It's been building for a long time; it's not recent per se, just accelerated.
2025 showed that you can't just go "ok, it's over now, we'll go back to business as usual" (like I know the limp-wristed Dems will want to do) or it'll repeat after every other election until it's successful. You just cannot have this many people constantly being convinced they live in this alternate reality for much longer without civilization collapse.
But I think it's gone too far and we're witnessing the fall of the empire in real-time. I'm just hoping that fall won't screw up the rest of the world too much, but I'm pretty sure it will.
More to the point, it's the collapse of the carefully balanced entente around things like WMD and war crimes that will be our undoing.
Recent events have brought this into sharp focus.
This is really the glue that holds it all together -- that we and our allies haven't even had to think about these things for our entire lives up until now.
I hate to be hyperbolic, but I fear that fear of these things will soon become a looming presence in our lives. For the rest of our lives. And kids' lives. And grandkids' lives.
No we got to this point because the hope for a better future evaporated. People are thirsty for answers. Any answer to this question will have a big following.
Gambling, influencing, day trading, kick out the immigrants, anything works as long as it can promise to change your life for the better.
Quite the opposite actually. Democrats have been so complacent with the proto-fascists for so long, that republicans will now justify murdering a mother in broad daylight, filmed under 3 angles clearly showing she is fearing for her life. The solution to fascism is not compromise and weakness.
Please know there are people across the aisle that view it differently. When things calm down, talk with them and learn. Nobody wins when we insist the world is only as we alone view it.
My aunt is a republican lobbyist. She is also a drunk. She regularly texts my family things like how my other aunt, who is disabled, should kill herself rather than take medicaid money. She has told her daughter, who has attempted suicide twice, that she'd be better off dead than be bisexual. She texts us things about how every somali person in the US is going to get what is coming to them.
How should I talk with her to learn things?
Frankly, I'm absolutely fucking sick of leaders within the GOP saying that a woman is a domestic terrorist trained in using cars as weapons after an ICE goon murders her. Call me when the republicans send Trump to the gallows. Then I'll consider opening my heart up.
No. Democrats always take the high road and what has that gotten them? A fascist regime and a political movement (MAGA) that floods the zone with bullshit when the gestapo does something bad.
Republicans stormed the capitol, killed police officers, and delayed the election process. What happened to them? Some lackeys got put in jail, and no one at the top faced consequences. Trump then pardoned all of those criminals for their service. Crickets from MAGAts and Republicans.
Laying your weapon down while someone keeps hitting literally just results in you ceasing to exist. Trump and all of his cabinet members are openly vile and called the woman who was shot a domestic terrorist before her body was even cold. Same situation with Charlie Kirk: they were calling the shooter a radical leftist before the body was cold. Meanwhile Dems are asked to disavow every action if it's even somewhat related to them and to "talk and learn"... yeah no that window has passed.
Hold your side accountable for the insane lies, corruption, and awful things they do first then maybe we can talk about reaching across the aisle.
EDIT: stop deluding yourself into thinking you're a "center right" voter too. It's obvious from previous interactions and your post history that you're drinking the MAGA koolaid.
The onus is on you to explain how Obama's terms are relevant to what ICE is doing now. Did Obama:
- post AI videos mocking immigrants?
- open a facility called Alligator Alcatraz?
- say "homegrowns are next" when talking about deportations?
- immediately call victims of ICE violence domestic terrorists?
- deport people to a labor camp (CECOT)?
- send ICE into cities of his political opponents to cause property damage, stoke tensions, detain people, and execute them? (see: Chicago, Minneapolis, etc.)
- allow ICE commanders to throw up Nazi salutes?
There is no decency; cruelty and theatrics are the point. This admin is on a revenge tour and is using ICE as their secret police force. If that's not obvious by now, you should get out of the MAGA bubble and improve your media diet.
The ACLU called Obama a monster, and they call Trump a monster, too.
Obama set the precedent, I agree Trump added childish and cruel rhetoric. ( But the use of ICE is the same with Obama and Trump. )
I do not agree on Nazi actions, etc. That’s exaggeration and it’s not useful.
So do we agree that on the deployment and tactics of ICE that Obama and Trump are roughly equal? If you don’t condemn Obama, is it fair to say you don’t condemn the use of ICE to deport?
