The reason America is great is that even after electing such a corrupt president twice, the country still keeps running.
I feel the greatness of the American political system.
The counterfactual doesn't make sense. Which country would stop or grind to a halt after electing a corrupt president? I think almost all countries would keep running at a basically normal capacity until failure, yet that doesn't prove those countries have great systems.
This will need a lot more time and hindsight to make general statements in terms of the wider picture.
Many citizens are not able to maintain their rights. Citizens are getting shot and killed by masked federal agents marauding through their neighborhoods. Americans who speak with particular accents or have specific skintones or frequent certain restaurants are getting harassed by police non-stop.
The billions diverted from the government (tariffs, Venezuelian oil, etc) to enrich his own family and friends probably won’t make a dent in the American economy.
America is so great , it can sustain the appetite of corrupt presidencies.
I heard there's now an epidemic of people dumping their spare change jars on the gas station counter to get the last drops of gas they can. This is what a collapsed country is like. This is what the USSR was like just before it officially disintegrated. The relatively wealthy tech bubble this website inhabits is shielded from it to a large extent.
have you looked closely at the state of your institutions lately. 'The country keeps running' .. a large thing has quite a lot of momentum, it will travel quite far from that alone even if you do remove it's kneecaps.
inflation combined with little to no wage increase leading to total economic stall outside of the scope of any safety mechanisms, which precipitates an extreme cliff-face degradation of everyday life and commerce for citizens at every level.
or, another way : conditions that would lead to public rebellion en masse, which further stalls things past the economic strife.
And to head off at least one of the common denier objections, those deaths are reflected in the excess mortality figures, they’re not affected by how deaths were classified.
I.e., the number is not affected by how people were diagnosed, or how their cause of death was recorded. Claiming that there was a widespread trend of classifying unrelated deaths as COVID-19-related doesn’t affect that number at all. Here’s a CDC page about this: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/89507/cdc_89507_DS1.pdf
A (fairly obvious) historical analogy is how the Roman Empire survived the reigns of maniacs like Caligula and Commodus. It's hard to ascertain how reliable historical sources are, but as presented, both of these emperors were at the least pathological narcissists, and at worst completely out of their minds. They each squandered an enormous amount of the Roman treasury on vanity projects and undermined Roman institutions and the rule of law. And yet, the Roman Empire survived both of them for centuries.
Like you, I'm impressed with how resilient the American economy has been over the past few years. The tariffs, the war, the incompetence and open corruption seem like they should have done a lot more immediate damage. What's disconcerting is that much of the damage is to America's long term interests. So much of America's greatness has come from attracting talent from all around the world into a stable lawful society. That's what we're losing.
Insider traded is expected not illegal in commodity trading.
The market is intended to support consumers and producers of the commodity and there’s no requirement for either of them to inform the market of their intentions or information prior to a trade.
If a coffee growers knows a blight is killing their crops they can buy millions of futures before informing the market.
The bar for insider trading is higher but it’s not missing. Governmental employees for instance have explicit laws about their behavior as insider trading in commodities.
You can use your own proprietary information (for example knowledge about a coffee blight) to trade, but you can't use information stolen, misapropriated and specifically "non public government information" - The Eddie Murphy rule:
In this case, it sounds like they were privy to information outside of their own corporation which would impact their corporation. That $100k sub to the president looks to be a two-way, wall(ed garden) street. I wonder how parasocial it is
Even if they win, you're being extremely optimistic about what they'll do. Most of them are only slightly less corrupt than this, and definitely not enough to actively punish corruption. Most times they just say "let's move on" and grant a pardon.
> Most of them are only slightly less corrupt than this, and definitely not enough to actively punish corruption.
This feels like one of those "and that's why I blame the Democrats for everything Trump does, so I guess I have to vote for Trump's enablers" bit of horseshit, fwiw.
Both parties are completely in the pocket of special interests (billionaires, Israel, among others), however on the corruption file the GOP has an absolute monopoly. The corruption in the modern Republican party is simply off the charts. And this presidency has turned the corruption to the max, in the open. Every criminal knows that if you think you're going to get caught, the first thing to do is profess your love of Trump and declare yourself a Republican, and in a moment your crimes will be exonerated and it will all be called "lawfare".
> Most times they just say "let's move on" and grant a pardon.
The Democrats have constantly tried to be the "high road" party. The law and order, let the process run out party. The "let's make bridges and not walls" party. The Republicans have completely taken advantage of it. If they take power -- which I think there is going to be a "Surprise" by this criminal fascist -- they need to go absolutely scorched Earth. And screw slow walking with some Merrick Garland type of snail, speed-run sending every Trump and enabler to jail. Hegseth needs to spend his remaining days rotting in a dungeon.
I mean, Trump still sincerely calls Democrats "divisive". From the guy who gets his chuckling audience of halfwits to cheer on blowing up American cities, and who constantly attacks and disparages "blue states" and their residents.
I cannot for the life of me understand how Americans in the better states aren't talking about secession. You simply must send some of the ignorant, garbage states packing.
I think the democrats are definitely less corrupt but still extremely corrupt. It's just that the current administration is so vastly, mindbogglingly corrupt it blows all previous meanings of "extremely corrupt" out of the water. It's like comparing the memory safety of C++ to the memory safety of hexadecimal machine code: Yeah C++ isn't particularly safe but when you compare it to flipping bits with tweezers and a steady hand, it's miraculous.
The values do not bare comparison. Lookup the whitewater controversy (Clintons, 1990s). The loans in that fiasco were in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars. Trump just earned over 2,000,000,000$ in one year as president. One man. One year. There is simply no meaningful comparison to any previous scandals. Nothing touches the numbers currently being thrown around the administration.
Depends on who actually gets elected. A centrist candidate like Buttigeg/Ossoff/Harris/Newsom would almost certainly lead to no prosecutions. Someone with actual convictions like AOC or Ro Khanna might.
