if they're all gonna get away with it.
chinathrow 9 hours ago [-]
> Should just be legalized at this point so we can all take advantage if they're all gonna get away with it.
Is this satire?
stuaxo 9 hours ago [-]
I fear not, look at which website we are on.
A_D_E_P_T 9 hours ago [-]
> everyone in government does it and it's never punished even when exploited to the levels of 9 figures of assets.
Statements like this are worthless without examples. Surely you can provide some? Hard mode: Don't mention Pelosi or Clinton.
Lendal 9 hours ago [-]
If a rival political party takes power in 2029 and they decide to do nothing about this, are they complicit?
If the cops drive past a mugging, observe, and then drive on past allowing the law to go unenforced, are they not just as corrupt as the robbers?
s_dev 9 hours ago [-]
Was the Union army complicit in the crimes of the Confederacy by simply allowing them to drop their arms and walk away as well? The world is complicated and full of nuanced takes depending on context. That said:
>If a rival political party takes power in 2029 and they decide to do nothing about this, are they complicit?
Like this really does read as: I still blame the Democrats for the crimes of the Republicans.
The ultimate authority here is the US voters and they have chosen poorly again and again. They are complicit for sure as they chose both to empower Republicans and tie the hands of the Democrats with impossible standards.
twister2920 9 hours ago [-]
> Was the Union army complicit in the crimes of the Confederacy by simply allowing them to drop their arms and walk away as well?
yes, they were. the USA if the Unionists has followed through on reconstruction looks like a utopia compared to now
JeremyNT 5 hours ago [-]
It's stuff like this that really makes me wonder about the great man theory of history.
Without JW Booth, maybe Lincoln would've broken the southern white aristocracy, and maybe Reconstruction would've succeeded. One man could've made the difference and finished the job.
Likewise, it's difficult to imagine any other con man so skilled and beloved (by a certain subset of the population) as Trump, and his singular abilities and predilections have potentially derailed the entire project of American empire - maybe permanently.
twister2920 3 hours ago [-]
Reconstruction ended more than 10 years after Lincoln's assassination, he would not have remained in office forever. I think for most Unionists the war was not about abolition or racial equality and there simply was not the political will to make the changes necessary to prevent Jim Crow in the south.
nemothekid 8 hours ago [-]
>Was the Union army complicit in the crimes of the Confederacy by simply allowing them to drop their arms and walk away as well? The world is complicated and full of nuanced takes depending on context.
I think the irony here is you are presenting this like a complicated choice, when I would argue many people agree that the way the Union handled reconstruction was extremely poor.
ComputerGuru 9 hours ago [-]
We are still paying the price for that today, some of us a lot more than others. It was well-intentioned but with hindsight being what it is, historians pretty much agree that it was the cause of a lot of the problems we fight with today.
datsci_est_2015 9 hours ago [-]
It’s funny you bring up Union vs Confederacy, because Reconstruction should be a blueprint of what not to do. We’re still paying today for the failures of our forefathers to not have the bravery to stamp out the worst cultural elements of the Confederacy, let alone the extended century-long suffering of formerly enslaved peoples in what ranged from “separate but equal” to outright apartheid.
So yes, it was very much the Union’s fault for not properly cutting the many heads of the hydra with great prejudice.
Edit: the Nuremberg trials are a fantastic blueprint for what to do, though. And that’s what was missing after the Civil War. The sentences handed out at Nuremberg aren’t necessarily relevant to the crimes committed by those in power today, but the cultural shift that materialized in Germany post-war is the type of cultural shift needed to counteract the damage of the current administration: against corruption, grift, and executive overreach.
antisthenes 8 hours ago [-]
> the Nuremberg trials are a fantastic blueprint for what to do, though.
Some would argue that the Nuremberg trials did not go nearly far enough, as there should also have been similar trials in all countries that collaborated with that regime during the course of the war.
That's why you see far-right parties nowadays spring up again and start to grain more influence. It could have been stomped out well enough.
datsci_est_2015 7 hours ago [-]
I agree, much of the Balkan suffering from the latter half of the 20th century could have been curtailed by properly stamping out ultranationalist groups as a punishment for their ethnic cleansing. The Ustaše, for example.
BryantD 9 hours ago [-]
Yes. That’s a great historical precedent — Reconstruction was a hotly debated topic and the more radical forms would have banned former Confederate soldiers for voting, for example. Many Southern states had military governors imposed by the Federal government.
Andrew Johnson pardoned almost all Confederate leaders, didn’t care about freeing slaves, and is one of the worst Presidents in history.
rf15 9 hours ago [-]
Doesn't that still feel shortsighted? The way you speak, you cannot even imagine a world without a political landscape that is Republican vs Democrats. I think both parties have shown time and time again that they cannot be trusted steering the country.
Yes, that probably means that the US has to utterly break in its political system before it can get any better, considering that the current election process favours a two-party stalemate (or one party controlling everything)
arjie 8 hours ago [-]
There’s no tool for them to do it with and I prefer that that remain the case. I would prefer that we take the pardon away from the President and certainly think the pre-emptive pardon is unacceptable but there is no mechanism to pursue the present government.
I’d prefer if the US doesn’t become like my native India where the previous government goes in jail when a new government takes power. Hopefully we just destroy the pardon and call the obvious self-enrichment here an abuse of government that we cannot fix with our devices and go forward.
threatofrain 8 hours ago [-]
A robber isn't corrupt. A robber betrays no principle except to seize when hungry, and a robber has no institution to corrupt.
wildrhythms 9 hours ago [-]
Yes
testing22321 9 hours ago [-]
The Police in the US have no legal requirement to help you. They are perfectly allowed to sit and do nothing while a gun man kills kids in a school.
Even if the rival party were to somehow control all 3 branches of government (which they will not), the voting records show a full 1/3 of American adults outright support this corruption (many of the cops themselves), and another 1/3 are willing to ignore it.
If you are in the 1/3 that does care about it, you are not going to have a good time trying to fight the other 1/3, many of whom make up the “law and order” department.
So the answer to both questions is a resounding no, because the world is more complicated than a comic book superhero movie.
llm_nerd 9 hours ago [-]
This is such an amazing take because it is a constant in US politics. Like how in the world did you think it appropriate to pivot like this?
The standards for the Democrats are impossible perfection, regardless of the challenges.
The standards for the Republicans is...there are literally zero standards. Thieves, grifters, rapists, pedos, just the absolute worst human garbage imaginable, and somehow Americans convince themselves that if the Democrats don't (usually because they can't) do anything about it, clearly the Dems are the real problem, so it's time to vote Republicans. Just bizarre stuff.
I could give infinite examples where the slightest thing is a massive story about Democrat action or inaction, while every day is a new low in what the shit-pile that the modern Republican party gets away with. Benghazi is still constantly cited by the right, while Trump...Jesus Christ, every day is a thousand times worse. Astonishing levels of corruption and stupidity is just another Tuesday now.
It's amazing. Every framing somehow shifts like this.
swed420 9 hours ago [-]
> The standards for the Democrats are impossible perfection
How do you figure? The previous Dem president literally promised, "nothing will fundamentally change" and that's exactly what happened.
We have a faux democracy / uniparty of capital interests where one "side" manufactures consent for the other.
rightwardRatchet++;
llm_nerd 9 hours ago [-]
> How do you figure?
Biden was speaking to the people who ended up bankrolling Trump when threatened with slightly increased taxes, and who are going to dump billions into the midterms. When you're in a country that wavers around 50/50 every election (even when the choice is between competent government or a spectacularly incompetent shitshow of grifters, pedos and thieves), yes, there are limits to what you can realistically do in one election cycle.
In any case, it's actually hilarious that rhetoric like this "oh well actually the Dems are to blame because they haven't stopped them yet" is precisely why Republicans are gung ho in fighting against ranked choice ballots. A secret they've learned is to field some fringe bullshit candidates like Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr, Kanye, and so on, and they need the sort of idiots that vote for idiots like that to be throwing away their votes because "it's a uniparty of capital". Ranked choice ballots -- real democracy -- would threaten that.
Trump has repeatedly claimed ranked choice ballots are "corrupt", and House Republicans have repeatedly tried to ban it. Do you want to know why? Protip - it's because they rely on incredibly stupid voters.
9 hours ago [-]
swed420 8 hours ago [-]
Is that why Dems elevated Trump originally from meme-tier gameshow host to serious contender with their pied piper "strategy"? The best they could do is be mad at wikileaks for making them look bad.
Or why they forced a widely unpopular Dem candidate instead of having an actual primary last time around (not that they've shown they can even run a fair primary)?
edit to add:
> Ranked choice ballots -- real democracy -- would threaten that.
This is not the magical fix you think it is, since other countries with >2 parties suffer from the same systemic rot of revolving door politics, monopolistic corporate media, etc.
100%. Clearly you've nailed it, and you should vote for Trump's third term.
Let's be real here - when people do the "both parties are the same", usually citing some chickenshit bullshit like you just did, they're almost always a terrible person who just loves Trump but won't just admit it.
Just own it, man.
swed420 8 hours ago [-]
Way to address actual criticisms.
Also, it's a strawman of your creation to say both parties are the same. They're two different facades for the same underlying monetary interests. Sorry you're so easily fooled by that, but it shows that it works.
llm_nerd 8 hours ago [-]
> We have a faux democracy / uniparty of capital interests where one "side" manufactures consent for the other.
That's your quote. Strawman? Not really, friend.
Do you know what the prefix uni- means? Let me quote Google for you-
"The prefix uni- means "one," "single," or "having only one." It comes from the Latin word unus"
I mean, you literally just blamed the Dems for Trump, which is simply amazing stuff. The reaching...don't your arms hurt?
swed420 8 hours ago [-]
Nowhere does that say same, like you're trying to force.
It makes sense you'd resist and twist what I'm saying, because it means people like you are literally part of the problem.
Since you edited your post, I'll respond:
> "The prefix uni- means "one," "single," or "having only one." It comes from the Latin word unus"
They are still undeniably two separate parties that both inherit the most important traits from the root problem of dominating capital interests.
> Uniparty is a political term referring to the idea that seemingly separate political parties, typically the two dominant parties in a liberal democracy, function in practice as a single entity. It is often applied to the Republican Party and the Democratic Party in the United States, or to the Conservative Party and the Labour Party in the United Kingdom.[1] The concept implies that despite their outward disagreements, the parties collaborate behind closed doors and share a unified set of political and economic interests, effectively creating a de facto one-party state. Proponents of this idea argue that such a "uniparty" suppresses genuine political alternatives and dissenting viewpoints by exercising control over the media, grassroots organisations, and ballot access regulations.[2]
HumblyTossed 8 hours ago [-]
> The standards for the Democrats are impossible perfection
No, the standard for Dems is "don't rock the boat". The Right moves things further to the right, the Dems don't let them go back to the left.
lotsofpulp 7 hours ago [-]
How are they supposed to do that while being outnumbered in Congress?