> But the use of ICE is the same with Obama and Trump.
> So do we agree that on the deployment and tactics of ICE that Obama and Trump are roughly equal
No, they're not the same as I've demonstrated. I'll ask again: did Obama do those things above? You can keep pretending that "ICE is only there to deport people" but as reality has shown, that's not true. They show up to events to intimidate, they tear gas and shoot protestors, etc. all the while cabinet members cover for their abhorrent behavior because the cruelty is the point.
This conversation is obviously going nowhere so I'll let you keep living in fantasy land and obfuscating with "but Obama!!" like usual. Maybe you'll repent one day.
Look at the points I mentioned and tell me how they're the same. I don't contest that law enforcement does awful things with their power, but this administration emboldens them is the difference.
> I do not agree on Nazi actions, etc. That’s exaggeration and it’s not useful.
What? You disagree with the actions but it's also exaggerated?
> deployment and tactics of ICE that Obama and Trump are roughly equal
Answer this for me: did Obama send ICE agents into cities as retribution? Did he send ICE agents into schools, hospitals, protests, etc.[0]?
If ICE agents are known to abuse detainees, then why would you want them in sensitive areas? By that metric, these administrations are not even close to being the same.
I talked to these people minutes ago, on the thread about the murder. Trumpists are finding ways to rationalize this assassination. Just like they did Jan 6, the bombings of fishing boats near Venezuela, the other exactions ICE committed, Trump being Epstein's closest friend, etc.
Then I listened to the Vice President claiming she was an "unhinged left-wing lunatic", that she had been radicalized and that she was trying to hurt the ICE agent, and thus she deserved to be shot. A complete, abject lie trying to justify this murder, when everyone saw in the videos she was clearly trying to escape, and no agent was on her path.
EDIT: looking at your comment history, it seems like you are trying to justify her assassination too. We are not friends, no friend of mine attempts to rationalize away the murder of innocents by masked brownshirts. I hope you can escape this death cult sometimes soon, then maybe we could find common ground.
It’s entirely possible to prosecute the heads of all of these horrific things into the stone age, comb through internal data and throw every agent who’s murdered someone in jail, and not punish everyday people who just cast a vote.
They already are. Playing nice and hoping the other side will come to their senses and return to normalcy doesn’t make sense when they’ve already shown you they will try to destroy you regardless.
I don't buy the 'both sides' POV except in the longest historical view. Right now it's just not true.
One team is a feckless collection of timid hesitators who is trying to defend a social welfare policy from 70 years ago, and the other team believes their volatile leader is infallible and will direct revenge at whatever they are pointed to by the latest 3am tweet.
>One team is a feckless collection of timid hesitators who is trying to defend a social welfare policy from 70 years ago
What is this referring to?
>and the other team believes their volatile leader is infallible and will direct revenge at whatever they are pointed to by the latest 3am tweet.
>It's just not the same.
What does this have to do with gp's claim about cycle of reprisals by both parties? It can be simultaneously possible to admit that the leader of one party is more sane than the other, and to observe that both parties are engaging in cycles of retaliation when they get in power, and that egging on even more retaliation is going to make the situation worse.
I was responding the effort to paint the two sides as equal.
The cycle-of-reprisals is a separate point. In a two-party system, transfer of power means change. The minority party will always paint that as reprisal, so if you judge by who-complains-the-loudest, they will look the same. The churn of claims and counter-claims by politicians in the media has become a game with very predictable behaviors.
But if you look at actions, IMO they behave very differently.
> What does this have to do with gp's claim about cycle of reprisals by both parties? It can be simultaneously possible to admit that the leader of one party is more sane than the other, and to observe that both parties are engaging in cycles of retaliation when they get in power, and that egging on even more retaliation is going to make the situation worse.
I think the reason we are in the situation we are in now is that the last administration wasn't nearly retaliatory _enough_ after J6
>I think the reason we are in the situation we are in now is that the last administration wasn't nearly retaliatory _enough_ after J6
Jailing Hitler sure stopped his movement in its tracks! Or maybe we should have gone even further and set a precedent for to jail people for decades for having "dangerous" political opinions?