Fair. Although he seems to mostly target Trump, rather than the conditions that gave rise to Trumpism. Unless someone addresses that we’re stuck in a vicious cycle…
He at least seems to recognize the stakes, while the Schumer and Pelosi wing of the party (most of the party) simply do not. It's literally barbarism or democracy, and barbarism is currently winning, and if your opponent is a white supremacist fighting hard on the side of barbarism, you gotta say that plainly. Ossoff is one of the few democrats who will say it. He has the benefit of his opponent being particularly odious in his ties to literal Nazis, and the base he has to serve including a lot of black people who understand what a white supremacist looks like.
There's only one Democrat I simply will not vote for, because they transparently serve the oligarch class, and it seems like the one the Democratic establishment wants to nominate for president in 2028 (that candidate is Newsom, if it weren't obvious). A man who grins while destroying everything a homeless person owns is a monster who should never be allowed into any position of power. I don't know if the working class, in general, understand who Newsom is, but he's clearly not for the working class, and at least some of them will figure that out in a general election. He's the kind of California Republican that runs as a Democrat so he can win statewide in California.
Yeah, I had to hold my nose to vote for Harris, and I don't look forward to the continued dominance of that wing of the party. The good thing about Harris running instead of Newsom is that she's less likely to win the nomination. I hope primary voters are as fed up with the corporate Democratic party as the country in general is.
Ossoff isn't my first choice, but I believe a charming, good looking, southern white man, who isn't afraid to call a Nazi a Nazi, might have a pretty good shot at both the nomination and the general (though I think AOC is also a strong contender, she's popular nationwide). It's early, yet, but if Democrats can't win a state or two in the south, they're going to have a hard time taking the White House. The northern "blue wall" simply aint (it started falling apart almost immediately after it was named, and Trump hammered the nail through its heart).
If so, the guy needs to get his name and message out there pronto. I don't hear jack shit about him, so he clearly sucks at gaining attention, and that's one thing both Trump and AOC excel at. These days, that seems to matter more than almost anything else.
> It's early, yet, but if Democrats can't win a state or two in the south, they're going to have a hard time taking the White House.
The Democrats are going to have a hard time taking the White House. Full stop. The electoral map isn't pretty. And if current trends continue, it's gonna become almost impossible for a Democrat to win the Presidency after the next reapportionment.
> The northern "blue wall" simply aint
Preach. It was always a delusion. Democrats have a long history of taking their voters for granted. Then, of course, they are shocked when they give them the finger. Unfortunately I don't see this changing any time soon. The DSA faction seems similarly aloof, in their own way.
If you don't want Democrats to lose, figure out how to keep someone like Newsom off the ballot. You've all got two years to settle on someone who isn't odious.
They're simply in the oligarch level now. Everyone understands that they're above the law. Nowhere near enough Democrats are talking about the level of corruption clearout that would be required to bring accountability. Law enforcement are heavily compromised in the opposite direction. See the raid on Ilhan Omar, for example.
I agree. But it’s pretty apparent that this is a case of political targeting. Elon and Melania Trump likely committed some level of immigration fraud as well.
Ofc congresspeople should not be immune, but she is being investigated for the possibility that a relative who brought her to the US when she was a child (15) lied on her immigration paperwork.
It’s not clear to me how she’d be responsible for that and it’s also not clear to me what evidence they expected to turn up related to such an offense by raiding her home decades after the offense was alleged to have occurred.
He lied on his immigration forms which is a declaration under penalty of perjury. He was a paid employee without legal authorization to work in this country. He also failed to maintain his non-immigrant student status.
The same immigration laws that Republicans allege Ilhan's family broke?
Like coming here on a student visa, and working for startups, explicitly against the visa requirements.
While they're at it, they can look at Melania, who started working without a work visa, not to mention the granting of an O-1 visa to her in the first place (Eastern European model of zero prominence even in her home country, working for an agency that had ties to organized prostitution and sex trafficking).
Techo-nobles benefit as well. Just ask Eric Holder and centi-millionaire Obama. If you can reach the latter in his mansion on the exclusive island for the wealthy, that is.
I wondered about this so checked what happened to Joseph McCarthy. He was subject to a vote of censure in the senate, and became unpopular, but that was it. Of course he died shortly after of alcohol related conditions, so there's that..
We might get someone like Obama again who "looks forward and not backwards"... a logic that would result in all crimes being ignored if consistently applied.
No one thinks that there non-zero corruption in the Democratic Party. but we're at point where things like environmental policy, foreign relations, military alliances, tariffs, wars, and a whole bunch of actually important issues are being decided by how much Trump can extract from the arrangement.
Maybe they're just really good at hiding it, but I don't really remember a time under any administration when we could say something like 'as a country we're now supporting Russia and abandoning Ukraine and our traditional allies in Europe because they offer much better bribes'.
we should be going after corruption by anyone, its extremely corrosive. I don't understand why if that's a concern why we're supposed to be ok with turning it up to 11. Not only outright personal deal making, but the active replacement of foreign governments, state and local officials with people who know how to play that game properly.
What have you got to even begin to claim an equivalence here. Pelosi's stock trades? Biden's sleazy son?
There have already been rumors of some administration-wide pardon scheme but that'll probably fall on its face when put to the test, like almost everything else they do.
It's baffling to watch people destroy their reputations, careers and possibly risk their freedom for a chance to get close to power and pad their (possibly offshore/crypto) savings accounts. For as evolved as we pretend to be, we're really not very far beyond our "lizard brains" and a few missed meals away from mania. I was actually just thinking about Todd Blanche and the stupid games he's playing, flirting with contempt in a number of lawsuits. He's almost certainly got less time in the AG seat than Trump has in the president's and reality is going to slam into his brown nose very hard, sooner than later.
What makes you think the Democrats are going to do anything? They had multiple slam-dunk cases against Trump during the previous administration and they either did nothing at all, or slow-rolled the investigations and then gave them up when election season rolled around again.
If prison was an option, it would have already happened. They will get away with it. Dems aren't going to be able to break this administration. They will just ignore congress. What will congress do?
Even worse they (the GOP) is just lighting everything on fire now and leaving it in a dysfunctional state on purpose. Because they know for the next two years voters will just start blaming the Dems for everything that goes wrong. Trump will say "I would fix it but the radical left Democrats are too busy persecuting me. High gas prices are their fault, and Zelensky's etc"
What's happening in Brazil right now should give people pause about thinking that an interregnum with someone left-ish in power trying to restore normality will reset things to a saner state.