Note that Repubs have a more solid group than Dems in the Senate, because Dems have to win states with more compromising candidates like Sinema/Manchin/Lieberman/Fetterman/etc, whereas the Repub states are solidly Republican.
Just see how Repubs were able to stymie Democrat Supreme Court Justices, and how many they were able to install.
listless 8 hours ago [-]
> Thieves, grifters, rapists, pedos, just the absolute worst human garbage imaginable.
I would urge you strongly not to let yourself be this consumed by this kind of thinking. This is a distorted view of your fellow man - however accurate _some_ of it may be about _some_ people - regardless of their political affiliation. This kind of thinking is exactly how we got to where we are now and persisting in it will almost certainly get us more extreme reactions.
that said, the Republican establishment has proven itself unworthy of the office and should be shown the door in the next election cycle - in decimating fashion. So much so that it should cause a complete recalibration of that party.
lotsofpulp 8 hours ago [-]
>This kind of thinking is exactly how we got to where we are now and persisting in it will almost certainly get us more extreme reactions.
It was seeing a black guy, and then possibly a woman, and then possibly a black woman get to the top that got us where we are now. The message is clear, don’t disrupt up our image of the hierarchy, or else we will support the worst of the worst, as long as they maintain the order.
newfriend 7 hours ago [-]
The fact that this comment hasn't been flagged goes to show how ridiculous hn has become. I know we are not supposed to say "hn has become reddit", but hn has become reddit.
llm_nerd 6 hours ago [-]
The guy with 5 karma after 8 years has thoughts about the problems with HN. Amazing.
My comment is undeniable fact. That it offends some people like you is not something you have the right to be protected from.
Same in Poland, sadly. Conservatives or rather "conservatives" can get away with way more...
Aurornis 9 hours ago [-]
When I first heard saw headlines about this I thought it was so outlandish that it couldn’t possibly be real. Yet here we are.
It’s amazing how much corruption is occurring for so little money. A million dollars a month is peanuts for such clear graft.
arjie 8 hours ago [-]
I, too, was surprised at this but widespread corruption actually has this effect. As prosecutability goes down, you just move further down the market. In the limit, you pay the President $50 to get out of a $80 parking ticket. He can’t exactly charge you $100k for that privilege. It’s not the market clearing price. Previously he was limited by the enforcement side so the ask price was nowhere near the bid price.
Now, prosecution immune, he can access the remainder of the market.
I think this is one big reason why bribes are commonplace in India at all levels while they are reserved only for the most profitable of endeavours in the US - enforcement. Consequently, the relative pricing matches that.
I suppose one realization is that a corruption index could look at the price of the cheapest government corruption as a proxy for how widespread it is.
9 hours ago [-]
AnimalMuppet 6 hours ago [-]
Trump Media lost $239 million (IIRC) last year. A million a month isn't going to save them.
toomuchtodo 4 hours ago [-]
There is nothing to save, it is a financial vehicle to funnel dollars to the Trump family and their associates.
koe123 9 hours ago [-]
Curious: are there any republicans left on HN? I have no concept of how you can defend this
jazzypants 9 hours ago [-]
You're not going to get a real response. They're here. They literally just ignore it. It's too inconvenient of a truth. It's much easier to just point fingers at poor immigrants than to actually give a shit about the corruption of rich people.
> You're not going to get a real response. They're here. They literally just ignore it.
But that is the real response. All politicians do some things that you disagree with, so even if you hate some of their behavior, you can still end up supporting them if on balance their policy decisions are more aligned with your interests.
jazzypants 9 hours ago [-]
I see what you're saying, but ignoring something is withholding a response by definition.
Generally, I accept slight dissonance with politicians on matters of policy. I don't think it's okay to accept politicians blatantly breaking the law and sneering in the face of culpability.
Eueudhsbsj32 9 hours ago [-]
That's true and what makes poltical topics frustrating and mostly pointless to discuss online.
There's very little incentive to engage with the topic in an intellectually honest way. Most would prefer to only contribute in a way that paints their team in a better light.
I guess that's why any political topics should be avoided on HN. Even with perfect moderation, one can't avoid the biases of individuals selecting when to or not to contribute to a discussion.
jazzypants 8 hours ago [-]
It's literally impossible to avoid politics on any forum. Everything is politics. Politicians create the laws that govern society. If you want to associate with other people in that society, you need to be able discuss those laws. There's no escaping it no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel, and attempting to moderate it out of existence is an exercise in futility.
How on Earth do you imagine that a forum like this would discuss things like AI regulation without discussing politics? Beyond just regulation, there's inflation, tariffs, copyright, immigration... All of these things affect tech workers every day. A forum without politics is an absurd fantasy.
Eueudhsbsj32 9 hours ago [-]
If most were being honest, they would probably admit that the corrupt behavior like this is bad, but that the overall balance of good vs bad policy decisions still favor having Republicans in power vs Democrats.
Freedumbs 3 hours ago [-]
I can agree, it's likely all politicians are corrupt. Democrats are awful, but GOP are genuinely bad people. Like this story for instance. Historically presidents pretended to divest from their holdings and focus on being president, not making money. The current presidential administration took a plane from Qatar spent our tax dollars to fix it up and will keep it as a personal gift, hired his bud to do the reflecting pool then persecuted citizens who touched it, has social media service that sells early access to promote insider trading, ...
Could really keep going forever. There's no point in listing all the crime or norms that have been destroyed. Maybe it's good that someone is exploiting all the edge cases and treating our country as a game to be won. I don't see it that way. I love my neighbors.
Eueudhsbsj32 2 hours ago [-]
Trump is certainly the most overtly corrupt and immoral US president in history. But I try to focus on policies rather than their personalities.
I'd rather see $1 billion lost to graft than $100 billion lost to bad policy. But I'll admit, Trump's flagrancy makes it hard to ignore.
I'm generally libertarian or classic liberal, so I agree with maybe 70% of Republican policy and 30% of Democratic policy (assuming those are the only two choices), but lately that's been shifting closer to 50/50.
Freedumbs 2 hours ago [-]
Maybe I'm really uninformed but classic liberal and libertarian are polar opposites. Republican policy is insanely archaic and constrains human freedoms much more that Democrats, so I'm struggling to see how a libertarian could support the guys putting militarized unaccountable secret police into our cities to terrorize and kill Americans. They're also much more into thought crimes than Dems, so I'm really wondering what you consider important?
What's objectionable about Democrat policy from the "libertarian or classic liberal" perspective?
Eueudhsbsj32 2 hours ago [-]
Classic liberals and libertarians both favor individual freedom and limited government, but libertarians generally take the limited government bit a little further.
Militarized police is definitely one of the areas I disagree with Republicans on, along with abortion restrictions.
As for thought crimes, it's a toss up IMO, but I view Democrats as more likely to try to legislate against them.
I'd like federal government to be a whole lot smaller with more things being left up to state and local governments, so that's why I tend to side with Republican policy more often, but they're not much better either.
DocSavage 2 hours ago [-]
I would say the Republicans under Trump have made horrible policy decisions that have erased constitutional norms, severely hurt international standing and alliances, caused more inflation, and sent the US backwards in recruiting the best minds in the world.
Some examples:
- Starting a war with Iran even after being warned about consequences including the Strait of Hormuz and having the US in a worse position now than before.
- Deciding to end birthright citizenship, allowing race-based stops, and a slew of unconstitutional actions that are helped along by a GOP-appointed SCOTUS majority. This includes rulings under shadow docket so they don't have to explain themselves.
- Literally pretending the 2020 election was stolen and creating legislation like forcing states to provide voter data and targeting election results in a very partisan way.
- A hodgepodge of tariffs that seem to change at the whim of Trump and exert significant complications downstream including inflation.
- Undermining public funding of US research in the sciences in what seems to be an unconstitutional manner. Examples include withholding granted funds based on political interference.
- Completely politicizing DOJ and many other critical government departments to the point that even conservative career government employees resign noting politicization of their offices. This is one reason we see such obvious corruption -- because the watchdogs can't investigate let alone prosecute people favored by this administration (e.g., Epstein files).
- Degrading US health care policy substantially with RFK Jr and bad appointments in a number of positions.
All of the above are well-supported by court cases, investigative reporting, and even official declarations by this administration. What happened to the fundamental belief in the GOP of executive restraint, state vs fed power, fiscal discipline, free-market trade, rule of law, and democracy?
Because communities can end up selecting for political party, so any given community doesn't need to reflect national demographics.
That said, there are definitely Republicans here. They come out of the woodwork when the topic of government waste is brought up.
0xcde4c3db 9 hours ago [-]
I doubt there are many dyed-in-the-wool Republicans as such, but I'll bet there are many who still identify strongly enough with the old-school Republican messaging around rugged individualism and supply-side economics that they view the median Democrat as actively destructive by comparison to the merely flawed median Republican.
I'm far from being one of those myself, but I imagine the argument would be that any regulation one could propose to address this is bound to be worse than the problem itself, in terms of chilling effects on legitimate speech and commercial activity.
OsrsNeedsf2P 9 hours ago [-]
Not a Republican, but I support this behavior because I can't wait for more talent to leave the US
DaSHacka 2 hours ago [-]
This but unironically.
I don't really care about this country being a ""global leader"" in an industry, but not having to compete with the whole world for my job is sweet.
Thanks to Trumps policies reducing the amount of international students and workers visas, I was actually able to both get accepted into a grad school I never expected and land and a job straight out of college.
Turns out supply and demand also applies to labor, whodathunk.
muglug 9 hours ago [-]
Not a Republican by any stretch of any imagination, but here’s my attempt at a steelman argument:
I imagine these companies were already spending some amount on crawlers that would poll every N milliseconds to get an edge on some market-moving post. In turn I imagine Truth Social were also spending more serving this bot traffic.
Truth Social making $1M a month from it — a rounding error in Trump’s fortunes — doesn’t seem like a world-ending catastrophe.
Trump has done many bad things to erode trust in our institutions and government. When compared to him trying to overturn the results of an election, this too seems like a rounding error.
mikestew 7 hours ago [-]
Sometimes there isn’t a steelman argument for outright corruption, especially when the argument is, “meh, could be worse.”
thisisit 7 hours ago [-]
There are republicans left and most will devolve to equivocating talking about corruption under Biden (Hunter Laptop), Clinton etc and maybe say "everyone is corrupt and this is just slightly more corrupt maybe more in the open" why are you making a scene about it? Not realizing that steps like these mean that society as a whole will become overtly corrupt instead of covertly corrupt.
If a President is so corrupt that he is selling access for what is loose change for him - I mean what is $100k when he is getting $400million jet - their local offices will also feel comfortable nickel and diming them for small access. A trip to DMV will turn into "You want your driving license? That'll be $50 extra for me on top of the administrative fees". This is the reality of life in some low trust third world countries. Now coming to America!