While I agree that the question of "are we jailing this person for their political opinions" gets into skeevy areas, if we refuse to enforce laws just because elections and politics are involved we might as well not have any laws that involve elections and politics (and I don't think "lawlessness starts at the top" is a recipe for a healthy society).
> It can be simultaneously possible to admit that the leader of one party is more sane than the other, and to observe that both parties are engaging in cycles of retaliation when they get in power, and that egging on even more retaliation is going to make the situation worse.
Then I suppose the situation will get worse? I don't understand the point of your analysis. This isn't a situation where people are swatting away olive branches - the Trump administration works hard to ensure that their political opponents are furious at them. They repeatedly state, in a variety of contexts, that they have no interest in finding common ground with the other party: it's good that you're miserable if you don't agree with their political objectives, and if you get in their way you deserve to be shot.
A consequence of that large political movement and its leaders is that numerous people have been murdered. MAGA can't wash its hands of the consequences of its beliefs and actions.
There were hundreds of prosecutions. Then SCOTUS declared the president immune. Then the bad guy got reelected and pardoned everyone. Then started launched truly malicious prosecutions of political enemies. Cases which thankfully are dying due to lack of merit.
One side is doing all the bad things and the other is simply struggling to stop them. Being cynical helps nothing.
I'm curious why you edited your comment? To appear more rational while making irrational tropes?
> Only one side
If you're going to use that tired old trope, maybe Reddit is a more suitable
place for you. Thanks for reminding me to add it to my blocklist though.
Why is it impossible for most people (more specifically Americans in my experience) to act in good faith during political discussion? You can't even admit wrongdoing or poor phrasing without them twisting your words or deliberately misunderstanding you.
we just saw the biden admin not do that, and the polarization only grew. They very specifically slow walked their investigation into trump's treason, so they wouldnt have to Nuremberg him.
trump mind you, is nuremburging non-voters. they dont exactly have side beyond trying to work and eat
The two sides aren't remotely the same. One side has become authoritarian and shifted far to the right. The current administration is seeking to undermine liberal democracy to give the executive all the meaningful power to enact Christian nationalism. It's also a cult of personality where the president can do no wrong, and anyone who defies him gets sent death threats.
Trying and punishing members of the Trump administration for their crimes is not the same as sending people to concentration camps for having a color of skin that Miller hates.
It is not insightful to say "oh isn't this the same thing that the fascists are doing." It is anti-insight.
> Trying and punishing members of the Trump administration for their crimes is not the same...
Do you really believe that's being "vindictive", though? If so, why?
That's a big part of the problem: people characterize following the law as being "vindictive", and comparable to actual vindictiveness. It's a big part of why the Democrats have been so unwilling to hold anyone to account.
> It is not insightful to say "oh isn't this the same thing that the fascists are doing."
Wanting vindictiveness is absolutely the same thing the fascists are doing. Part of what I'm pointing out is that we should characterize the actions that are needed in a more rational way.
> most maximally vindictive candidates
I think that's how we got to this point today, tbh.
It's been building for a long time; it's not recent per se, just accelerated.
2025 showed that you can't just go "ok, it's over now, we'll go back to business as usual" (like I know the limp-wristed Dems will want to do) or it'll repeat after every other election until it's successful. You just cannot have this many people constantly being convinced they live in this alternate reality for much longer without civilization collapse.
But I think it's gone too far and we're witnessing the fall of the empire in real-time. I'm just hoping that fall won't screw up the rest of the world too much, but I'm pretty sure it will.
More to the point, it's the collapse of the carefully balanced entente around things like WMD and war crimes that will be our undoing.
Recent events have brought this into sharp focus.
This is really the glue that holds it all together -- that we and our allies haven't even had to think about these things for our entire lives up until now.
I hate to be hyperbolic, but I fear that fear of these things will soon become a looming presence in our lives. For the rest of our lives. And kids' lives. And grandkids' lives.
No we got to this point because the hope for a better future evaporated. People are thirsty for answers. Any answer to this question will have a big following.
Gambling, influencing, day trading, kick out the immigrants, anything works as long as it can promise to change your life for the better.
pussy-footing and reaching across the isle never did anyone of good conscience any good.