These are people totally willing to burn the crops and salt the fields. Trump could die tomorrow and a thousand heads would pop up looking to benefit from the anger and resent.
Voters obviously bear ultimate responsibility, but there's a lot more going on than just "voters are responsible." If that were true, corporations and wealthy individuals would have no interest in injecting money into politics, but alas... they do.
You're supposed to regurgitate the Brandies "“If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” statement.
You can never blame anything on propaganda and deliberate misinformation and manipulation of the public. And you have to assume all speakers have the same power and reach.
Unrestricted free speech in practice falls under what Anatole characterized : "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
Elon can lie and propagandize at scale with impunity. But let's blame voters.
Looking up and down this thread and there are people you would agree with about our situation being awful, while being extremely reluctant to blame a planned and coordinated influence campaign by an adversary. It amounts to calling our fellow citizens chumps, and that's rude.
The private sector, for slightly more benign reasons, and sometimes less benign reasons like keeping cigarettes from being blamed for cancer and emphysema, uses the same mechanisms to sell products. If that didn't work, nobody would pay for advertising and PR.
In a democracy where everyone has the right to vote, I think the “downside” that must be accepted is there will exist a spectrum of voters. Voters who only listen to sound bites, voters who mindlessly vote tribally, to voters who research, voters who understand second and third order effects. We also can’t assume we have total information of how the elected official will act throughout their term.
Even something as simple as, attractiveness mattering more in presidential candidates since the advent of television in homes.
At the same time, we had a system whose establishment largely looked down on middle class Americans who didn't go to college. Early to mid 2000’s through the great recession saw the middle class tighten, with no real improvement to healthcare or affordability (attempts were made but ultimately medical costs are still rising). Many middle class people rely on things like cheap gas, child care, and affordable heating among others.
Then you have a system whose leaders actively works to increase gas prices (regardless of EV incentives, you’re asking individuals to purchase new cars when a difference of 1 dollar in gas goes a long way), some states subsidizing green energy programs by additional taxes on oil and natural gas heating costs (just switch to heat pumps and take on a 0 interest loan for 10 years), and rising childcare costs partly due to regulations in childcare businesses.
Then you have someone who claims to be an outsider (he wasn’t), who clowns on the existing elites in debates, and makes vast promises. The other party doesn’t say anything about positive change they’ll bring, just that they aren’t Him. Why not try something different than the status quo over the last 2 decades?
With gas prices up, the Epstein scandal still unresolved, and another ME war, i think if many of middle America were told these would be the outcomes they would not have voted him in again.
We should have more empathy for our fellow Americans, and try to understand each other instead of assuming they want the worst for your side.
Jan 6 alone was enough to make voting for Trump morally unacceptable. Voting for fear and money over the preservation of freedom is a classic moral failure and every one of the people who voted for Trump not only knows it, but pretends to make it a cornerstone of their political beliefs. If they use Epstein and gas prices as excuses, fuck them.
You assume those voters believe Jan 6 was an insurrection. Many of them don’t. Whether thats a fault of the media/bubble they’re in or gross naivety/negligence is a different discussion.
If you go with the presumption Jan 6 was a mob that got out of hand (not my position, just one of the perspectives), then the idea that he wasn’t able to enact his agenda due to the opposing party, coupled with the shenanigans of the other option (no democrat primary for Kamala being one, with democrat party having done similar in the past with Bernie), then claims that the democrats are spinning Jan 6 and risking another term with him seem more reasonable.
Whether I or you agree with those premise is separate from what the zeitgeist is for much of America
I simply don't believe that any substantial number of voters think January 6 wasn't an insurrection. Trump openly spoke for a full month beforehand about how he was going to overturn the election, and continues to this day to insist that he should have been allowed to. People who claim it was a protest that got out of hand are not confused, naive, or in a media bubble; they're just lying.
My college educated father said J6'ers were just tourists. He denied there was ever a noose involved. I had to send photos.
The media bubble is something these people seek out. They avoid sources that offend them. They don't go to original sources or seek first hand accounts. When confronted before they get the talking points they're responses are rational, then after receiving orders they'll pivot on a dime.
It's not a different discussion. Ultimately the only way you wouldn't understand that Jan 6 was an insurrection supported by the president is through motivated reasoning, driven by their fear of all the rest of the nonsense and desire to put their hope in a strongman to fix it. Given the stakes, this continues to be morally unacceptable.
We (most of the world) also have to deal with well funded external government organisations constantly pumping out propaganda attempting to make sure we don't work together or have empathy/understanding of each other's views.
Push that through a media filter that optimizes for engagement and it's no wonder these things are happening.
I can agree with your position based on the election on 2016. He was a wildcard, and truly nobody could know exactly how he'd act in office.
I can't agree with your position based on the election of 2024. We knew exactly who Trump was, and it was obvious the second term was only going to be more extreme and unhinged.
And this is where you have to admit that the Democrats just ran a terrible candidate in '24. You might believe she was the better choice but she just did not appeal to the middle, and you need them to win.
I do blame the Democratic party and Biden especially for the major shitshow that was the selection of a presidential candidate. Their hubris and corruption definitely continued to enable this walking disaster of Trump's second term. The Democratic Party has failed America over and over again in terms of actually selecting candidates the people want over people whose "turn" it is.
I also blame the people who voted for Trump for Trump getting elected. Ultimately its the voters who chose this disaster of a presidency, despite obvious signs.
The second term I think was largely handed to him given the Democrats had no primary for Kamala, and frankly were tone deaf with what the “other side”’s needs were in a candidate.
Politicians flip flop, or hopefully truly develop different opinions after experience/learning more.
Kamala came off as a piece of clay molded in the last minute to appease groups just for their vote. A good politician makes that “molding” process come off more naturally. Her and Walz did not really resonate with voters, they were just not Him.
And that is a lesson I hope democrats or a third party has learned that they can’t just reflectively say “I’m not Trump,” they need to show that through their principals, track record, and message of unity.