But in the meantime lets celebrate equivocating and whataboutism.
swordsith 6 hours ago [-]
ragebait used to be hard to identify
program_whiz 9 hours ago [-]
(not a repub) I don't defend it, its outright fraud, but I also accept the reality that it is a more visible, and perhaps exaggerated, form of what has been ongoing forever.
Those who seek power seek it to:
1. Enrich themselves and their family
2. Wield it to achieve their means
The "pay to play" is rife everywhere. The contractors who get a sweet deal from local / fed government, the competition is stifled. The senators who make 10's of millions on insider information. The imminent domain cases where property is seized so corporation / donor can make millions. The "futures market" where insiders use their knowledge of product release date to swindle money for ordinary folks. The crypto scams, lotteries, casinos, street vendors, telemarketers, info-mercials, self-help gurus, snake oil sales, lemon peddlers, and more.
The truth is that the human system has not deviated far from the imposed hierarchy of feudalism / monarchy, we have only become better at concealing it, making it more potent in some ways. Power, corruption, opportunism, and greed are part of our nature. In an extremely large population with a democratic veneer, the levers of power become diffuse an ineffable, until they are blatantly shoved into our face.
In some ways I'm glad because its only through a constant vigilance and resetting the public vigilance that these kind of things can be controlled to any degree. Its an entropic force, seeping into the system at all times, only kept at bay by the disdain of the populace and fear in the hearts of the ruling elites.
Its definitely not a Republicans only phenomenon, the list on both sides of the aisle is embarrassingly long. But due to how our political system is setup, and human psychology, little will change by voting. People are tribal, and only have two choices in the matter, both of which are usually power-seeking corrupted. The prisoner's dilemma is giving the US a life-sentence.
317070 9 hours ago [-]
> but I also accept the reality that it is a more visible, and perhaps exaggerated, form of what has been ongoing forever
Thanks for sharing this. It's a deep insight for me. I did not understand how the same people that were deeply skeptical about the state, ended up being so quiet when the state's corruption became flagrant and blatant. But this line of thinking makes a lot of sense.
lotsofpulp 8 hours ago [-]
It sounds like equivocating nonsense to me. No one expects a society to be completely free of corruption, but there is a difference between at least putting up a veneer of working towards transparency, and unabashed pay to play corruption.
In fact, the corruption is what the voters want, to show that they prioritize their group (white, men, rural, rich, benefactors, whatever helps you identify with the “winner” etc) at the expense of others.
program_whiz 8 hours ago [-]
I don't expect it to be free of corruption, but I can also acknowledge the systemic forces that are beyond my control which enable the corrupt excesses we see. Unfortunately, until the incentives reverse, it will continue.
One of the easiest and most assured paths to success, wealth, a comfortable life, influence, significance, and security, is by playing the power game. Hence, it will attract those who seek those ends, and discourage those who let beliefs, values, morals, or other similar concerns interfere with their own acquisition of power.
Its only inevitable then that the most corrupt players will eventually ascend, as they continue to amass money and power in such a system. Believing that the real difference is voting for "the good guys" and that will cause wide-sweeping change is probably what Tea Party voters thought in the early 2000s before they morphed into MAGA.
meetingthrower 8 hours ago [-]
Nice writing man.
spiderfarmer 9 hours ago [-]
What will you vote in the midterms?
etruong42 4 hours ago [-]
Define "republican". I am sympathetic to many sides. I would equate this comment to a comment that asks "how can you liberals/wokists/etc defend this" if the post were about California's "Stop Nick Shirley Act" or something.
For those without the power to change reprehensible institutions, invoking this level of tribalism only further entrenches those with power because we remain powerlessly bickering with each other rather than uniting.
“That didn’t happen. And if it did, it wasn’t that bad. And if it was, that’s not a big deal. And if it is, that’s not my fault. And if it was, I didn’t mean it. And if I did
You deserved it.”
DaSHacka 9 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
jazzypants 9 hours ago [-]
No one is talking about Fauci here. This kind of whataboutism is frankly disgusting.
DaSHacka 3 hours ago [-]
You ask how Republicans can possibly defend this behavior, I argue both mainstream political parties excuse blatant corruption and borderline evil on a regular basis.
If you would self-identify as a Democrat, ask yourself this: How do you feel about the recent Fauci findings, and the fact he needed a pardon to protect him against ever being prosecuted against potential crimes that are now being discussed in a Senate hearing.
Then `s/Fauci/Trump` and you'll arrive at your answer for Republicans.
I guarantee Trump will copy the template Biden established at the end of his term, and pardon all his cronies and family members on his way out the door in January 2029.
ratelimitsteve 9 hours ago [-]
i suspect that, much like the rest of the world, HN has had a sharp increase in people who "don't do politics"
spiderfarmer 9 hours ago [-]
In my experience only people from the US are afraid to exercise their freedom of speech when conversing with friends, family and colleagues.
urams 9 hours ago [-]
Were you similarly upset when Trump was only on Twitter and Twitter had an API?
ok123456 9 hours ago [-]
The API was free then
leobg 2 hours ago [-]
I don’t think the “Firehose” level was. I think it was 50k/mo or something. That was before AI training was a thing.
jazzypants 9 hours ago [-]
How are you even pretending this a real argument? What is the implied slam dunk here?
AnimalMuppet 6 hours ago [-]
Well, I mostly lean Republican. I'm still registered as one, so I can vote in their primaries.
I have never voted for Trump, either in a primary or general election. I disagree with him strongly on much of what he does. I would describe myself as conservative, but definitely not MAGA. I'm what was Republican 10 or 30 or 50 years ago, not what they've turned into.
How can I defend this (pay for early access)? I don't. I oppose it.
8 hours ago [-]
ekjhgkejhgk 7 hours ago [-]
I find all these people disgusting, but if you're curious I can repeat for you one of their dishonest responses. They said it's not really insider trading, because the people that benefit from this are already hitting the HTTP GETs over and over to get the news fast, instead what they're paying for is for getting the push notifications which is a good business practice from truth social, because serving push notifications when news exist is cheaper than responding to HTTP gets over and over.
beams_of_light 9 hours ago [-]
I think most of us who have lived through many presidents understood that there was a decency required of the holder of the office that acted as the only true limit on their corruption. It's confounding that so many people in the US can't see it for what it is.
kubafu 10 hours ago [-]
Official "insider-knowledge-as-a-service". No surprise who the first clients are.
micw 10 hours ago [-]
Why is this not being stopped by us jurisdiction?
Or at least why does the rest of the world does not decouple from those markets?
jasonjayr 9 hours ago [-]
Hint: You will never see the folks enforcing action against this platform and the folks using and posting on the platform in the same room.
owebmaster 9 hours ago [-]
The answer is simple: the US is corrupt.
bamboozled 9 hours ago [-]
They are decoupling, it's just if you just do it quietly.
mapt 9 hours ago [-]
A video has been going around pointing out one of the consequences of the Strait of Hormuz closure.
Over the past few years, China has quietly purchased more than a billion barrels of oil from Russia and Iran at a discount in CNY rather than USD, pushing it into newly created strategic stockpiles that would be necessary for closure of a different Strait. After putting a strategic foot on the neck of refined product exports, they are now functionally acting as the largest part of the world's crude reserves, smoothing demand so that the global price does not spike and crash the global economy & global trade. If China was to keep up its normal buying cycle over the past few months, we would have easily seen >$200 oil. Instead, oil is a third that, and it's not even the limiting factor - refinery output drops on diesel from Ukraine's Kinetic Sanctions campaign are having a more significant bottleneck on petrochemicals right now than Hormuz.
Say what you like about the motivation, this is a form of global leadership of the sort that America used to specialize in, and every drop of oil traded in CNY rather than "The Petrodollar" weakens the USD as the anchor currency.
JKCalhoun 4 hours ago [-]
So I signed up.
I figure if I can get over a hundred people to sign up with me at $1K a month, I pass along the info, they save money, and I profit.
Amidoingitrite?
<JK, but, wow, what a time we're witnessing.>
duxup 1 hours ago [-]
Corruption, plain and simple.
tho23u434079 9 hours ago [-]
I'm surprised this isn't an impeachable offence.
usefulcat 8 hours ago [-]
The US political system is now so deeply divided along partisan lines that it's increasingly difficult to imagine what "an impeachable offense" would look like. Impeachment requires that many members of Congress are willing to go against a President of their own party, and that doesn't really happen any more, at least not at the scale needed for impeachment.
The founders seem to have imagined that Congress (as a whole) would have an adversarial relationship with the President. But they failed to foresee the levels of partisanship we have today which have resulted in ~half of Congress being very closely allied with the President.
When the US was less divided, things like ethics or morals or even just not openly breaking the law mattered a lot more. Now, people (at least, the people who vote the most) care more about "is my party in power", and either don't know about or disregard everything else. I include "don't know" because if all you listen to is Fox news and social networks feeding you ideas that you already agree with then you can easily be completely unaware of things like this.
Micrococonut 8 hours ago [-]
Republicans don't even try to put on an appearance of lawfulness anymore. Their supporters revel in the criminality. They worship it.
ceejayoz 7 hours ago [-]
Of course it's an impeachable offense. We see several new ones every week.
There's just no one with the power plus willingness to do so.
pjc50 9 hours ago [-]
Impeachment requires a Democrat majority.
(for some reason this attracted a downvote? Obviously Republicans are never going to impeach a Republican President? I cannot imagine why you would think they would?)
spiderfarmer 9 hours ago [-]
It is.
The US is over.
zparky 9 hours ago [-]
not like that impacts anything anymore, apparently.
dole 9 hours ago [-]
I remember when we gave a shit about "emoluments."
goatlover 9 hours ago [-]
The Republicans still control Congress at least until the new Congress is seated in January. At which point the House may impeach Trump for one of many crimes. But it's unlikely the Senate will have enough votes to convict, even if Democrats also take it back.
ratelimitsteve 9 hours ago [-]
we've reached the "yes, we're cheating, do something about it" stage of corruption
coreyh14444 10 hours ago [-]
The most corrupt US administration in history and it isn't even close.
eterm 10 hours ago [-]
It is completely unimaginable in comparison to previous administrations. Pre-trump, even just pre-2025 Trump, this would read like a parody of corruption.
jdw64 10 hours ago [-]
Who knows? Maybe we'll see a new 'worst in history' every year from now on
HumblyTossed 9 hours ago [-]
It's possible. The ultra-wealthy now have a blue print to follow.
raincole 9 hours ago [-]
And the least corrupt US administration from now on.
9 hours ago [-]
morkalork 10 hours ago [-]
$100k seems cheap for the potential front running
criddell 9 hours ago [-]
Even if the front running fails, it's a cheap way to raise your profile with the president. I bet if you are paying $100k / month, your chances of the president taking your call go way up.
