Comment by thrance

> I do not hate anyone, besides the fascists currently running the show.

So you hate a lot of people, then. Democrats made "hate has no place here" a key slogan back around the time of George Floyd, and some people at the time felt like it was just posturing and pandering to the zeitgeist. This level of hatred that's now being openly leveled against anyone you feel like labeling a "fascist" does nothing but prove those people right.

You do see how this is ultimately self-defeating, right? It utterly destroys your faction's credibility, especially because your faction is no longer even maintaining the pretense that they're opposed to hate "in all forms", despite that being a key piece of messaging only a few years ago. This destroys trust, and trust is your most valuable asset.

> We do agree on the fact the democrats lost soundly, after leading a pathetic campaign against a lunatic who by any metric should have been defeated without a sweat. But I think that's where we disagree most: Trump won through populism, and wether you like it or not (I don't), we now live in populist times.

I think populism is a large part of it, but is not the only reason he won. The Uncommitted movement shares some blame there, as does the increasingly hateful progressive rhetoric that is still being given the largest of megaphones. As a prime example of this, I watched the entirety of the most recent (I think?) House Oversight Committee meeting, and was abjectly embarrassed by the level of demagoguery on display by the Democratic members of the committee. The irony was that it was a meeting about "government efficiency"! The constant obstructionism and deflections and blatant sound-byte farming by the Democrats on the panel really highlighted their inability to be "efficient", and really could not have made the Republicans' points more effectively. It's a sad day when I find myself agreeing with the logic and reasoning of some of the most toxic Republican members of Congress, especially when I feel that the delivery of their points was highly objectionable. I (un?)fortunately believe that logic and reasoning can stand apart from delivery, so despite how utterly abrasive some of the speakers were, I'm forced to admit they demonstrated sound reasoning. Despite all of that, the whole thing was a complete and total "self-own" by the Democrats, and cannot even charitably be described in any other way. The bar was set pathetically low, and still they could not clear it.

To me, Democrats are demonstrating that, at every level, all they can do is complain about how "bad" the other side is, while constantly ignoring the concerns of the people that voted that side into power. Going back to my "push" and "pull" analogy, while the "pull" of populism certainly helped get Trump elected (the why of which is worth a lot of inspection, but would be an entire tangent of its own), the "push" of the Democrats' increasing detachment from reality is also partially to blame. A whole debate should be had at the relative contributions of each of these things to Trump's victory, but to try to claim as fact that "populism was the largest factor" is both arrogant and ignorant, especially a mere 3 months later. These are the kinds of complicated, nuanced things that are rarely ever conclusively decided, so to try to push a specific conclusion as fact at this point is elitist speculation at best, and outright misinformation at worst.

> The democrats were playing as if Project 2025 didn't exist, as if the republicans were still playing by the rules. If Biden said one tenth of the sh*t Trump said during his campaign, it'd have become a central talking point of Trump's.

I suspect this has more to do with Democrats trying to avoid drawing attention to their lack of a "Project 2025" of their own. Democrats are often the loudest voices for sweeping change (universal health care, for example), and yet have never managed to put together a coherent plan of action to the level of detail/scope of "Project 2025". I don't agree with much in Project 2025, but after reading through some of it I'm impressed by the level of detail and thought put into it. It represents a massive undertaking across a broad range of expertise, and yet is more coherent, coordinated, and cooperative than anything the Democrats have been capable of achieving in a very long time (if ever!). Democrats' constant infighting and alienation of their moderates cripples their ability to execute at this level, and I don't think they want to draw any attention to that.

> And now millions will get deported, all US aid in the world suddenly ended, causing millions more to suffer. Minorities are losing rights by the day, etc.

I feel like this is another area we disagree. I don't think people who are not in the country legally have a right to stay here. I think deportations are an important mechanism in a country's border security policy, and not engaging in them is antithetical to having an effective entry process. There's a reason why we want people to go through the legal process(es) of entry; I don't think folks who do an end-run around that should be rewarded by being allowed to stay.

I also highly doubt "all US aid in the world" would end. They've been very clear about this: their benchmark for aid is "is it in the US' interests?" This is a complicated question, but there certainly is a lot of aid that the US gives that is still in this administration's interests.

To make an earlier point concrete: Blowing this up into "all US aid might suddenly end" is unnecessarily sensationalist and almost certainly untrue. This is an excellent example of the kinds of rhetoric that I find to be providing the most "push" from the Democratic party. If I'm being charitable and giving the public the benefit of the doubt, I suspect only people who already hate this administration actually take this rhetoric at face value. Others, like myself, are skeptical of it, because even putting a moment's skepticism into it makes the argument fall apart. The original executive order pausing aid [0] has explicit carve-outs for aid programs to be resumed or exempted from the pause, and makes it clear that the purpose of the pause is to review the programs for consistency with US' interests (as defined by the current administration). This is not "all US aid in the world might suddenly end", even under the most charitable of interpretations.

> Also, why are you labelling me as a conspiracist? Did I ever lie? What DOGE is doing is illegal. They are employing neonazis. They are going after judges and journalists. Congress is doing nothing to oppose this. Notice how I didn't make a single prediction. Shouldn't this alone be enough to be concerned?

Because of your logic and reasoning demonstrated so far? See the previous paragraph for an example. People around you are injecting their own invented intentions and biases on the actions that are happening, and you are accepting them without question. I don't question the reporting on the actions themselves (somewhat, there's a lot of mixing of fact and conjecture), and I absolutely agree that DOGE is doing things that are questionably legal (and likely illegal, given what I know). The problem is, those actions are also entirely consistent with the purported goal of the department: auditing the spending of the federal government. When auditors audit a company, they generally are given full access to all financial records, so they can do their job effectively. Their actions so far have also been entirely consistent with their charter as established by the EO that created DOGE [1].

Whether or not what DOGE is doing is actually illegal (i.e. represents executive overreach) is for legal system to decide, not you, me, or the legislature (unless you or I happen to actually be part of said system). And they will do so; but that is not something that happens instantly. And by all accounts, Musk and his team are simply executing orders from Trump, even if they're being given large leeway in how they execute them. This means they are doing what they're doing with the explicit authority of the executive branch; how far that authority goes is not something I'm qualified to assess. Then again, the majority of folks who are speculating on it are also unqualified to make such assessments, but that hasn't stopped them from doing so, nor has it stopped you from taking their opinions at face value.

I would need some citations on the "going after judges and journalists" bit, because that's news to me.

> You put too much faith in the strength of our democracy and institutions.

No, I've just stopped putting so much faith in the loudest voices in the Democratic party. They've been wrong more often than they've been right, have demonstrated an incredible ability to alienate some of their most powerful allies and largest demographics, and have demonstrated a complete inability to unify anyone, preferring instead to be increasingly divisive as they lose ground.

[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/reev... [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/esta...