Hillary admonished trump voters, many of whom are middle class union/laborers. Biden claimed he was pro union then broke up the railroad strike. Kamala couldn’t hold a conversation without some sound bite failure (doesn’t make her bad, just not a politician) and wasn’t elected in any primary.
I think we need to better hear and learn the context of the other side’s perspective to understand why they voted the way they did, then provide a better option not just a different one
> The second term I think was largely handed to him given the Democrats had no primary for Kamala, and frankly were tone deaf with what the “other side”’s needs were in a candidate.
Yeah, the biggest speedbump for Democratic candidates or left leaning people is the DNC.
From Hillary and the whole Debbie Wasserman-Schulz sabotaging Bernie, being caught doing it, denying it, then ... surprise! She's Hillary's campaign manager within 24 hours of resigning DNC leadership...
... through to one of the most uneducated electorates (which is on both sides), where the single most popular Google search on Election Day? "Did Biden drop out?"
I totally agree. Presidential elections have 2 (viable) parties, so voters are really only able to express 1 bit of information.
Individual people may have nuanced takes on politics when you talk to them. But it all gets compressed down to 1 bit on the ballot: left or right? Red or blue?
I wish we had a system with more parties, like they do in many other countries.
The interesting thing is how easily a democracy can be abused. In some ways, though in a more limited manner, it reminds us of Germany in 1933 or 1930s. Now the orange mafia in charge is, of course, not 1:1 comparable; ICE kills citizens willy-nilly style but they are not as systematic in their overthrow of the US democracy as the N people were in the 1930s. But many elements are very much comparable, such as the orange mafia trying to stifle critical journalism. That's a transition to a more authoritarian system.
Oh look, another comment casually linking current day United States to the rising Nazi state, with complete abdicatjon of nuance, and brashness of guilt by association. I havent even had my second cup of coffie, comrade
The US Gestapo publicly broke a man’s legs yesterday. I understand why it might be comforting to have more nuance, but there really isn’t any to be found.
Of course, have to be careful. You might get targeted. People posting online are being targeted by official gov agencies now. Freedom of speech is kind of gone now.
It much more like (imho) the period of time around the Gracchi brothers in the Roman Republic. Lots of corruption, where the corruption is "tolerable" by the masses and elites. One or two people pushing the corruption as far as possible and being reprimanded but not punished. The masses groaning but not buckling. It tracks even the politics of the time. Trump is a populist in his political platform. His supporters do believe he is draining the swamp. The same way the Gracchi brothers rode on a tide of populism while not being populists.
how his supporters genuinely believe he is ridding the government of corruption is a contradiction so plain and bare that it begs a psychological study.
It's amazing what a little bit of propaganda can do to a system of government.
It's motivated reasoning, he's hurting the right people and that is all that matters to them. They will sacrifice anything to put the "Other" in their place.
It's no different to when impoverished white men insisted that letting black men be "equals" in a philosophical sense was worth dying for. When you are so pathetic, so stupid, so inept and impotent and just unspecial, sometimes you will do whatever it takes to pretend to be special.
Projection is what they do all the time. Remember when they kept crying about "Identity politics"? They can't process their self consciousness.
America is a mental health wasteland.
A lot of these people are to this day holding a grudge about that black man. It's taught to entire generations of southerners still that the south didn't revolt to protect the institution of slavery, despite every document of the south stating such in plain english, because the alternative, as the confederacy plainly stated and feared publicly during the close of the war, was to recognize how awful a person you were to be willing to die to keep human beings as some other random white mans property and believe that god wanted that to be the case and to believe that you were inherently better than black people for zero reasons.
People in these worldviews have to start inverting reality at an extremely young age, and so they are well equipped to continue that in adulthood. These are the people that are desperate to have an external reason to be failures. To have something to blame. It's funny, because I don't get that. I'd rather things be my fault, because then I can change that. But these people genuinely struggle to accept that being wrong is normal. People like my brother who insist "I am never wrong" at the age of 40 as an alcoholic who blames not getting into a good college on "affirmative action", as if he could even compete with the average black kid in college. He's as smart as me at least, but because learning requires you to accept your own fallibility, he refused to engage with it, or he refused to accept that he struggled from ADHD, which he refuses to treat because he wants to believe stupid anti-mental-health stigmas despite direct evidence from family members that it fixes problems. He flew a confederate flag on his truck in high school, insisting "Heritage not hate". In fucking Maine (Woo Chamberlain!). As a Frenchman who had his culture erased by the literal KKK. Who shares family names with black people in Louisiana because of the previous time his culture was erased by the British before the US existed.
When I was 12, his young son was first getting into public school. He knows very little about the world, so he didn't realize how shitty school lunch had gotten since he paid attention to it in the 90s. So he blamed poor school lunch on Michelle Obama. This led him to assert that "All Democrats should be shot", to multiple family members who are democrats. In front of his house with more firearms than kitchen utensils. At least he takes gun safety seriously with his kid.
They just want to be proud but the only way for them to do that is to utterly reject reality and ensure there is a strong enough underclass for them to feel superior to. It's pathetic.
Where it gets worse is about a month ago he literally sat giving an interview at the WH where someone asked about insider trading and he said "My kids are insider trading all the time now".
Not even denying it, admitting it and proud of it.
It's not unique to democracy, any power structure can be abused by those who manage to seize the reigns. It's possible that a democracy could produce a system with limited power structures and diffuse responsibilities if its constituents desired such.
I've become cynical enough to expect the opposite at this point, which likely means reality will settle somewhere around the midway point.
It appears that one party has settled into reckless disregard for democratic and social norms because they can rest assured that the other party is feckless and only cares about "returning to normal" rather than holding anyone accountable or ensuring the harm can't be repeated. They're probably right.
All of this is thanks to the winners-take-all voting system which entrenches two parties and prevents any meaningful consensus to be reached at a national level. I think where the US is at now is inevitable given the voting system in place.
77 million voters voted for Trump after he'd shown them exactly who he was. I don't think you can blame the voter sentiments and information environment that leads to that outcome on the voting system.