I think you and the GP are using completely different definitions of "revenge".
Cost of living and social media. Populists are a symptom.
Imprisoning fascists who break out laws and shoot people dead is good.
The fact that the fascists want to kill people for being brown doesn't change this.
Center/right voter here. I believe you are correct.
Quite the opposite actually. Democrats have been so complacent with the proto-fascists for so long, that republicans will now justify murdering a mother in broad daylight, filmed under 3 angles clearly showing she is fearing for her life. The solution to fascism is not compromise and weakness.
We live in different worlds, friend.
Please know there are people across the aisle that view it differently. When things calm down, talk with them and learn. Nobody wins when we insist the world is only as we alone view it.
Yeah, nah. No friendship here.
My aunt is a republican lobbyist. She is also a drunk. She regularly texts my family things like how my other aunt, who is disabled, should kill herself rather than take medicaid money. She has told her daughter, who has attempted suicide twice, that she'd be better off dead than be bisexual. She texts us things about how every somali person in the US is going to get what is coming to them.
How should I talk with her to learn things?
Frankly, I'm absolutely fucking sick of leaders within the GOP saying that a woman is a domestic terrorist trained in using cars as weapons after an ICE goon murders her. Call me when the republicans send Trump to the gallows. Then I'll consider opening my heart up.
> talk with them and learn
No. Democrats always take the high road and what has that gotten them? A fascist regime and a political movement (MAGA) that floods the zone with bullshit when the gestapo does something bad.
Republicans stormed the capitol, killed police officers, and delayed the election process. What happened to them? Some lackeys got put in jail, and no one at the top faced consequences. Trump then pardoned all of those criminals for their service. Crickets from MAGAts and Republicans.
Laying your weapon down while someone keeps hitting literally just results in you ceasing to exist. Trump and all of his cabinet members are openly vile and called the woman who was shot a domestic terrorist before her body was even cold. Same situation with Charlie Kirk: they were calling the shooter a radical leftist before the body was cold. Meanwhile Dems are asked to disavow every action if it's even somewhat related to them and to "talk and learn"... yeah no that window has passed.
Hold your side accountable for the insane lies, corruption, and awful things they do first then maybe we can talk about reaching across the aisle.
EDIT: stop deluding yourself into thinking you're a "center right" voter too. It's obvious from previous interactions and your post history that you're drinking the MAGA koolaid.
Read these. Were you this upset when Obama was using ICE? If not, why?
https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/speed-over-fairn...
https://www.aclu.org/news/smart-justice/violation-constituti...
https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/exiled-obama-adm...
The onus is on you to explain how Obama's terms are relevant to what ICE is doing now. Did Obama:
- post AI videos mocking immigrants?
- open a facility called Alligator Alcatraz?
- say "homegrowns are next" when talking about deportations?
- immediately call victims of ICE violence domestic terrorists?
- deport people to a labor camp (CECOT)?
- send ICE into cities of his political opponents to cause property damage, stoke tensions, detain people, and execute them? (see: Chicago, Minneapolis, etc.)
- allow ICE commanders to throw up Nazi salutes?
There is no decency; cruelty and theatrics are the point. This admin is on a revenge tour and is using ICE as their secret police force. If that's not obvious by now, you should get out of the MAGA bubble and improve your media diet.
You didn’t answer the question.
The ACLU called Obama a monster, and they call Trump a monster, too.
Obama set the precedent, I agree Trump added childish and cruel rhetoric. ( But the use of ICE is the same with Obama and Trump. )
I do not agree on Nazi actions, etc. That’s exaggeration and it’s not useful.
So do we agree that on the deployment and tactics of ICE that Obama and Trump are roughly equal? If you don’t condemn Obama, is it fair to say you don’t condemn the use of ICE to deport?
> But the use of ICE is the same with Obama and Trump.
> So do we agree that on the deployment and tactics of ICE that Obama and Trump are roughly equal
No, they're not the same as I've demonstrated. I'll ask again: did Obama do those things above? You can keep pretending that "ICE is only there to deport people" but as reality has shown, that's not true. They show up to events to intimidate, they tear gas and shoot protestors, etc. all the while cabinet members cover for their abhorrent behavior because the cruelty is the point.