InsideOutSanta 9 hours ago [-]
The amount of money you can make with this only depends on how much money you already have.
everfrustrated 7 hours ago [-]
Can anybody point to a specific example of a Truth post which has broken a law.
Hard to understand if this is something actually unlawful or something people don't like.
arw0n 6 hours ago [-]
I don't understand how someone can look at this administration and not see how it represents a complete degeneration of democratic values and statutes of good statesmanship. Corruption is not only a moral wrong, a lack thereof is a strong indicator of a healthy, strong country. A head of state massively profitting of their decisions financially to the detriment of the country is the definitions of corruption. Wether it is illegal is irrelevant, morality and legality are orthogonal concepts.
dayvid 9 hours ago [-]
It's not even that much money for the reputational damage. Wild.
someguynamedq 9 hours ago [-]
Reputational damage has not been relevant in US politics for a decade. It simply is not a thing anymore
Carrok 9 hours ago [-]
What reputation?
baggachipz 9 hours ago [-]
Yes because Truth Social and its owner/head troll both had a stellar reputation to begin with.
TrackerFF 10 hours ago [-]
Why would anyone want to pay that much for something, unless it gives them some edge.
I don't know if it is still a thing, but in the world of penny stocks and crypto there used to be subscription pump and dump channels, where influencers would charge $x / month, and coordinate pumps. "Signal" channels, as they were named.
This can't be too different. If not even more straight forward insider stuff.
Either that, or it is just another way to bribe your way closer to Trump.
Business idea for Trump: Sell access to his Truth Social posts, but bake in some latency. Those that pay most, will get to see the posts first (via API). Then after X minutes of posting the posts will go live for everyone to see. How fast you want to see the post between publishing and public access, depends on how much you want to pay. The less latency, the more you need to pay.
davidmurdoch 9 hours ago [-]
On paper, this is just standard enterprise API access most social media services offer. Isn't it?
HolyLampshade 9 hours ago [-]
If I had to venture a guess (and full disclosure I’m not currently working in the space, and am not privy to conversations about actually buying this product), the 100k/m for whatever the contract duration is relatively low stakes to see if there’s utility in the data. Since there is no historical data the only real option is to buy, see if it makes a difference, and dump the product at the end of the contract if it doesn’t move the needle.
The seller is trying to push upfront sales by suggesting “These guys are doing it, and if you want to keep an edge you need to too”, (and journalists wanting to write about how corrupt this shit is are eagerly picking this up and boosting the signal by writing these sorts of articles).
In 5-6 months I suspect the consumer number to be down to 1-2 from the original batch, and those who are still paying will probably be doing so because the fact that the contract exists will probably slip through the cracks.
badatnames 9 hours ago [-]
There is plenty of historical data, $100k is a steal for as long as situations like Iran persist. And now he is incentivised to ensure they do persist. Our fearless leader, ladies and gentlemen.
HolyLampshade 9 hours ago [-]
That is only if there’s a direct correlation to price movements starting after he opens his yap on Truth Social (which, within this administration there is plenty of insider trading so the movement may pre-date the social media post).
I suspect, having worked in this space for quite a while, that this specific data, faster, is useless and that there are other signals that indicate something is coming before it ends up on social media (esp TS).
Yes, there is historical data about prices moving after TS posts, but what I’m arguing is paying to get it ‘faster’ may not be worth anything if you can achieve that same end (knowing something is happening) through previously established channels.
owebmaster 9 hours ago [-]
> $100k is a steal
Literally
TheDong 9 hours ago [-]
Even if it doesn't give any edge in terms of using the data, just paying money into Trump in more ways (i.e. a quasi-legal bribe) is enough of a benefit that I doubt many will drop it.
This is a lot cheaper of a bribe than i.e. the gold plaque Tim Apple gave to Trump too.
HolyLampshade 9 hours ago [-]
The trading firms don’t really get anything from bribing Trump. That’s not to say hedge funds don’t want to tickle the big guy’s ego, but they don’t need “faster data” in most cases.
It’s less directly beneficial than most people think it will be.
fragmede 9 hours ago [-]
That thing probably only cost like $50K, so more than that.
Aurornis 9 hours ago [-]
I think you’re missing the point. The payment is for early access. The posts don’t go live for everyone else until after a delay.
This isn’t some penny stock group. It’s the president of the USA who has command of the largest army in the world and signals his intentions to make governmental moves with a large impact on the markets via these posts.
DougN7 9 hours ago [-]
I’m sure you could make a ton of money on oil if you had a 30 minute heads up about whether Trump was going to bomb Iran or not on any given day.
101008 9 hours ago [-]
Completely ignorant here, and I don't want to ask an AI (I don't trust them on these issues). Could you give me an example how you can make money with this information?
Again, question as someone who doens't live in the US so I am not used how you can profit from this. I guess it may be because a war may impact the market and you can invest (or the opposite) with this, but in my mind bombing Iran wouldn't move the market by much (the consequences would, but by then everyone is on the same page).
Thank you!
Aurornis 9 hours ago [-]
Iran controls the straight of Hormuz, which is a key shipping channel for the world. It being open or not has an impact on all businesses which have to ship through it, which is a lot of them. Therefore it impacts the entire economy. The entire stock market goes up or down based on signals about the status of the war.
dana-s 9 hours ago [-]
I'm also not the most smart there but there's this market thing of "futures", where I can say I'll buy 10 barrels for 10$ next month, then I can sell the "10 barrels for 10$" to others, if I know offer will be lower due wars, one can buy now and sell once it's lower, if it's going to have higher availability(or expectation of so), then there's those future things.
ceejayoz 9 hours ago [-]
> Completely ignorant here, and I don't want to ask an AI (I don't trust them on these issues). Could you give me an example how you can make money with this information?
Place a Kalshi bet on the outcome of something that a Truth Social post just settled?
Short a company he's about to bash?
owebmaster 9 hours ago [-]
The answer is so obvious that you should try to figure it out by yourself as an exercise to avoid cognitive decline in the age of AI. Seriously.
tstenner 9 hours ago [-]
Trump bombs Iran -> oil price goes up. You buy oil futures before the bombing and get the price difference paid out.
pjc50 9 hours ago [-]
Aren't all the Iran announcements/bombings on weekends while the peace deals are announced before the markets open again? Or is that too much of a meme?
salomonk_mur 9 hours ago [-]
A 1 second head start is good enough.
high_na_euv 9 hours ago [-]
Trumps posts and actions have orders of magnitude more impact than random influencers with userbase of 5k
grey-area 9 hours ago [-]
Corruption.
mrweasel 9 hours ago [-]
Functionally I suppose it's the same thing, but are they paying for access to Truth Social, or early access to Trumps posts?
Are there anything else of "value" on Truth Social. I haven't signed up for Truth Social, but is there actually anything else going on, besides Trumps post. Would any company have any reason to be on the platform, if Trump wasn't?
mapt 9 hours ago [-]
They are paying for early access to Trump's posts.
The first post they received after this system was turned on, was Trump literally posting "GREEN CANDLES. BEAUTIFUL GREEN CANDLES!!!"
This is an informal stock market term for asset values having a good day (or good minute, for that matter), with stock movements measured on a "Candlestick chart". This is a... not an admission, but a brag, that this is in fact an insider trading service, and that people who follow this insider trading service are going to make a lot of money. This is Trump announcing that he has rigged the stock market and you need to buy in right this moment if you want to remain competitive.
I am cautiously optimistic about this in some ways? Historically, the one thing you do not do in America is touch the money. There's now a hundred trillion dollars of capital that have an incentive for the lights to go out in the White House and to turn back on with JD Vance in a different seat.
guywithahat 9 hours ago [-]
I mean there are a number of politicians on there, as well as a few million active users. Honestly though this all makes sense? Like why wouldn't X do the same thing, it seems like a no brainer. Certain people want the first access to information, and sites like these are where things are posted first. This seems like a logical product to sell if you own a large enough social media site
podgietaru 10 hours ago [-]
A bribe.
chermi 5 hours ago [-]
On the plus side, now some insider trading is visible for later prosecution. I for one prefer criminal activity to be visible.
amazingamazing 9 hours ago [-]
Even before this insiders had access to the prez. I am glad this presidency is making very apparent the inherent flaws with the US government.
acomjean 9 hours ago [-]
A teleprompter operator was making bets on what the president would say..
And thats just one that got called out. Grift is kind of the new normal sadly.
I remember someone getting into trouble for taking a trips in government vehicles. A time when scandal would cause people to stop being in politics...Seems quaint.
Now that this has proven successful and without recourse, I fully expect Musk to do the same for his tweets on Twitter.
Alifatisk 5 hours ago [-]
I mean at this point, no news about what the current US administration is doing is shocking me anymore. I am exhausted. It is what it is at this point, Trump will continue as usual, richer people get richer, republicans will excuse this behaviour and point fingers somewhere else while the rest will continue to suffer. I feel like we are in some sort of endless loop.
Trump does something > We react with "ooh no, orange man bad" > Dust settles > Get amnesia and continue our lives > And the cycle repeats
usefulcat 9 hours ago [-]
> The group is expanding into areas including cryptocurrency holdings and clean-energy investments.
Wait, what? Clean energy investments, from the Trump admin? Sounds like a protection racket.
angelhadjiev 12 hours ago [-]
[dead]
rvz 9 hours ago [-]
The signs of rampant insider trading in the US were there since congress allowed it indirectly with no-one caught, leading to this.
Where was the outrage when Pelosi and several members of congress were buying and selling stocks and front-running key legislation being passed that directly affected certain stocks in question? That sort of corruption was largely (and deliberately) ignored.
Now we have lead it to the point where corruption like this is allowed because no one was caught in the first place.
To quote what Pelosi said herself when asked about this conflict of interest: "We’re a free market economy, They (law makers) should be able to participate in that.” [0]
Essentially she has green-lighted said corruption, which she and others (except for AOC) have zero integrity even when both Trump and them are just as corrupt.
I don't think anyone would have predicted that Karl Marx would ever end up being as vindicated as he turned out to be.
cassepipe 9 hours ago [-]
Reducing everything to a few sets of variables that you can keep in your mind is quite reassuring. Ask me how I know. Do take the time to assimilate this sentence though:
"But one should not succumb to the illusion that with an analysis of the fundamentals of the capitalist mode of production that everything decisive has already been said about capitalist societies"
Michael Heinrich, Introduction to the three volumes of Capital
groundzeros2015 9 hours ago [-]
Can you break down the participants in this story in Marxist terms?
ImHereToVote 9 hours ago [-]
Sure. The bourgeoisie in search of more and more profit have nowhere left to go but ransack the heartland. Outward expansion has stalled at a wall called Iran.
cassepipe 9 hours ago [-]
That sentence is extremely unspecific to anything capitalistic. Were it not for the word "bourgeoisie", it could apply to the Mongols for all I know.