A fragmented party system driven by Parliamentary coalition building might actually mean less accountability, since right-leaning independents and ex-Republicans disgruntled at the erosion of democratic and social norms under Trump suddenly have to worry about actual socialists being part of the alternative, and options that genuinely aren't MAGA to vote for who in practice will need to ally with MAGA
there's actually not that much that Dems can actually do to hold the Executive branch accountable unless they have a supermajority in the senate or the GOP wakes up from their cult-like stupor
the real problem is SCOTUS and their "gifts" to Trump
and yes, the DOJ under Biden failed spectacularly by not aggressively prosecuting Trump and putting him behind bars
I'm sure there will be, but perhaps the saving grace is that a lot of financial crimes contain a criminal as well as a civil component, and people can only be pardoned for criminal offenses.
So, if the Democrats have any modicum of backbone and integrity(doubtful), they might not be able to jail anyone but they would be able to claw back illegally gotten funds, sometimes at a 3x multiple
I would love to know where you got this analysis from. Hopefully not from polling or CNN. I think we all learned a lesson from using those data points.
The best indicator for this is the futures market. It never lies.
The futures market (or at least the ones I was watching) predicted that Donald Trump would lose both of the presidential elections he ran in (especially the first).
That should serve as a simple existence proof that the futures market CAN and does sometimes "lie".
I hope you're correct, but suspect you'll be disappointed.
Even if the House and Senate flip, majorities will be slim enough to prevent anything major. Certainly unlikely we get any impeachment trials in the Senate, though I'd love to see Hegseth get tossed out.
Prior to recent Supreme Court decisions many regulatory agencies and things like the Justice Department were independent agencies that could provide some check on executive branch abuses. But that is gone now.
Congress can perform investigations, but without the President's signature they cannot take actions that have the force of law. Impeachment cannot remove any official from office without 2/3 support in the Senate. Congress CAN refuse to fund some activities, but the administration has been ignoring existing legal restrictions on spending.
So no, Congress won't take any meaningful action to reign things in for at least two years, regardless of who wins the election unless we also overthrow the government in some way.
The CFTC, since Trump, has become entirely corrupt. Note that the proliferation of sports gambling in prediction markets, which is explicitly illegal, largely exists because the CFTC refuses to enforce their own legal mandate against Kalshi and Polymarket.
It’s actually worse; when states try to shut down sports betting in prediction markets, the CFTC fights on behalf of Kalshi with the reasoning that only the federal government has the mandate to regular futures and prediction markets. And then they refuse to regulate!
The CFTC is supposed to have 5 chairs, with no more than 3 in the same party. The administration has gotten around this rule by simply removing 4 of the commissioners and then refusing to appoint replacements. In effect, the CFTC has only 1 republican chair and no opposite party representation. The level of corruption is staggering.
> sports gambling in prediction markets, which is explicitly illegal
It’s a bit more complicated than that. The CFTC argues that under Dodd-Frank any bet on a future event that can have economic consequences is regulated by the CFTC.
It’s a bit silly because this obviously wasn’t the intention of the legislation, and it would also mean anyone betting outside a CFTC regulated exchange is in illegality. But it’s valid enough that The case will probably go to the Supreme Court.
> The CFTC is supposed to have 5 chairs, with no more than 3 in the same party.
Of course it's a policy that helps the two-party system become further entrenched. It should be no more than 2 from the same party. (Not that it matters given the fact only one is appointed, but still.)
> The trading in question was eye-popping. In a two-minute window starting at 6:49 a.m. in New York on March 23, traders sold contracts equivalent to at least 6 million barrels of Brent and West Texas Intermediate, more than 8.5 times the volume that had changed hands that time in the morning over the prior week. A similar increase in activity was observed in futures tied to the S&P 500, with contracts worth more than $2 billion in notional value traded — far more than would be expected in an otherwise quiet premarket session. Unusual volumes were also visible in natural gas and other futures markets.
> Those trades paid off 15 minutes or so later, when Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was reversing his threat to attack Iranian infrastructure unless the country re-opened the Strait of Hormuz.
Likely the entire purpose of the war is to create opportunities for corruption in my opinion.
Total corruption by the orange clown-thief and those around him benefitting from their heist here.
The only partially redeeming thing we will soon witness is that he will lose the upcoming elections, no matter how much he plans to cheat. The TechBros pissed off too many people and stole too much money in addition to that. All that money should be given back, directly to the people. The superrich should not be allowed to control and manipulate democracies in general, even though they are currently prepping up the eyeliner-boy as successor to the orange insanity clown.
I think this is the part that makes things aggravating. You can have all the rules, monitoring, surveillance you want, but it is all rather pointless if someone simply makes for the machinery to not apply to them.
Edit: And, if we accept that this is the default state, then lets dismantle the surveillance part. Might as well be free in that aspect, right?
I was thinking that with Trump's recent buying of diesel from Russia seemingly in contravention of a 2022 law banning energy imports from Russia, passed 100-0 in the senate. I mean what's the point of having laws if they are ignored?
That assumes the justice system is willing to prosecute. Yet they are subservient to the executive, which Trump controls with more power than has ever been given to any president before. (Thanks SCOTUS!) Congress has also yielded its oversight power. Judicial branch has resisted only somewhat, usually ending with the supreme court ruling overwhelming in Trump's favor.
It is important to acknowledge and name corruption for what it is. It's just hard to continue to have novel reactions to it. It reminds me of an article I read once about cartel violence in Mexico, and how people typically become desensitized to the violence.
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[ 11.1 ms ] story [ 228 ms ] threadAnd in the end, that is the game they are playing. Starve the beast (aka, the US government) until not much more than the military remains.
This will need a lot more time and hindsight to make general statements in terms of the wider picture.
America is so great , it can sustain the appetite of corrupt presidencies.
unless you dropped the '/s' ?
“[Kim Jong Un] speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same."
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/15/trump-north-korea-...
inflation combined with little to no wage increase leading to total economic stall outside of the scope of any safety mechanisms, which precipitates an extreme cliff-face degradation of everyday life and commerce for citizens at every level.
or, another way : conditions that would lead to public rebellion en masse, which further stalls things past the economic strife.
the type of thing 1780s France saw.
