A thin majority in an election with a poor (and/or constrained) turnout in a lop-sided nonsense of an electoral system with disproportionate weightings voted for parts of this.
Trump won 77,284,118 votes, or 49.8 percent of the votes cast for president.
Voter turnout nationally in 2024 was 63.9 percent (below the 66.6 percent voter turnout recorded in 2020).
So 31.8 percent of the eligible voters in the USofA voted for Trump in the 2024 elections, most eligible voters didn't vote for Trump.
Eligible Voters aside, an even greater percentage of people in the USofA didn't vote for Trump being too young or otherwise disenfranchised.
Of those that did vote for Trump it's a leap to say that all of them voted to fire the chief government records keeper, to empower DOGE to gut departments, etc; like Brexit, many of those who voted for it had no real idea what they had voted for.
In the campaign Trump ran to avoid jail he repeatedly stated he wasn't aware of the Project 2025 playbook, that he would be all things to all people. People who voted for Trump voted for what they heard, what they thought he promised.
Most of the citizens in the USofA did not vote Trump, not all of those voted to gut the government, the sciences, foreign aid, etc.
Even completely ignoring the dubious ethics invoked - a lot of non Americans will get worse outcomes than the US because of this. Given the work that has been cancelled so far, some of those non Americans are likely already dead.
That’s a bold statement. US is a young country. Empires that lasted longer by 5x have been consigned to the dust bin of history with nary but an oral tradition to remember them. If looking at americas military capability is any indication it is already in steep decline especially with regards to its seeming inability to not crash or destroy million/billon dollar hardware purely based on incompetence and short staffing. Its inability to prosecute an illegal war in the ME (occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan) is also a great example of the lack of exceptionalism exhibited by americas armed forces and their inept leadership.
Reference please! To my knowledge DOGE has not uncovered any obvious cases of financial fraud. Every example of their cost-cutting that I've looked at (and I've dug!) has been lawfully congressionally appropriated funds being spent according to guidelines from the previous administration making reasonable interpretations of the congressionally passed budget. The new administration forbids spending on initiatives related to increasing diversity, equity, or inclusiveness or decreasing climate change, as well as disapproves of most kinds of foreign aid. None of this is fraud.
The only issue I have with that claim (ignoring the obvious blurring between whether it's fraud or waste), is that it's all being reported by a single party with no validation or accountability.
Because the other party is perceptively playing political games rather than being bipartisan? Or maybe the massive misinformation being played out is drowning out legitimate voices..
They claimed to discover .. yes, but they're essentially too young, dumb, and inexperienced to understand the oddities in the data .. the 100+ year old peole are a result of COBOL NULL entries for people with no birth record dates (which is a real thing in 300+ million people), etc.
Also:
DOGE Claimed It Saved $8 Billion in One Contract. It Was Actually $8 Million
The biggest single line item on the website of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team appears to include an error.
You're brainwashed. They're robbing you of essential services and you're still going "yeah, go on!!".
Notice how they only go after things the common man might benefit from? Surprisingly DOGE uncovers no waste whatsoever in the many billion dollars military contracts.
What do you think will happen to your country when the ban on medicaid takes effect? Will the millions that rely on it simply die? Do you even care or are you totally void of empathy?
It's not the government's job to take money from Paul to give to Peter. I fundamentally object to this. I take the view of Austrian economics. IMO, all the corporate monopolies we have today are caused by excessive government money printing, weaponizing the people's money against the people. How about having empathy for the worker, the value creator, who has been robbed of money and, worse, opportunities as a result of government-backed corporate monopolies and regulatory moats?
You can't imagine how bad things have been for some of us.
Nationalistic flamewar isn't ok here, regardless of which nation you have a problem with or how right you are or you feel you are.
Please don't post flamewar comments to HN generally. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
(Fortunately your earlier comment history seems fine, so this should be easy to fix.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> You Americans voted for this
A thin majority in an election with a poor (and/or constrained) turnout in a lop-sided nonsense of an electoral system with disproportionate weightings voted for parts of this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...
The 2024 election had historically high turnout. The 2nd highest turnout since 1968, the 7th highest since 1932.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...
Trump won 77,284,118 votes, or 49.8 percent of the votes cast for president.