8 hours ago [-]
8 hours ago [-]
Levitz 9 hours ago [-]
The degree to which his works have been dragged through the mud by a bunch of people who insist on calling everything they don't like "capitalism" can't be overstated. The majority of people complaining about capitalism don't even have a coherent definition of it, it's a disgrace.
pjc50 9 hours ago [-]
Balanced out by a group of people who call everything they don't like "socialism". It's a very poor discourse environment.
yonaguska 9 hours ago [-]
huh?
AndrewAndrewsen 9 hours ago [-]
Read Marx, he predicted so many things that would happen during the late stage capitalism phase.
cassepipe 9 hours ago [-]
And yet he gave us nothing in terms of what alternative economic would look like apart from a "a free association of workers" or something. Turns out it's a hard problem.
ImHereToVote 9 hours ago [-]
Marx couldn't probably come up with a solution in the 19th century. That was far too early. Luckily Deng appeared with the solution.
guywithahat 9 hours ago [-]
Too bad he couldn't predict what would happen in late-stage socialism (mass starvation and inequality)
free652 9 hours ago [-]
>late stage capitalism
That period is defined as starting about 100 years ago, after WW1. 100 years later the "late stage" capitalism outlived communism in USSR and China.
ImHereToVote 8 hours ago [-]
If China is capitalist. Let's implement their form of capitalism in the West. Finally home ownership for 90% of the population. The English would be so happy.
stochastic-parr 9 hours ago [-]
Except most marxists.
AndrewAndrewsen 9 hours ago [-]
Capitalism implodes on itself, just as predicted..
patrickmay 9 hours ago [-]
This isn't capitalism, it's pure corruption.
Planktonne 7 hours ago [-]
Very much a "true communism has never been tried" way of thinking.
senectus1 9 hours ago [-]
thats how capitalism implodes... its lives and breathes might makes right and the way to be mightier is to eat competitors and when you run out of competitors you use your might to change the rules. Corruption.
cassepipe 9 hours ago [-]
if everything is capitalism, then nothing is capitalism
"But one should not succumb to the illusion that with an analysis of the fundamentals of the capitalist mode of production that everything decisive has already been said about capitalist societies"
Michael Heinrich, Introduction to the three volumes of Capital
arjie 8 hours ago [-]
People have announced the implosion of capitalism many times and each time living standards have improved. In a purely correlationary sense, it seems like civilization progresses one capitalistic implosion at a time.
spiderfarmer 9 hours ago [-]
Capitalism prescribes a limited role of government, to protect the rights of private citizens and maintain an orderly environment that facilitates proper functioning of markets.
This isn’t capitalism, it’s pure unfettered and uncontrolled greed.
nancyminusone 9 hours ago [-]
"that wasn't real capitalism" hmm, where have I heard that before?
jdw64 10 hours ago [-]
I pay a dollar here and there to promote my homepage so people will actually see it. I guess being a president really helps. I wish people would just pay a dollar to read my posts someday
yourusername 10 hours ago [-]
If your posts induce wild swings in the stock market i'll pay a dollar to read them a minute early.
jdw64 10 hours ago [-]
I can't swings the stock market, but maybe I could change people's values...? That's too bad. It's a little sad to think my writing isn't even worth a dollar, haha.
pixel_popping 9 hours ago [-]
Then improve it :)
Arubis 9 hours ago [-]
Everyone involved should have their ankles broken so we can know them by their walk.
I think one of the greater risks to a power like the U.S. is getting old enough where it's felt like things always were, and therefore always will be. When there is no-longer a grandparent at the dinner table who can even tell you when his grandparent at the dinner table spoke about the before times.
The "what changed in the 1970s?" meme graphs are the kinds of timescale for forgetting what is and isn't "normal" for your grandparents, and the Great Depression for your grandparents' grandparents.
Eternal growth? Nah.
Even the worst of times will be shortly followed by a recovery, soon enough you survive on savings? Pft.
The President surely wouldn't consider to order the removal of protesting veterans, with the Army Chief of Staff implementing this order with a contingent of infantry and cavalry, supported by six tanks, burning the belongings that the veterans had left behind after being cleared from where they had been protesting? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
Conscription? Concentration camps? These are also in the "grandparents' grandparents" timescale in the USA. Go back only a one more generation and you get lynching *postcards*.
Most Americans wouldn’t remember that, and yet we pulled, and continue to pull, an epic Hold My Beer in comparison.
What would it take to get a Million Man March again? One that occupied the lawn?
The whole Hunter corruption scandal in Ukraine + the laptop made it quite clear to me back then. And I can go on.
What was the absolute worst thing from the laptop?
Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biden%E2%80%93Ukraine_conspira...
Hunter Biden laptop controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controvers...
2019 Trump–Ukraine scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Trump%E2%80%93Ukraine_sca...
the only exception now is not the corrupt administration, but the one being the most inept and blatant at being corrupt as opposed to its predecessors
Is there actually any good analogue for this era that caused a previous empire or great power to collapse?
> The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control over its Western provinces; modern historians posit factors including the effectiveness and numbers of the army (check), the health and numbers of the Roman population (check), the strength of the economy (check), the competence of the emperors (check), the internal struggles for power (check), the religious changes of the period (check), and the efficiency of the civil administration (check). Increasing pressure from invading peoples outside Roman culture (check) also contributed greatly to the collapse. Climatic changes (check) and both endemic and epidemic diseases (check) drove many of these immediate factors.
Sure, and before COVID-19 pandemics often took years/decades to spread around the globe. Agriculture took thousands of years to develop; iPhones were invented twenty years ago.
Things move faster in a world of eight billion people who can get anywhere on the planet in 24 hours.
There are many episodes in Roman history that people would have experienced as decline or even collapse within their lifetimes, including multiple sackings of the city of Rome itself. But in most of those cases things actually did bounce back and the Empire continued to dominate. That's kind of the point I was making. Empires would seem to be far more resilient than contemporary observers would think if one only looked at Roman history. But the problem is that the Roman Empire is a bit of an outlier in that regard. Ancient cultures of Central America would be interesting to study there (there were far more than just the Mayas, Inkas and Aztecs, most of them relatively short-lived, hence good case studies for the question of collapse). Unfortunately much less is known about them than about Romans.
Based on what metric?
https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/61z8jv/oecd_life_...
The health care cost one is so dumb I won't even bother with it.
There's… substantially more than one chart on that page.
I would assume that you can take virtually any society that goes through rapid change over the course of a few decades and make all manner of cherry-picked charts like this. Just ignore all the charts with shapes that don't fit your hypothesis (like they show divergence way outside 1971, or gasp, they show positive changes!).
Honestly, I find the attitude that the best times in America were 50-60 years ago to be baffling.
So let me ask it this way: you can be born at a random place as a random person in America. You can't control your gender, your race, your sexual orientation, your intelligence, your socioeconomic standing, your family, your health, nothing. The only thing you can pick is the year.
What year are you going to choose?
I'd love a serious answer too. I never seem to get one that supports the idea that America's best days are behind us, but maybe you'll provide some reasoning.
I said that historians would consider the start of the decline was 1969 or 1973 or similar.
Declines start in the second derivative -- progress is positive, but the rate of progress increases is decreasing. It takes a long time with a negative second derivative to make the first derivative negative, but the decline started when the second derivative turned negative. And the second derivative made an obvious turn around 1970.
And it's also measured relatively. It 1969 it was obviously way better to be an American than a European or a Korean or Japanese. Even than a Russian, although it wasn't as obvious at the time. In 2026 I'd rather be born in Europe than the US if I don't get to choose to be born to rich white parents.
2012, as long as I can bring some news articles with me, to convince people that https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/10/473709316... was, if anything, understating things.
Go on? WW1 and its consequences?
Also, let's not forget that the Trump admin is a problem of 2.5 years at most.
Trump has greatly stressed the safeguards in our system, but I don't think that he has broken them. That is actually an optimistic instead of a pessimistic signal -- an anti-statesman even in the highest office couldn't meaningfully damage the country.
His sentencing for 34 felonies was voided because the justices he personally appointed to run some of those safeguards decided he should be immune to them. Come on.
If you want a lesson in what to avoid to maintain dominance, it's internal conflict, that's what wrecked the European empire.
Good luck with that. Trump and Co will dig in. When they fall, there will be blood.
Who is this supposed to be?
Yeah, we heard that about climate change, too.
We may be Cassandras, but that doesn't make us wrong.
Every time I hear people praise the stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius I am reminded of the fact that he failed in his most important duty: To plan well for his succession.
Not many people could name, or recognize the name of, any emperor from the last hundred years of the Western Roman Empire.
So I don't think Rome is a good analogue for the suggestion that the Trump era is going to kill the USA.
Most collapses start slow, and I tend to doubt this one is finished.
The UK’s decline has taken centuries, though, and there are many events that one can point to. I think I agree with the grandparent’s comment about grandparents, about the arrogance of how things will continue to be a certain way.
Didn't the UK's empire notably collapse quite rapidly?
But the US was never really an empire in the traditional sense, no? More of a cultural hegemon / terrorist petrostate.
That's pretty fast, historically.
> But the US was never really an empire in the traditional sense, no?
Sure it was/is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism
Now that I peruse a bit, I guess scholars use the term “imperial power” to get away from the colloquial baggage of the term “empire”.
Ragnarok is an existential issue mainly for the ruling class. Collapse is a change in the social order more than everything just suddenly being on fire.
E.g. We developed a nice little niche during the dotcom boom, and the subsequent bust was a goldmine for us. From my perspective the sole effect of that "collapse" were cheap Ducatis and Herman Millers on Craigslist.
What do you think the collapse of rome looked like to a farmer or blacksmith in some remote hamlet?
I would also deploy Adam Smith's "there is a lot of ruin in a nation". The US can withstand a few bad years provided it corrects.
A bit of a lesson learned, in part, from not spanking the Confederacy's leadership enough.
I like to read Bret Devereaux (from the frequently HN posted https://acoup.blog/) takes on this in his Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/bretdevereaux.bsky.social)
In short the argument is: can the US still win in any sense?
That was plenty of reasons to take the country seriously! Also, the US has been the most powerful cultural exporter for a very long time. It’s still the case, whenever anything becomes huge in the US we get our local version in each European countries. Our far right parties are parroting American right politics, even copying the terminology as is
It's not all US, but as you said things start in the US and trickles down across the rest of the world, so that's also true for its decadence.
Lets start with movies: Most top grossing movies are still American based and centric. I was reminded of this recently when Obsession came out and I tried to get my German friends to watch it. They missed so many subtle 'Americanisms' in the movie that it really gave me a new perspective on how ingrained the culture is. 10 years ago living in Europe I was amazed at how much American music French people listen to and sing to. Even on random French shops its nothing but American music playing. I don't believe they suddenly switched to French music. (Is there some pop artist in France stealing the charts right now? Im curious to learn). And this is the country with Académie Française.