I.e., the number is not affected by how people were diagnosed, or how their cause of death was recorded. Claiming that there was a widespread trend of classifying unrelated deaths as COVID-19-related doesn’t affect that number at all. Here’s a CDC page about this: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/89507/cdc_89507_DS1.pdf
Like you, I'm impressed with how resilient the American economy has been over the past few years. The tariffs, the war, the incompetence and open corruption seem like they should have done a lot more immediate damage. What's disconcerting is that much of the damage is to America's long term interests. So much of America's greatness has come from attracting talent from all around the world into a stable lawful society. That's what we're losing.
(edit: /s but not about making the government some money off this corruption)
The market is intended to support consumers and producers of the commodity and there’s no requirement for either of them to inform the market of their intentions or information prior to a trade.
If a coffee growers knows a blight is killing their crops they can buy millions of futures before informing the market.
https://www.akingump.com/en/insights/alerts/the-eddie-murphy...
This feels like one of those "and that's why I blame the Democrats for everything Trump does, so I guess I have to vote for Trump's enablers" bit of horseshit, fwiw.
Both parties are completely in the pocket of special interests (billionaires, Israel, among others), however on the corruption file the GOP has an absolute monopoly. The corruption in the modern Republican party is simply off the charts. And this presidency has turned the corruption to the max, in the open. Every criminal knows that if you think you're going to get caught, the first thing to do is profess your love of Trump and declare yourself a Republican, and in a moment your crimes will be exonerated and it will all be called "lawfare".
> Most times they just say "let's move on" and grant a pardon.
The Democrats have constantly tried to be the "high road" party. The law and order, let the process run out party. The "let's make bridges and not walls" party. The Republicans have completely taken advantage of it. If they take power -- which I think there is going to be a "Surprise" by this criminal fascist -- they need to go absolutely scorched Earth. And screw slow walking with some Merrick Garland type of snail, speed-run sending every Trump and enabler to jail. Hegseth needs to spend his remaining days rotting in a dungeon.
I mean, Trump still sincerely calls Democrats "divisive". From the guy who gets his chuckling audience of halfwits to cheer on blowing up American cities, and who constantly attacks and disparages "blue states" and their residents.
I cannot for the life of me understand how Americans in the better states aren't talking about secession. You simply must send some of the ignorant, garbage states packing.
If the remaining MAGA cultists want to take to the street and die for their godking then so be it. The criminals must be punished.
not slightly. Just less openly.
And given how there's no punishment for the current regime, they might start thinking they could also get away.
Americans need to take a page out of france. Look at how they protest!
The values do not bare comparison. Lookup the whitewater controversy (Clintons, 1990s). The loans in that fiasco were in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars. Trump just earned over 2,000,000,000$ in one year as president. One man. One year. There is simply no meaningful comparison to any previous scandals. Nothing touches the numbers currently being thrown around the administration.
"I get why people voted for him. Because even before he came on the scene, American politics was coin-operated.
Money goes in, favors come out. It’s been running on corporate money, secret money, billionaire money. Both sides.
And when members of Congress aren’t fundraising from lobbyists and corporate PACs, they’re trying to dodge getting bombed by these super PACs.
Spectacular wealth buys an ever greater share of power over our national affairs. And this corruption is why nothing works for ordinary people."
Enough of the voter base will cut the nose to spite the face
> It's early, yet, but if Democrats can't win a state or two in the south, they're going to have a hard time taking the White House.
The Democrats are going to have a hard time taking the White House. Full stop. The electoral map isn't pretty. And if current trends continue, it's gonna become almost impossible for a Democrat to win the Presidency after the next reapportionment.
> The northern "blue wall" simply aint
Preach. It was always a delusion. Democrats have a long history of taking their voters for granted. Then, of course, they are shocked when they give them the finger. Unfortunately I don't see this changing any time soon. The DSA faction seems similarly aloof, in their own way.
It was thinking like this about Kamala that got us Trump.
I don't want Newsom either, but if it's a choice between Newsom and Trump 3.0 (if he swings it) or JD Vance, I'd still take Newsom any day.
but I'm afraid that the dem party will work against her just like they did Bernie in 2016, which got us the mad king
They're simply in the oligarch level now. Everyone understands that they're above the law. Nowhere near enough Democrats are talking about the level of corruption clearout that would be required to bring accountability. Law enforcement are heavily compromised in the opposite direction. See the raid on Ilhan Omar, for example.
I don't think congresspeople should be above the law. If she committed immigration fraud she should be convicted and deported.
It’s not clear to me how she’d be responsible for that and it’s also not clear to me what evidence they expected to turn up related to such an offense by raiding her home decades after the offense was alleged to have occurred.
These are all willful acts by an adult.
Like coming here on a student visa, and working for startups, explicitly against the visa requirements.
While they're at it, they can look at Melania, who started working without a work visa, not to mention the granting of an O-1 visa to her in the first place (Eastern European model of zero prominence even in her home country, working for an agency that had ties to organized prostitution and sex trafficking).
But seriously - insider trading should be straight to jail for a politician, at any level or party.
The relative lack of consequences there enabled this go around.
With Reagan and Iran-Contra, Reagan was never charged, most officials were pardoned, and only one person served any jail time.
With Bush (43) there were no consequences for any of it. Not he war under false pretenses, not the domestic spying, not the torture.
And with Donald Trump (45) a single judge recently appointed by Donald Trump held up legal proceedings until he was elected President, again.
Yes. That's deeply bad precedent.
Roger Ailes founded Fox News, explicitly, to avoid a recurrence of even that minimal level of consequence.
He was threatened with impeachment for lying about it after he found out it had happened.
Maybe they're just really good at hiding it, but I don't really remember a time under any administration when we could say something like 'as a country we're now supporting Russia and abandoning Ukraine and our traditional allies in Europe because they offer much better bribes'.
we should be going after corruption by anyone, its extremely corrosive. I don't understand why if that's a concern why we're supposed to be ok with turning it up to 11. Not only outright personal deal making, but the active replacement of foreign governments, state and local officials with people who know how to play that game properly.