Voter turnout nationally in 2024 was 63.9 percent (below the 66.6 percent voter turnout recorded in 2020).
So 31.8 percent of the eligible voters in the USofA voted for Trump in the 2024 elections, most eligible voters didn't vote for Trump.
Eligible Voters aside, an even greater percentage of people in the USofA didn't vote for Trump being too young or otherwise disenfranchised.
Of those that did vote for Trump it's a leap to say that all of them voted to fire the chief government records keeper, to empower DOGE to gut departments, etc; like Brexit, many of those who voted for it had no real idea what they had voted for.
In the campaign Trump ran to avoid jail he repeatedly stated he wasn't aware of the Project 2025 playbook, that he would be all things to all people. People who voted for Trump voted for what they heard, what they thought he promised.
Most of the citizens in the USofA did not vote Trump, not all of those voted to gut the government, the sciences, foreign aid, etc.
2 replies →
It actually wasn't even a majority of the popular vote.
Not quite a majority, but a narrow plurality:
49.8% Trump, 48.3% Harris
Though you could include the .49% that voted for RFK (you'd maybe need to decide which side to add Jill Stein Green and Libertarian candidate too).
Most people probably wanted "change" and there was no alternative option. If your democracy offers only two options, then polarization is the outcome.
Even completely ignoring the dubious ethics invoked - a lot of non Americans will get worse outcomes than the US because of this. Given the work that has been cancelled so far, some of those non Americans are likely already dead.
Why do they deserve the worst outcome?
America is and will be fine.
That’s a bold statement. US is a young country. Empires that lasted longer by 5x have been consigned to the dust bin of history with nary but an oral tradition to remember them. If looking at americas military capability is any indication it is already in steep decline especially with regards to its seeming inability to not crash or destroy million/billon dollar hardware purely based on incompetence and short staffing. Its inability to prosecute an illegal war in the ME (occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan) is also a great example of the lack of exceptionalism exhibited by americas armed forces and their inept leadership.
What point are you trying to make?
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Reference please! To my knowledge DOGE has not uncovered any obvious cases of financial fraud. Every example of their cost-cutting that I've looked at (and I've dug!) has been lawfully congressionally appropriated funds being spent according to guidelines from the previous administration making reasonable interpretations of the congressionally passed budget. The new administration forbids spending on initiatives related to increasing diversity, equity, or inclusiveness or decreasing climate change, as well as disapproves of most kinds of foreign aid. None of this is fraud.
The only issue I have with that claim (ignoring the obvious blurring between whether it's fraud or waste), is that it's all being reported by a single party with no validation or accountability.
Because the other party is perceptively playing political games rather than being bipartisan? Or maybe the massive misinformation being played out is drowning out legitimate voices..
1 reply →
They claimed to discover .. yes, but they're essentially too young, dumb, and inexperienced to understand the oddities in the data .. the 100+ year old peole are a result of COBOL NULL entries for people with no birth record dates (which is a real thing in 300+ million people), etc.
Also:
DOGE Claimed It Saved $8 Billion in One Contract. It Was Actually $8 Million
The biggest single line item on the website of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team appears to include an error.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/upshot/doge-contracts-mus...
DOGE is not a trustworthy reporter, they are incentivised to make big, bold, bullshit claims.
[flagged]
4 replies →
You're brainwashed. They're robbing you of essential services and you're still going "yeah, go on!!".
Notice how they only go after things the common man might benefit from? Surprisingly DOGE uncovers no waste whatsoever in the many billion dollars military contracts.
What do you think will happen to your country when the ban on medicaid takes effect? Will the millions that rely on it simply die? Do you even care or are you totally void of empathy?
It's not the government's job to take money from Paul to give to Peter. I fundamentally object to this. I take the view of Austrian economics. IMO, all the corporate monopolies we have today are caused by excessive government money printing, weaponizing the people's money against the people. How about having empathy for the worker, the value creator, who has been robbed of money and, worse, opportunities as a result of government-backed corporate monopolies and regulatory moats?
You can't imagine how bad things have been for some of us.
1 reply →
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Not gonna lie, sitting here in a collapsing and feckless Europe, I'm supper jelly.
Same, the UK government definitely needs a similar audit.