This conversation is obviously going nowhere so I'll let you keep living in fantasy land and obfuscating with "but Obama!!" like usual. Maybe you'll repent one day.
The ACLU condemned Obama for his use of ICE. Many times.
If you condemn Trump, it is only logical to condemn Obama for doing largely the same thing. The ACLU does.
Heres an ACLU article that discusses both:
https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/border-patrol-wa...
You're being disingenuous by saying things like:
Look at the points I mentioned and tell me how they're the same. I don't contest that law enforcement does awful things with their power, but this administration emboldens them is the difference. What? You disagree with the actions but it's also exaggerated? Answer this for me: did Obama send ICE agents into cities as retribution? Did he send ICE agents into schools, hospitals, protests, etc.[0]?If ICE agents are known to abuse detainees, then why would you want them in sensitive areas? By that metric, these administrations are not even close to being the same.
0: https://www.ice.gov/doclib/ero-outreach/pdf/10029.2-policy.p... (hint: no he didn't - "Enforcement Actions at or Focused on Sensitive Locations")
Obama set the precedent, didn’t he?
The ACLU calls Obama a monster.
Now it’s time to fish or cut bait. Do you condemn Obama for using ICE as described in the many articles I have shared?
Obama didn't use ICE to crack down on dissent or to sexually abuse minors, so no. He didn't set precedent for the ways they're being used now.
I talked to these people minutes ago, on the thread about the murder. Trumpists are finding ways to rationalize this assassination. Just like they did Jan 6, the bombings of fishing boats near Venezuela, the other exactions ICE committed, Trump being Epstein's closest friend, etc.
Then I listened to the Vice President claiming she was an "unhinged left-wing lunatic", that she had been radicalized and that she was trying to hurt the ICE agent, and thus she deserved to be shot. A complete, abject lie trying to justify this murder, when everyone saw in the videos she was clearly trying to escape, and no agent was on her path.
EDIT: looking at your comment history, it seems like you are trying to justify her assassination too. We are not friends, no friend of mine attempts to rationalize away the murder of innocents by masked brownshirts. I hope you can escape this death cult sometimes soon, then maybe we could find common ground.
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What if their maximally vindictive traits just makes them want to use the same invasive tools and techniques?
Like today?
It’s entirely possible to prosecute the heads of all of these horrific things into the stone age, comb through internal data and throw every agent who’s murdered someone in jail, and not punish everyday people who just cast a vote.
They already are. Playing nice and hoping the other side will come to their senses and return to normalcy doesn’t make sense when they’ve already shown you they will try to destroy you regardless.
Compared to the alternative of staying on our current path of American fascism and WW3?
I’ll take the odds for vindictiveness.
Yeah I get into a more Jacobin and less Girondin mindset every week that goes by.
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I don't buy the 'both sides' POV except in the longest historical view. Right now it's just not true.
One team is a feckless collection of timid hesitators who is trying to defend a social welfare policy from 70 years ago, and the other team believes their volatile leader is infallible and will direct revenge at whatever they are pointed to by the latest 3am tweet.
It's just not the same.
>One team is a feckless collection of timid hesitators who is trying to defend a social welfare policy from 70 years ago
What is this referring to?
>and the other team believes their volatile leader is infallible and will direct revenge at whatever they are pointed to by the latest 3am tweet.
>It's just not the same.
What does this have to do with gp's claim about cycle of reprisals by both parties? It can be simultaneously possible to admit that the leader of one party is more sane than the other, and to observe that both parties are engaging in cycles of retaliation when they get in power, and that egging on even more retaliation is going to make the situation worse.
I was responding the effort to paint the two sides as equal.
The cycle-of-reprisals is a separate point. In a two-party system, transfer of power means change. The minority party will always paint that as reprisal, so if you judge by who-complains-the-loudest, they will look the same. The churn of claims and counter-claims by politicians in the media has become a game with very predictable behaviors.
But if you look at actions, IMO they behave very differently.
> What does this have to do with gp's claim about cycle of reprisals by both parties? It can be simultaneously possible to admit that the leader of one party is more sane than the other, and to observe that both parties are engaging in cycles of retaliation when they get in power, and that egging on even more retaliation is going to make the situation worse.