The Chinese are trying: Ne Zha 2 was quite nicely animated and it grossed an impressive amount but that seemed more like a one trick pony given that it really attracted massive Chinese audiences and they seem to know how important the film was. This is just an opinion but it was not a memorable film like I'd expect from a Disney classic.
Then there is food: Its fascinating how Luckin had its massive comeback and has forced Starbucks to retreat in China and other markets. Mixue might do something similar to chains like DQ and Baksin Robbins, (lets see what happens). I have yet to see the Chinese Mcdonalds but maybe its in the shadows waiting for the right moment like a lot of Chinese companies.
In terms of Gaming, it still seems like despite all the BS, the market is still treating Western game publishers as the gold standard (and mainly American ones at that). The market dynamics are different for Gaming vs others because gaming is so diverse. Maybe there isnt really a leader given the ease of competition. Same goes for music. Streaming seems like what the market wanted or else they would have stuck with physical media.
I would have agreed until the Iran war, the US used up so much of the missile stock that even the army isn't fully intact anymore
The world order was reset after 1945 and designed largely by the US for the benefit of the US, particularly the financial system. People will often mistake cause and effect. A common one is the petrodollar. The US dollar isn't strong because oil is traded in it. No. Oil is traded in the dollar because of demand fo the dollar. The world oil market could switch to Euros or RMB tomorrow and the net effect would be that people would hold USD and trade it for whatever currency as needed and convert any such currency immediately back to dollars.
But underpinning this has been the appearance of integrity in the US financial system and, in particular, the Federal Reserve and the SEC. That trust and that system is being rapidly destroyed for a few billion dollars in personal profit. All of this was enabled by an ideological Supreme Court who invented out of thin air the concept of presidential immunity to make the president a king in a country that rebelled against a monarchy.
We're living in times that will be written about in history books as the end of the post-1945 era, particularly with the Iran War. I, for one, called this the most disastrous US strategic defeat in the entire of US history and it's not even close back in April. And I stand by that.
There was a time when corrupt heads of state kept up appearances of not being corrupt. It was done in secret through layers of secrecy. That's gone now. The corruption is very much out in the open.
It's not to see this as anything other than China's rise to global prominence and the irony is they just had to do nothing while letting the US commit suicide.
It was a global order built by the US to place the US in positions of power and privilege in every way imaginable.
And the MAGA group looked at it and said "we are being taken advantage of! We have to spend a rounding error worth of money on food aid and Voice of America?! I don't want soft power, I want rock hard power!!!"
They looked at a game with unfair rules that were written by them to benefit them and said "this is unfair.... to me!" Then went about dismantling nearly a century of work that unfairly stacked the deck in America's favor.
The US-Israel-Iran War is an interesting inflection point. They pulled out of every soft-power play, putting every chip in on hard-power military strength and now they are getting wrecked by cheap drones and Iran just being willing to stick it out and not fold. Venezuela will probably go down as the point in which they believed their world view was winning, no need for any diplomacy, just go in and abduct the president and take the oil. Iran showed them the limits of that kind of thinking, if they were more introspective they could learn from it.
Iran isn't stupid, they know there's not much point in building massive arms factories to make complicated weapons. The factories will just get bombed, and the weapons will probably still be inferior. They can just sort of stand there, though. We don't have the appetite for a boots on the ground invasion, and even then they can just kind of wait til we leave and go right back to it. We don't really have a winning hand here without resorting to war crimes, and the costs of that vastly outweigh any successes. We'd be international pariahs to a degree that I don't think most Americans realize is possible.
Its really sad how the US has acted these past few years. Its an insult to the sacrifices of those that came before us. But time is long and it appears China has to do a lot of soul searching to see where they really want to be. I don't feel confident the more I look. They have serious problems that dont seem solvable anytime soon.
No, that’s a canonical example of insider trading: acting on pre-release inside information before it’s made public; it doesn’t matter if it’s days, hours, or even minutes before it goes public.
People have been convicted for executing trades when they saw or handled earnings reports in-person hours before they’re released[1].
[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/employee-securities-fil...
It's right in your own link, the filing-agent employee was convicted because he stole information he was contractually obligated to protect. Remove that obligation and there's no case. Truth Social owns the posts and is selling them with the source's blessing, nobody's stealing anything.
As much as I hate to say it, what they're doing with Truth social is very likely legal. The president does not have any contractual financial obligation to these companies, if he posts "everyone sell Intel, I'm going to regulate out of existence" to a group of people who paid him for this post early... there's no breach of contract anywhere.
I hate this obvious pay-for-access thing as much as anyone, but this isn’t going to define the US for the next 50 years. The second the next president is in office every other country will adapt to working with them, just as been happening every 4-8 years.
As am I.
At a certain point, you get bitten enough times that you decide the angry cobra isn't a great pet. It may be really cool, sometimes! But sometimes it hurts you, a lot.
> If you’ve spent some time traveling the world every country has older generations who have some grudge against other countries for events that happened prior to most people being born and the younger generations don’t care.
Some end this way, sure.
For an alternative, see Gaza.
That may well be, with one big difference.
Nobody and no country will trust the US or their commitments ever again.
How do you explain all of the people and countries who are currently trusting the US and their commitments?
This is always a strange belief to hold when the current evidence is so overwhelming against it. The rest of the world and the people making decisions know that this administration will come to an end. Something about each new headline convinced a small number of people that this one event is actually the end of the entire country for the next 50 years, against all visible evidence
You've never seen a crime flick where the soon-to-be-murdered victim goes "I won't call the cops, I swear! Don't hurt me!"
Who's genuinely trusting US commitments right now? Our most stalwart allies sent troops to Greenland as a tripwire force! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Arctic_Endurance
The Greenland drama was dumb, but there is zero reason to think it’s a next 50 years thing. Is the force even still there, or are they gone? Nobody takes the Greenland thing seriously already, and 50 years have not passed.
I don't trust a wood chipper or angle grinder or fireworks on the Fourth of July, so I'm extra careful around them. Doesn't mean I don't use them.
> Is the force even still there…
Yep.
You loan a friend $5k. They promise to pay it back. They don't.
You may still hang out! But you may never loan them money again unless they give meaningful evidence they've changed.
The US probably has one concrete chance left to prosecute, convict, and jail these folks to rebuild trust. My vibe from the Democrats is that they'll whiff that opportunity.
Don't get me wrong, I loathe Trump and what his band of nutjobs has done to this country. The damage is deep and long-lasting.
But we're not quite yet a global pariah that no one will touch with a ten foot pole, nor are we (as some other commenter hilariously suggested) a failed state. Not yet. Not really even close.
Honestly, these discussions usually look more to me like what people wish was true, probably because they're both angry and powerless, than any kind of sober assessment of reality.
All that said, it'll be interesting to look back on this moment in a decade or two and see where it was going. History is notoriously difficult to predict.
EDIT in response to your links below: of course these all have been impacted!
We're talking about the claim that "Nobody and no country will trust the US or their commitments ever again."
Which is nonsensical, as proven by all your handy stats showing that many, many people, companies, and countries still trust the US.
Some of them to protect against us! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Arctic_Endurance (Which, for the record, is pretty new, at least for NATO.)
> they're visiting the US
Staggering dip in US tourism is a troubling sign for the future: https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/25/travel/analysis-tourism-fewer...
> they're sending their kids to school here
https://time.com/article/2026/05/12/us-university-higher-edu...
"Foreign student enrollment at U.S. universities for the 2026 spring semester fell by 20% from last spring, according to a new report by organizations including U.S.-based international education nonprofit NAFSA."
> they're buying real estate here
https://www.newsweek.com/foreign-buyers-flee-u-s-housing-but...
"Foreign buyers continue fleeing the U.S. housing market, with their activity falling 14 percent between April 2025 and March 2026 to the second-lowest level since the National Association of Realtors (NAR) started tracking purchases in 2009."
> Honestly, these discussions usually look more to me like what people wish was true…
Indeed! See above.
> Which is nonsensical, as proven by all your handy stats showing that many, many people, companies, and countries still trust the US.
Hurr durr, yes, it's not an instant process. You slayed the strawman, saving you from engaging with the points everyone's making!
The collapse of the USSR took decades, too. Were they trustworthy? Is the used car salesman trustworthy, or do people just need used cars still, for now?
Hell, you don't trust my links, yet you engage (well, sorta) with me here. Right?
Makes sense.
And the goalposts keep moving. You’re proving my point by admitting that you still use it.
A lack of trust does not mean an immediate cessation of use, but it does meaningfully change the relationship.
"I use x" is not evidence of "I trust x". Sometimes it's evidence of "I have no choice but to use x for now".
If you put in your notice at a job, and they desperately double your salary to keep you, do you trust that they're happy to keep paying that, or do you reasonably assume they're probably gonna start interviewing for a cheaper replacement?
> And the goalposts keep moving.
Falsely conflating usage with trust is a goalpost move.
If you'd posted "people still trade with the US", I'd have heartily agreed. But that wasn't the question.
Trust is a complex term. You can work and trade with parties you don't trust, like so many countries do already. But a process has definitely begun, and it will without any doubt have very real implications for the US.
>Nobody takes the Greenland thing seriously already
I can assure you that Denmark still takes this thing extremely seriously.
Unless of course you're hoping this is the outcome, that the bad behavior persists. In which case I'm quite confused on your position.
Trump 2 is a breakdown of the separation of powers and checks and balances that were supposed to give the US continuity. With that no longer functioning any deal you make with the US is really a deal with the current President which future Presidents may or may not honor.
It doesn't matter how reasonable the next President is because just electing a good President doesn't fix the underlying system. If other countries don't see that fixed so that another Trump cannot happen they will not consider the US to be reliable for long term things.
After all not everyone has Trump as President who thinks the only way to work with allies is to bully them. Will this particular thing going to define US for next 50 years? Probably not. Will countries say fuck it and stop working with US? Definitely not.
But will they ever have same amount of fear or trust or reverence for the US? Absolutely no.
That is now lost. While Iraq and Afghan war wasn't exactly a win for the US, the Iranians have shown that Americans can be had if cards(hands) are right. They now know Americans are completely blind to a president who would sell his mother for the right price and still defend him because they feel invincible and instead of offering a seemingly innocuous job to President's son like Burisma they can now blatantly bribe a jet, pay for access openly and no one in America will care because they believe they are infallible.
Should just be legalized at this point so we can all take advantage if they're all gonna get away with it.
Is this satire?
Statements like this are worthless without examples. Surely you can provide some? Hard mode: Don't mention Pelosi or Clinton.
If the cops drive past a mugging, observe, and then drive on past allowing the law to go unenforced, are they not just as corrupt as the robbers?
>If a rival political party takes power in 2029 and they decide to do nothing about this, are they complicit?
Like this really does read as: I still blame the Democrats for the crimes of the Republicans.