What have you got to even begin to claim an equivalence here. Pelosi's stock trades? Biden's sleazy son?
It's baffling to watch people destroy their reputations, careers and possibly risk their freedom for a chance to get close to power and pad their (possibly offshore/crypto) savings accounts. For as evolved as we pretend to be, we're really not very far beyond our "lizard brains" and a few missed meals away from mania. I was actually just thinking about Todd Blanche and the stupid games he's playing, flirting with contempt in a number of lawsuits. He's almost certainly got less time in the AG seat than Trump has in the president's and reality is going to slam into his brown nose very hard, sooner than later.
Remember the whole system is filled with institutionalists who believe following in the program, no matter who sets the standards.
We need to focus on systemic change rather than populism.
What's happening in Brazil right now should give people pause about thinking that an interregnum with someone left-ish in power trying to restore normality will reset things to a saner state.
These are people totally willing to burn the crops and salt the fields. Trump could die tomorrow and a thousand heads would pop up looking to benefit from the anger and resent.
And the answer is, largely, nothing.
It’s a shame, really.
- Elon Musk, June 5 2025 (https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930667528696828120)
Voters obviously bear ultimate responsibility, but there's a lot more going on than just "voters are responsible." If that were true, corporations and wealthy individuals would have no interest in injecting money into politics, but alas... they do.
He's got a lot to lose!
Will be done by the end of the year (tm)
You can never blame anything on propaganda and deliberate misinformation and manipulation of the public. And you have to assume all speakers have the same power and reach.
Unrestricted free speech in practice falls under what Anatole characterized : "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
Elon can lie and propagandize at scale with impunity. But let's blame voters.
The private sector, for slightly more benign reasons, and sometimes less benign reasons like keeping cigarettes from being blamed for cancer and emphysema, uses the same mechanisms to sell products. If that didn't work, nobody would pay for advertising and PR.
Even something as simple as, attractiveness mattering more in presidential candidates since the advent of television in homes.
At the same time, we had a system whose establishment largely looked down on middle class Americans who didn't go to college. Early to mid 2000’s through the great recession saw the middle class tighten, with no real improvement to healthcare or affordability (attempts were made but ultimately medical costs are still rising). Many middle class people rely on things like cheap gas, child care, and affordable heating among others.
Then you have a system whose leaders actively works to increase gas prices (regardless of EV incentives, you’re asking individuals to purchase new cars when a difference of 1 dollar in gas goes a long way), some states subsidizing green energy programs by additional taxes on oil and natural gas heating costs (just switch to heat pumps and take on a 0 interest loan for 10 years), and rising childcare costs partly due to regulations in childcare businesses.
Then you have someone who claims to be an outsider (he wasn’t), who clowns on the existing elites in debates, and makes vast promises. The other party doesn’t say anything about positive change they’ll bring, just that they aren’t Him. Why not try something different than the status quo over the last 2 decades?
With gas prices up, the Epstein scandal still unresolved, and another ME war, i think if many of middle America were told these would be the outcomes they would not have voted him in again.
We should have more empathy for our fellow Americans, and try to understand each other instead of assuming they want the worst for your side.
If you go with the presumption Jan 6 was a mob that got out of hand (not my position, just one of the perspectives), then the idea that he wasn’t able to enact his agenda due to the opposing party, coupled with the shenanigans of the other option (no democrat primary for Kamala being one, with democrat party having done similar in the past with Bernie), then claims that the democrats are spinning Jan 6 and risking another term with him seem more reasonable.
Whether I or you agree with those premise is separate from what the zeitgeist is for much of America
The media bubble is something these people seek out. They avoid sources that offend them. They don't go to original sources or seek first hand accounts. When confronted before they get the talking points they're responses are rational, then after receiving orders they'll pivot on a dime.
Push that through a media filter that optimizes for engagement and it's no wonder these things are happening.
I can't agree with your position based on the election of 2024. We knew exactly who Trump was, and it was obvious the second term was only going to be more extreme and unhinged.
I also blame the people who voted for Trump for Trump getting elected. Ultimately its the voters who chose this disaster of a presidency, despite obvious signs.
Politicians flip flop, or hopefully truly develop different opinions after experience/learning more.
Kamala came off as a piece of clay molded in the last minute to appease groups just for their vote. A good politician makes that “molding” process come off more naturally. Her and Walz did not really resonate with voters, they were just not Him.
And that is a lesson I hope democrats or a third party has learned that they can’t just reflectively say “I’m not Trump,” they need to show that through their principals, track record, and message of unity.
Hillary admonished trump voters, many of whom are middle class union/laborers. Biden claimed he was pro union then broke up the railroad strike. Kamala couldn’t hold a conversation without some sound bite failure (doesn’t make her bad, just not a politician) and wasn’t elected in any primary.
I think we need to better hear and learn the context of the other side’s perspective to understand why they voted the way they did, then provide a better option not just a different one
Yeah, the biggest speedbump for Democratic candidates or left leaning people is the DNC.
From Hillary and the whole Debbie Wasserman-Schulz sabotaging Bernie, being caught doing it, denying it, then ... surprise! She's Hillary's campaign manager within 24 hours of resigning DNC leadership...
... through to one of the most uneducated electorates (which is on both sides), where the single most popular Google search on Election Day? "Did Biden drop out?"
Individual people may have nuanced takes on politics when you talk to them. But it all gets compressed down to 1 bit on the ballot: left or right? Red or blue?
I wish we had a system with more parties, like they do in many other countries.
It may not turn into totalitarian, but if walks like a duck, sound like a duck, it's wise to wonder as it may very well be some poultry.
It's amazing what a little bit of propaganda can do to a system of government.
It's no different to when impoverished white men insisted that letting black men be "equals" in a philosophical sense was worth dying for. When you are so pathetic, so stupid, so inept and impotent and just unspecial, sometimes you will do whatever it takes to pretend to be special.
Projection is what they do all the time. Remember when they kept crying about "Identity politics"? They can't process their self consciousness.
America is a mental health wasteland.