I think the reason we are in the situation we are in now is that the last administration wasn't nearly retaliatory _enough_ after J6
>I think the reason we are in the situation we are in now is that the last administration wasn't nearly retaliatory _enough_ after J6
Jailing Hitler sure stopped his movement in its tracks! Or maybe we should have gone even further and set a precedent for to jail people for decades for having "dangerous" political opinions?
While I agree that the question of "are we jailing this person for their political opinions" gets into skeevy areas, if we refuse to enforce laws just because elections and politics are involved we might as well not have any laws that involve elections and politics (and I don't think "lawlessness starts at the top" is a recipe for a healthy society).
It did! They let him go!
Jailing Hitler did stop the movement. It was only that he was given a light sentence and was released that he was able to complete his evil.
Trump would have lost in 2024 if he was running from prison for his crimes against the country.
"Retaliation" is the wrong framing. We have laws, we should follow them. When we don't is when we have these issues.
> It can be simultaneously possible to admit that the leader of one party is more sane than the other, and to observe that both parties are engaging in cycles of retaliation when they get in power, and that egging on even more retaliation is going to make the situation worse.
Then I suppose the situation will get worse? I don't understand the point of your analysis. This isn't a situation where people are swatting away olive branches - the Trump administration works hard to ensure that their political opponents are furious at them. They repeatedly state, in a variety of contexts, that they have no interest in finding common ground with the other party: it's good that you're miserable if you don't agree with their political objectives, and if you get in their way you deserve to be shot.
Only one side is using a federal police force to murder citizens.
And the other side teases prosecution and never follows through
MAGA literally murdered a politician in Minnesota…
A Trump supporter murdered a politician in Minnesota, not "MAGA"
Tomato tomata
It is a massive difference of wording. Saying 'MAGA' suggests a large political movement/politicians committed a murder.
A consequence of that large political movement and its leaders is that numerous people have been murdered. MAGA can't wash its hands of the consequences of its beliefs and actions.
There were hundreds of prosecutions. Then SCOTUS declared the president immune. Then the bad guy got reelected and pardoned everyone. Then started launched truly malicious prosecutions of political enemies. Cases which thankfully are dying due to lack of merit.
One side is doing all the bad things and the other is simply struggling to stop them. Being cynical helps nothing.
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I'm curious why you edited your comment? To appear more rational while making irrational tropes?
It is not a trope but a statement of fact.I thought better of that quoted paragraph as it contained little substance and was just rude goading, which is ironically what you are doing.
How dare you quote me!
Why is it impossible for most people (more specifically Americans in my experience) to act in good faith during political discussion? You can't even admit wrongdoing or poor phrasing without them twisting your words or deliberately misunderstanding you.
we just saw the biden admin not do that, and the polarization only grew. They very specifically slow walked their investigation into trump's treason, so they wouldnt have to Nuremberg him.
trump mind you, is nuremburging non-voters. they dont exactly have side beyond trying to work and eat
The two sides aren't remotely the same. One side has become authoritarian and shifted far to the right. The current administration is seeking to undermine liberal democracy to give the executive all the meaningful power to enact Christian nationalism. It's also a cult of personality where the president can do no wrong, and anyone who defies him gets sent death threats.
[dead]
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Careful, without any further qualification you just endorsed Stephen Miller.
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Please don't use abusive terms like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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Trying and punishing members of the Trump administration for their crimes is not the same as sending people to concentration camps for having a color of skin that Miller hates.
It is not insightful to say "oh isn't this the same thing that the fascists are doing." It is anti-insight.
> Trying and punishing members of the Trump administration for their crimes is not the same...
Do you really believe that's being "vindictive", though? If so, why?
That's a big part of the problem: people characterize following the law as being "vindictive", and comparable to actual vindictiveness. It's a big part of why the Democrats have been so unwilling to hold anyone to account.
> It is not insightful to say "oh isn't this the same thing that the fascists are doing."
Wanting vindictiveness is absolutely the same thing the fascists are doing. Part of what I'm pointing out is that we should characterize the actions that are needed in a more rational way.
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I'm sure it must seem that way to you.