The ultimate authority here is the US voters and they have chosen poorly again and again. They are complicit for sure as they chose both to empower Republicans and tie the hands of the Democrats with impossible standards.
yes, they were. the USA if the Unionists has followed through on reconstruction looks like a utopia compared to now
Without JW Booth, maybe Lincoln would've broken the southern white aristocracy, and maybe Reconstruction would've succeeded. One man could've made the difference and finished the job.
Likewise, it's difficult to imagine any other con man so skilled and beloved (by a certain subset of the population) as Trump, and his singular abilities and predilections have potentially derailed the entire project of American empire - maybe permanently.
I think the irony here is you are presenting this like a complicated choice, when I would argue many people agree that the way the Union handled reconstruction was extremely poor.
So yes, it was very much the Union’s fault for not properly cutting the many heads of the hydra with great prejudice.
Edit: the Nuremberg trials are a fantastic blueprint for what to do, though. And that’s what was missing after the Civil War. The sentences handed out at Nuremberg aren’t necessarily relevant to the crimes committed by those in power today, but the cultural shift that materialized in Germany post-war is the type of cultural shift needed to counteract the damage of the current administration: against corruption, grift, and executive overreach.
Some would argue that the Nuremberg trials did not go nearly far enough, as there should also have been similar trials in all countries that collaborated with that regime during the course of the war.
That's why you see far-right parties nowadays spring up again and start to grain more influence. It could have been stomped out well enough.
Andrew Johnson pardoned almost all Confederate leaders, didn’t care about freeing slaves, and is one of the worst Presidents in history.
Yes, that probably means that the US has to utterly break in its political system before it can get any better, considering that the current election process favours a two-party stalemate (or one party controlling everything)
I’d prefer if the US doesn’t become like my native India where the previous government goes in jail when a new government takes power. Hopefully we just destroy the pardon and call the obvious self-enrichment here an abuse of government that we cannot fix with our devices and go forward.
This is well established in law.
https://nypost.com/2013/01/27/city-says-cops-had-no-duty-to-...
Even if the rival party were to somehow control all 3 branches of government (which they will not), the voting records show a full 1/3 of American adults outright support this corruption (many of the cops themselves), and another 1/3 are willing to ignore it.
If you are in the 1/3 that does care about it, you are not going to have a good time trying to fight the other 1/3, many of whom make up the “law and order” department.
So the answer to both questions is a resounding no, because the world is more complicated than a comic book superhero movie.
The standards for the Democrats are impossible perfection, regardless of the challenges.
The standards for the Republicans is...there are literally zero standards. Thieves, grifters, rapists, pedos, just the absolute worst human garbage imaginable, and somehow Americans convince themselves that if the Democrats don't (usually because they can't) do anything about it, clearly the Dems are the real problem, so it's time to vote Republicans. Just bizarre stuff.
I could give infinite examples where the slightest thing is a massive story about Democrat action or inaction, while every day is a new low in what the shit-pile that the modern Republican party gets away with. Benghazi is still constantly cited by the right, while Trump...Jesus Christ, every day is a thousand times worse. Astonishing levels of corruption and stupidity is just another Tuesday now.
It's amazing. Every framing somehow shifts like this.
How do you figure? The previous Dem president literally promised, "nothing will fundamentally change" and that's exactly what happened.
We have a faux democracy / uniparty of capital interests where one "side" manufactures consent for the other.
rightwardRatchet++;
Biden was speaking to the people who ended up bankrolling Trump when threatened with slightly increased taxes, and who are going to dump billions into the midterms. When you're in a country that wavers around 50/50 every election (even when the choice is between competent government or a spectacularly incompetent shitshow of grifters, pedos and thieves), yes, there are limits to what you can realistically do in one election cycle.
In any case, it's actually hilarious that rhetoric like this "oh well actually the Dems are to blame because they haven't stopped them yet" is precisely why Republicans are gung ho in fighting against ranked choice ballots. A secret they've learned is to field some fringe bullshit candidates like Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr, Kanye, and so on, and they need the sort of idiots that vote for idiots like that to be throwing away their votes because "it's a uniparty of capital". Ranked choice ballots -- real democracy -- would threaten that.
https://www.adn.com/politics/2026/08/07/worlds-wealthiest-ma...
Trump has repeatedly claimed ranked choice ballots are "corrupt", and House Republicans have repeatedly tried to ban it. Do you want to know why? Protip - it's because they rely on incredibly stupid voters.
Or why they forced a widely unpopular Dem candidate instead of having an actual primary last time around (not that they've shown they can even run a fair primary)?
edit to add:
> Ranked choice ballots -- real democracy -- would threaten that.
This is not the magical fix you think it is, since other countries with >2 parties suffer from the same systemic rot of revolving door politics, monopolistic corporate media, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)
Let's be real here - when people do the "both parties are the same", usually citing some chickenshit bullshit like you just did, they're almost always a terrible person who just loves Trump but won't just admit it.
Just own it, man.
Also, it's a strawman of your creation to say both parties are the same. They're two different facades for the same underlying monetary interests. Sorry you're so easily fooled by that, but it shows that it works.
That's your quote. Strawman? Not really, friend.
Do you know what the prefix uni- means? Let me quote Google for you-
"The prefix uni- means "one," "single," or "having only one." It comes from the Latin word unus"
I mean, you literally just blamed the Dems for Trump, which is simply amazing stuff. The reaching...don't your arms hurt?
It makes sense you'd resist and twist what I'm saying, because it means people like you are literally part of the problem.
Since you edited your post, I'll respond:
> "The prefix uni- means "one," "single," or "having only one." It comes from the Latin word unus"
They are still undeniably two separate parties that both inherit the most important traits from the root problem of dominating capital interests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniparty
> Uniparty is a political term referring to the idea that seemingly separate political parties, typically the two dominant parties in a liberal democracy, function in practice as a single entity. It is often applied to the Republican Party and the Democratic Party in the United States, or to the Conservative Party and the Labour Party in the United Kingdom.[1] The concept implies that despite their outward disagreements, the parties collaborate behind closed doors and share a unified set of political and economic interests, effectively creating a de facto one-party state. Proponents of this idea argue that such a "uniparty" suppresses genuine political alternatives and dissenting viewpoints by exercising control over the media, grassroots organisations, and ballot access regulations.[2]
No, the standard for Dems is "don't rock the boat". The Right moves things further to the right, the Dems don't let them go back to the left.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_Stat...
Note that Repubs have a more solid group than Dems in the Senate, because Dems have to win states with more compromising candidates like Sinema/Manchin/Lieberman/Fetterman/etc, whereas the Repub states are solidly Republican.
Just see how Repubs were able to stymie Democrat Supreme Court Justices, and how many they were able to install.
I would urge you strongly not to let yourself be this consumed by this kind of thinking. This is a distorted view of your fellow man - however accurate _some_ of it may be about _some_ people - regardless of their political affiliation. This kind of thinking is exactly how we got to where we are now and persisting in it will almost certainly get us more extreme reactions.
that said, the Republican establishment has proven itself unworthy of the office and should be shown the door in the next election cycle - in decimating fashion. So much so that it should cause a complete recalibration of that party.
It was seeing a black guy, and then possibly a woman, and then possibly a black woman get to the top that got us where we are now. The message is clear, don’t disrupt up our image of the hierarchy, or else we will support the worst of the worst, as long as they maintain the order.
My comment is undeniable fact. That it offends some people like you is not something you have the right to be protected from.
It’s amazing how much corruption is occurring for so little money. A million dollars a month is peanuts for such clear graft.
Now, prosecution immune, he can access the remainder of the market.
I think this is one big reason why bribes are commonplace in India at all levels while they are reserved only for the most profitable of endeavours in the US - enforcement. Consequently, the relative pricing matches that.
I suppose one realization is that a corruption index could look at the price of the cheapest government corruption as a proxy for how widespread it is.
But that is the real response. All politicians do some things that you disagree with, so even if you hate some of their behavior, you can still end up supporting them if on balance their policy decisions are more aligned with your interests.
Generally, I accept slight dissonance with politicians on matters of policy. I don't think it's okay to accept politicians blatantly breaking the law and sneering in the face of culpability.
There's very little incentive to engage with the topic in an intellectually honest way. Most would prefer to only contribute in a way that paints their team in a better light.
I guess that's why any political topics should be avoided on HN. Even with perfect moderation, one can't avoid the biases of individuals selecting when to or not to contribute to a discussion.
How on Earth do you imagine that a forum like this would discuss things like AI regulation without discussing politics? Beyond just regulation, there's inflation, tariffs, copyright, immigration... All of these things affect tech workers every day. A forum without politics is an absurd fantasy.
Could really keep going forever. There's no point in listing all the crime or norms that have been destroyed. Maybe it's good that someone is exploiting all the edge cases and treating our country as a game to be won. I don't see it that way. I love my neighbors.
I'd rather see $1 billion lost to graft than $100 billion lost to bad policy. But I'll admit, Trump's flagrancy makes it hard to ignore.
I'm generally libertarian or classic liberal, so I agree with maybe 70% of Republican policy and 30% of Democratic policy (assuming those are the only two choices), but lately that's been shifting closer to 50/50.
What's objectionable about Democrat policy from the "libertarian or classic liberal" perspective?
Militarized police is definitely one of the areas I disagree with Republicans on, along with abortion restrictions.
As for thought crimes, it's a toss up IMO, but I view Democrats as more likely to try to legislate against them.
I'd like federal government to be a whole lot smaller with more things being left up to state and local governments, so that's why I tend to side with Republican policy more often, but they're not much better either.
Some examples:
- Starting a war with Iran even after being warned about consequences including the Strait of Hormuz and having the US in a worse position now than before.
- Deciding to end birthright citizenship, allowing race-based stops, and a slew of unconstitutional actions that are helped along by a GOP-appointed SCOTUS majority. This includes rulings under shadow docket so they don't have to explain themselves.
- Literally pretending the 2020 election was stolen and creating legislation like forcing states to provide voter data and targeting election results in a very partisan way.
- A hodgepodge of tariffs that seem to change at the whim of Trump and exert significant complications downstream including inflation.
- Undermining public funding of US research in the sciences in what seems to be an unconstitutional manner. Examples include withholding granted funds based on political interference.
- Completely politicizing DOJ and many other critical government departments to the point that even conservative career government employees resign noting politicization of their offices. This is one reason we see such obvious corruption -- because the watchdogs can't investigate let alone prosecute people favored by this administration (e.g., Epstein files).
- Degrading US health care policy substantially with RFK Jr and bad appointments in a number of positions.
All of the above are well-supported by court cases, investigative reporting, and even official declarations by this administration. What happened to the fundamental belief in the GOP of executive restraint, state vs fed power, fiscal discipline, free-market trade, rule of law, and democracy?
That said, there are definitely Republicans here. They come out of the woodwork when the topic of government waste is brought up.