A lot of these people are to this day holding a grudge about that black man. It's taught to entire generations of southerners still that the south didn't revolt to protect the institution of slavery, despite every document of the south stating such in plain english, because the alternative, as the confederacy plainly stated and feared publicly during the close of the war, was to recognize how awful a person you were to be willing to die to keep human beings as some other random white mans property and believe that god wanted that to be the case and to believe that you were inherently better than black people for zero reasons.
People in these worldviews have to start inverting reality at an extremely young age, and so they are well equipped to continue that in adulthood. These are the people that are desperate to have an external reason to be failures. To have something to blame. It's funny, because I don't get that. I'd rather things be my fault, because then I can change that. But these people genuinely struggle to accept that being wrong is normal. People like my brother who insist "I am never wrong" at the age of 40 as an alcoholic who blames not getting into a good college on "affirmative action", as if he could even compete with the average black kid in college. He's as smart as me at least, but because learning requires you to accept your own fallibility, he refused to engage with it, or he refused to accept that he struggled from ADHD, which he refuses to treat because he wants to believe stupid anti-mental-health stigmas despite direct evidence from family members that it fixes problems. He flew a confederate flag on his truck in high school, insisting "Heritage not hate". In fucking Maine (Woo Chamberlain!). As a Frenchman who had his culture erased by the literal KKK. Who shares family names with black people in Louisiana because of the previous time his culture was erased by the British before the US existed.
When I was 12, his young son was first getting into public school. He knows very little about the world, so he didn't realize how shitty school lunch had gotten since he paid attention to it in the 90s. So he blamed poor school lunch on Michelle Obama. This led him to assert that "All Democrats should be shot", to multiple family members who are democrats. In front of his house with more firearms than kitchen utensils. At least he takes gun safety seriously with his kid.
They just want to be proud but the only way for them to do that is to utterly reject reality and ensure there is a strong enough underclass for them to feel superior to. It's pathetic.
Thank goodness for the little things.
As for the rest, I feel you.
Not even denying it, admitting it and proud of it.
There's a two-year delay baked into the system. If the house flips (and it almost certainly will), the house will be able to investigate these things.
I expect fireworks.
It appears that one party has settled into reckless disregard for democratic and social norms because they can rest assured that the other party is feckless and only cares about "returning to normal" rather than holding anyone accountable or ensuring the harm can't be repeated. They're probably right.
All of this is thanks to the winners-take-all voting system which entrenches two parties and prevents any meaningful consensus to be reached at a national level. I think where the US is at now is inevitable given the voting system in place.
A fragmented party system driven by Parliamentary coalition building might actually mean less accountability, since right-leaning independents and ex-Republicans disgruntled at the erosion of democratic and social norms under Trump suddenly have to worry about actual socialists being part of the alternative, and options that genuinely aren't MAGA to vote for who in practice will need to ally with MAGA
the real problem is SCOTUS and their "gifts" to Trump
and yes, the DOJ under Biden failed spectacularly by not aggressively prosecuting Trump and putting him behind bars
Me too. Fireworks of "We have to move on" and "We have to reach out", etc.
So, if the Democrats have any modicum of backbone and integrity(doubtful), they might not be able to jail anyone but they would be able to claw back illegally gotten funds, sometimes at a 3x multiple
I would love to know where you got this analysis from. Hopefully not from polling or CNN. I think we all learned a lesson from using those data points.
The best indicator for this is the futures market. It never lies.
That should serve as a simple existence proof that the futures market CAN and does sometimes "lie".
At least in the U.S. they we're spot on predicting Trump's victory 2022 & 2016, and congressional control. 2020 predicted the loss.
If your willing to share how you read futures markets for predicting elections I'd love to hear it.
I expect fireworks as well, as in flashy, noisy but nothing real accomplished.
Even if the House and Senate flip, majorities will be slim enough to prevent anything major. Certainly unlikely we get any impeachment trials in the Senate, though I'd love to see Hegseth get tossed out.
Congress can perform investigations, but without the President's signature they cannot take actions that have the force of law. Impeachment cannot remove any official from office without 2/3 support in the Senate. Congress CAN refuse to fund some activities, but the administration has been ignoring existing legal restrictions on spending.
So no, Congress won't take any meaningful action to reign things in for at least two years, regardless of who wins the election unless we also overthrow the government in some way.
Curious what you think should be done.
No offense, but often when I see this kind of comment there's a call for… unspecified action?
It’s actually worse; when states try to shut down sports betting in prediction markets, the CFTC fights on behalf of Kalshi with the reasoning that only the federal government has the mandate to regular futures and prediction markets. And then they refuse to regulate!
The CFTC is supposed to have 5 chairs, with no more than 3 in the same party. The administration has gotten around this rule by simply removing 4 of the commissioners and then refusing to appoint replacements. In effect, the CFTC has only 1 republican chair and no opposite party representation. The level of corruption is staggering.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. The CFTC argues that under Dodd-Frank any bet on a future event that can have economic consequences is regulated by the CFTC.
It’s a bit silly because this obviously wasn’t the intention of the legislation, and it would also mean anyone betting outside a CFTC regulated exchange is in illegality. But it’s valid enough that The case will probably go to the Supreme Court.
Of course it's a policy that helps the two-party system become further entrenched. It should be no more than 2 from the same party. (Not that it matters given the fact only one is appointed, but still.)
> Those trades paid off 15 minutes or so later, when Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was reversing his threat to attack Iranian infrastructure unless the country re-opened the Strait of Hormuz.
Likely the entire purpose of the war is to create opportunities for corruption in my opinion.
The only partially redeeming thing we will soon witness is that he will lose the upcoming elections, no matter how much he plans to cheat. The TechBros pissed off too many people and stole too much money in addition to that. All that money should be given back, directly to the people. The superrich should not be allowed to control and manipulate democracies in general, even though they are currently prepping up the eyeliner-boy as successor to the orange insanity clown.
https://www.wsj.com/finance/regulation/flurry-of-suspicious-...
Edit: And, if we accept that this is the default state, then lets dismantle the surveillance part. Might as well be free in that aspect, right?