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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2579 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Discussion Topic: Trump

I'm not a fan of this New Nihilism where concerned liberals determine that the whole damn system is broken if we can elect a clown and as big a fan of Paul Gilding as I am, he's got a Hugo Drax view of the world; there's a short li'l chapter in The Great Disruption where the world gets better and lots of problems are solved because countless millions die. He's sympathetic and he sees it as regrettable but also inevitable. That sort of eschatological viewpoint can be limiting. It's like the preppers - when you've got a basement full of guns and tuna, every crisis is "TEOTWAWKI."





blackbootz  ·  2579 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I would like to think that I take a principled semi-nihilistic view of our representative government, as opposed to a knee-jerk emotional response (see "I have not forgiven the DNC" for the tone I distinguish myself from).

That said, I do think that the fact our system allowed a clown to the highest office in the land is a point for nihilism. At the very least, it means a large part of our electorate is politically illiterate and prey for demagoguery of the ugliest, stupidest kind.

kleinbl00  ·  2578 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    That said, I do think that the fact our system allowed a clown to the highest office in the land is a point for nihilism.

I agree with you there. However, the fact that progressives turned protesting into the new brunch is a point against. It's easy to forget that the Trumpkins are numerically inferior by any measure and that the establishment apparatus is no less establishment just because they've been left out in the cold.

    But the courts have generally held that new administrations need to justify such reversals. The Reagan administration tried to rescind a rule requiring airbags in passenger vehicles. The courts found the move unjustified.

    “It is not a relevant or adequate defense to say that the president told us to do it,” said Michael Eric Herz, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York.

    The Trump administration could face a host of similar challenges — the requirement that agencies must find two regulations to eliminate before enacting any new rules is already being challenged in federal court.

    In addition, Democratic attorneys general from New York, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Oregon and Vermont have threatened in recent days to sue the Trump administration to try to block some of the regulatory rollbacks.

    It is a radical role reversal for state attorneys general — their Republican colleagues spent the last eight years suing the federal government to block the enactment of many Obama-era rules. Now the Democrats are planning to try to prevent many of these same rules from being revoked.

    “Demolish the administrative state? I don’t even know what that means,” Attorney General Maura Healey of Massachusetts said during a visit to Washington last week, where she and other state attorneys general met with Mr. Trump at the White House.

Leashes Come Off Wall Street, Gun Sellers, Polluters and More

It's fairly obvious to state that this isn't politics as usual. It's still definitely politics, though.

blackbootz  ·  2578 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    the fact that progressives turned protesting into the new brunch is a point against.

Oh, jesus, that's hilarious. Sad, but cuts for a reason.

    It's fairly obvious to state that this isn't politics as usual. It's still definitely politics, though.

It looks and smells like the same ballpark as politics. But when does it pass a tipping point into constitutional crisis, or worse? That's not a rhetorical question, even if it's unanswerable. It may be the case that the tipping point is self-evident when it comes, but I've had to cop new strategies for dealing with circus that the administration is and constantly second-guessing how soon society will grind to a halt. (The cracked article with 5 strategies helps--remember that outrage is now a currency exchanged on most of the internet, so don't get played.)

Part of the impetus of this discussion was me finding out how other people are dealing with this on a daily basis. The best I've come to find is a selective news diet, meditation, and homework.

kleinbl00  ·  2578 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The 2000 election was a constitutional crisis. It sucked. The outcome was sub-par. But we survived.

I think I'm less shell-shocked than most of my friends because my understanding of governance is one of custom, not of rules. Yeah, rules are nice and rules are the ultimate arbiter but if you're politicking and run afoul of "rules" you done fucked up a lonnnnnnng time ago.

Government is a collection of people who argue about shit in order to determine the best path forward. It's currently headed by a man who doesn't even really want to enter into discussion. If you are a firm believer in rules, this is bad for the government. If you believe more in custom, this is bad for the head.

Young'uns forget that when Reagan was shot, Al Haig sort of inadvertently declared himself de-facto President.

It was interesting for about a week. Thing is, it takes a lot of decisions to make a government and most of them never make it to the President.