I'm far from being one of those myself, but I imagine the argument would be that any regulation one could propose to address this is bound to be worse than the problem itself, in terms of chilling effects on legitimate speech and commercial activity.
I don't really care about this country being a ""global leader"" in an industry, but not having to compete with the whole world for my job is sweet.
Thanks to Trumps policies reducing the amount of international students and workers visas, I was actually able to both get accepted into a grad school I never expected and land and a job straight out of college.
Turns out supply and demand also applies to labor, whodathunk.
I imagine these companies were already spending some amount on crawlers that would poll every N milliseconds to get an edge on some market-moving post. In turn I imagine Truth Social were also spending more serving this bot traffic.
Truth Social making $1M a month from it — a rounding error in Trump’s fortunes — doesn’t seem like a world-ending catastrophe.
Trump has done many bad things to erode trust in our institutions and government. When compared to him trying to overturn the results of an election, this too seems like a rounding error.
If a President is so corrupt that he is selling access for what is loose change for him - I mean what is $100k when he is getting $400million jet - their local offices will also feel comfortable nickel and diming them for small access. A trip to DMV will turn into "You want your driving license? That'll be $50 extra for me on top of the administrative fees". This is the reality of life in some low trust third world countries. Now coming to America!
But in the meantime lets celebrate equivocating and whataboutism.
Those who seek power seek it to: 1. Enrich themselves and their family 2. Wield it to achieve their means
The "pay to play" is rife everywhere. The contractors who get a sweet deal from local / fed government, the competition is stifled. The senators who make 10's of millions on insider information. The imminent domain cases where property is seized so corporation / donor can make millions. The "futures market" where insiders use their knowledge of product release date to swindle money for ordinary folks. The crypto scams, lotteries, casinos, street vendors, telemarketers, info-mercials, self-help gurus, snake oil sales, lemon peddlers, and more.
The truth is that the human system has not deviated far from the imposed hierarchy of feudalism / monarchy, we have only become better at concealing it, making it more potent in some ways. Power, corruption, opportunism, and greed are part of our nature. In an extremely large population with a democratic veneer, the levers of power become diffuse an ineffable, until they are blatantly shoved into our face.
In some ways I'm glad because its only through a constant vigilance and resetting the public vigilance that these kind of things can be controlled to any degree. Its an entropic force, seeping into the system at all times, only kept at bay by the disdain of the populace and fear in the hearts of the ruling elites.
Its definitely not a Republicans only phenomenon, the list on both sides of the aisle is embarrassingly long. But due to how our political system is setup, and human psychology, little will change by voting. People are tribal, and only have two choices in the matter, both of which are usually power-seeking corrupted. The prisoner's dilemma is giving the US a life-sentence.
Thanks for sharing this. It's a deep insight for me. I did not understand how the same people that were deeply skeptical about the state, ended up being so quiet when the state's corruption became flagrant and blatant. But this line of thinking makes a lot of sense.
In fact, the corruption is what the voters want, to show that they prioritize their group (white, men, rural, rich, benefactors, whatever helps you identify with the “winner” etc) at the expense of others.
One of the easiest and most assured paths to success, wealth, a comfortable life, influence, significance, and security, is by playing the power game. Hence, it will attract those who seek those ends, and discourage those who let beliefs, values, morals, or other similar concerns interfere with their own acquisition of power.
Its only inevitable then that the most corrupt players will eventually ascend, as they continue to amass money and power in such a system. Believing that the real difference is voting for "the good guys" and that will cause wide-sweeping change is probably what Tea Party voters thought in the early 2000s before they morphed into MAGA.
For those without the power to change reprehensible institutions, invoking this level of tribalism only further entrenches those with power because we remain powerlessly bickering with each other rather than uniting.
“That didn’t happen. And if it did, it wasn’t that bad. And if it was, that’s not a big deal. And if it is, that’s not my fault. And if it was, I didn’t mean it. And if I did You deserved it.”
If you would self-identify as a Democrat, ask yourself this: How do you feel about the recent Fauci findings, and the fact he needed a pardon to protect him against ever being prosecuted against potential crimes that are now being discussed in a Senate hearing.
Then `s/Fauci/Trump` and you'll arrive at your answer for Republicans.
I guarantee Trump will copy the template Biden established at the end of his term, and pardon all his cronies and family members on his way out the door in January 2029.
I have never voted for Trump, either in a primary or general election. I disagree with him strongly on much of what he does. I would describe myself as conservative, but definitely not MAGA. I'm what was Republican 10 or 30 or 50 years ago, not what they've turned into.
How can I defend this (pay for early access)? I don't. I oppose it.
Over the past few years, China has quietly purchased more than a billion barrels of oil from Russia and Iran at a discount in CNY rather than USD, pushing it into newly created strategic stockpiles that would be necessary for closure of a different Strait. After putting a strategic foot on the neck of refined product exports, they are now functionally acting as the largest part of the world's crude reserves, smoothing demand so that the global price does not spike and crash the global economy & global trade. If China was to keep up its normal buying cycle over the past few months, we would have easily seen >$200 oil. Instead, oil is a third that, and it's not even the limiting factor - refinery output drops on diesel from Ukraine's Kinetic Sanctions campaign are having a more significant bottleneck on petrochemicals right now than Hormuz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkA0bkb6ZO0
Say what you like about the motivation, this is a form of global leadership of the sort that America used to specialize in, and every drop of oil traded in CNY rather than "The Petrodollar" weakens the USD as the anchor currency.
I figure if I can get over a hundred people to sign up with me at $1K a month, I pass along the info, they save money, and I profit.
Amidoingitrite?
<JK, but, wow, what a time we're witnessing.>
The founders seem to have imagined that Congress (as a whole) would have an adversarial relationship with the President. But they failed to foresee the levels of partisanship we have today which have resulted in ~half of Congress being very closely allied with the President.
When the US was less divided, things like ethics or morals or even just not openly breaking the law mattered a lot more. Now, people (at least, the people who vote the most) care more about "is my party in power", and either don't know about or disregard everything else. I include "don't know" because if all you listen to is Fox news and social networks feeding you ideas that you already agree with then you can easily be completely unaware of things like this.
There's just no one with the power plus willingness to do so.
(for some reason this attracted a downvote? Obviously Republicans are never going to impeach a Republican President? I cannot imagine why you would think they would?)
The US is over.
Hard to understand if this is something actually unlawful or something people don't like.
I don't know if it is still a thing, but in the world of penny stocks and crypto there used to be subscription pump and dump channels, where influencers would charge $x / month, and coordinate pumps. "Signal" channels, as they were named.
This can't be too different. If not even more straight forward insider stuff.
Either that, or it is just another way to bribe your way closer to Trump.
Business idea for Trump: Sell access to his Truth Social posts, but bake in some latency. Those that pay most, will get to see the posts first (via API). Then after X minutes of posting the posts will go live for everyone to see. How fast you want to see the post between publishing and public access, depends on how much you want to pay. The less latency, the more you need to pay.
The seller is trying to push upfront sales by suggesting “These guys are doing it, and if you want to keep an edge you need to too”, (and journalists wanting to write about how corrupt this shit is are eagerly picking this up and boosting the signal by writing these sorts of articles).
In 5-6 months I suspect the consumer number to be down to 1-2 from the original batch, and those who are still paying will probably be doing so because the fact that the contract exists will probably slip through the cracks.
I suspect, having worked in this space for quite a while, that this specific data, faster, is useless and that there are other signals that indicate something is coming before it ends up on social media (esp TS).
Yes, there is historical data about prices moving after TS posts, but what I’m arguing is paying to get it ‘faster’ may not be worth anything if you can achieve that same end (knowing something is happening) through previously established channels.
Literally
This is a lot cheaper of a bribe than i.e. the gold plaque Tim Apple gave to Trump too.
It’s less directly beneficial than most people think it will be.
This isn’t some penny stock group. It’s the president of the USA who has command of the largest army in the world and signals his intentions to make governmental moves with a large impact on the markets via these posts.
Again, question as someone who doens't live in the US so I am not used how you can profit from this. I guess it may be because a war may impact the market and you can invest (or the opposite) with this, but in my mind bombing Iran wouldn't move the market by much (the consequences would, but by then everyone is on the same page).
Thank you!
Place a Kalshi bet on the outcome of something that a Truth Social post just settled?
Short a company he's about to bash?
Are there anything else of "value" on Truth Social. I haven't signed up for Truth Social, but is there actually anything else going on, besides Trumps post. Would any company have any reason to be on the platform, if Trump wasn't?
The first post they received after this system was turned on, was Trump literally posting "GREEN CANDLES. BEAUTIFUL GREEN CANDLES!!!"
This is an informal stock market term for asset values having a good day (or good minute, for that matter), with stock movements measured on a "Candlestick chart". This is a... not an admission, but a brag, that this is in fact an insider trading service, and that people who follow this insider trading service are going to make a lot of money. This is Trump announcing that he has rigged the stock market and you need to buy in right this moment if you want to remain competitive.
I am cautiously optimistic about this in some ways? Historically, the one thing you do not do in America is touch the money. There's now a hundred trillion dollars of capital that have an incentive for the lights to go out in the White House and to turn back on with JD Vance in a different seat.
And thats just one that got called out. Grift is kind of the new normal sadly.
https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/07/trump-teleprompter-a...
I remember someone getting into trouble for taking a trips in government vehicles. A time when scandal would cause people to stop being in politics...Seems quaint.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-06-23-mn-2062-s...
Trump does something > We react with "ooh no, orange man bad" > Dust settles > Get amnesia and continue our lives > And the cycle repeats
Wait, what? Clean energy investments, from the Trump admin? Sounds like a protection racket.
Where was the outrage when Pelosi and several members of congress were buying and selling stocks and front-running key legislation being passed that directly affected certain stocks in question? That sort of corruption was largely (and deliberately) ignored.
Now we have lead it to the point where corruption like this is allowed because no one was caught in the first place.
To quote what Pelosi said herself when asked about this conflict of interest: "We’re a free market economy, They (law makers) should be able to participate in that.” [0]
Essentially she has green-lighted said corruption, which she and others (except for AOC) have zero integrity even when both Trump and them are just as corrupt.
[0 ]https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/16/nancy-pelosi-federal-lawmake...
"But one should not succumb to the illusion that with an analysis of the fundamentals of the capitalist mode of production that everything decisive has already been said about capitalist societies"
Michael Heinrich, Introduction to the three volumes of Capital
That period is defined as starting about 100 years ago, after WW1. 100 years later the "late stage" capitalism outlived communism in USSR and China.
"But one should not succumb to the illusion that with an analysis of the fundamentals of the capitalist mode of production that everything decisive has already been said about capitalist societies"
Michael Heinrich, Introduction to the three volumes of Capital
This isn’t capitalism, it’s pure unfettered and uncontrolled greed.