What was my type of American supposed to have done? This is a sincere question, since I'm racking my brain over it. People debate this with one another constantly. We may have more common cause with you than it might seem on the surface.
Also, what commitments? Since this is a tech centric forum, the easy guess would be breaking the dominance of the US tech industry. I'm a cheerleader for that effort.
Nothing. American empire isn't yours to control - people can hate what America is doing without recommending any personal change to your involvement in it.
That's fair, but I'm open to change. In fact, coincidentally, my wife and I were talking about it tonight. We feel frustrated that we might not have done enough.
My guess is that people on HN make a lot of money. Finding effective places to donate it is useful. While this won't be able to directly influence international saber rattling, it can still help protect people from Trump's criminal presidency.
Donate to organizations that provide legal information and legal defense to people at risk of abuse by ICE. Donate to organizations that provide food for people who are frightened to leave their homes because of ICE. Donate to organizations that provide food to people who are threatened by SNAP funding changes. Donate to independent media organizations that are willing to aggressively criticize the Trump administration. If thinking internationally, donate to organizations that target problems that USAID was targeting before being gutted.
For political change we need two things: democrats to win in 2026 and 2028 and democrats to have the guts to dismantle the systems that enabled Trump and charge people involved for their crimes. Existing dem leadership is clearly not willing to do this. So we need involvement starting at the local level all the way up to replace dem leadership with people with guts. Find community groups involved in local elections.
If you live in a region where ICE is highly active, document. Making their crimes undeniable to as many people as possible is what will shift public opinion so much that a new government will be forced to act.
I listed things that are more likely to bubble up into changes to US foreign policy below. Trump is doing a ton of horrible things. I listed various options that tackle various outputs of his regime.
Those are good ideas, but none of them will actually address this problem. It's a combination of charity and the same partisan battle mentality that alienates many people. For instance:
> For political change we need two things: democrats to win in 2026 and 2028 and democrats to have the guts to dismantle the systems that enabled Trump and charge people involved for their crimes. Existing dem leadership is clearly not willing to do this. So we need involvement starting at the local level all the way up to replace dem leadership with people with guts. Find community groups involved in local elections.
That just reads like a Trump-like ideological power grab: "we need to make sure our opponents can never win again." But what does that do for people who aren't partisan Democrats? They want Trump to lock in his power, but they don't want Democrats to, either.
The first step is to acknowledge that voters dislike Democrats so much that not only did a guy like Trump have a chance of winning, but he won. Twice. The response needs to be for the Democrats to reform into a party with broad appeal across diverse regions. The first step to that is saying no to the technocrats, and taking some pages out of Trump's economic playbook (and Sanders's). The second steps is saying no to the activists, and stop alienating large fractions of the electorate by pushing too hard and too fast on a lot of issues.
> That just reads like a Trump-like ideological power grab: "we need to make sure our opponents can never win again." But what does that do for people who aren't partisan Democrats? They want Trump to lock in his power, but they don't want Democrats to, either.
No. The goal is to make sure that presidents who commit crimes or direct the executive branch to commit crimes are prevented from doing so or held responsible for doing so. For example, legislation that expands Section 1983 to include federal agents and legislation that limits the availability of qualified immunity would go a long way in mitigating lawless action by federal law enforcement.
> The first step to that is saying no to the technocrats, and taking some pages out of Trump's economic playbook (and Sanders's). The second steps is saying no to the activists, and stop alienating large fractions of the electorate by pushing too hard and too fast on a lot of issues.
These two things are opposites, in my mind. Things don't become less big or fast when they are focused on economic policy. Heck, even Biden's cancellation of student loan debt (something I consider to be on the technocratic side) was considered a Major Question by the supreme court to justify their reversal of the policy.
Not as I had in mind. By "social issues" I meant the non-economic stuff. That stuff has been key to pushing a lot of people to the Republican side.
> Things don't become less big or fast when they are focused on economic policy. Heck, even Biden's cancellation of student loan debt (something I consider to be on the technocratic side) was considered a Major Question by the supreme court to justify their reversal of the policy.
I think they should go big and fast on economic policy, especially on the kind of goals Trump campaigned on. For instance: tariff the heck out of China, figure out how to tax offshoring, plow the money made into re-industrialization, cultivate a trade-bloc of established high-income democracies.
But you know, Trump was for tariffs, so they had to be against them. All the sudden they sounded like the re-animated corpse of Milton Friedman.
The student loan debt thing was dumb because it came off as elitist, and it was to some extent. The Democrats need to listen to and serve people they don't like talking to anymore, instead of their staffers with student loan debt.
"Social issues" does not appear in the text of your comment.
I do not understand how one can do economic things that are substantially larger than cancelling student loan debt while also not "pushing too hard and too fast on a lot of issues."
That was my mistake. I wrote "issues" when I could have been more specific and said "social issues."
I don't think addressing economic issues can be very alienating, except when they signal messed up priorities that exclude you. I don't think student loan forgiveness would have been that controversial if it were a smaller part of a larger package that overall addressed higher priorities or a broader base of people (e.g. a bunch of tariffs and programs to re-industrialize).
The Inflation Reduction Act was a large piece of legislation that had huge programs for re-industrialization, which produced measurable improvements in employment in these sectors.
Zero GOP legislators voted for it. It was pilloried on right wing media constantly.
I do not believe that there is any large scale economically-focused legislation that the democrats could push that would not be controversial.
>>>> The first step is to acknowledge that voters dislike Democrats so much that not only did a guy like Trump have a chance of winning, but he won. Twice.
I think this is too extreme. Trump lost the popular vote, twice, then won his second term by a slim margin. And this was after betting the entire farm on propaganda campaign of racism, misogyny, conspiracism, and pseudoscience, abetted by capture of social media.
I don't think driving the entire Republican Party out of existence is a realistic goal. For one thing, ours is a two party system, and if one party vanishes, another will form in its place. The parties rearranged themselves after the Civil War, and during the Civil Rights era, so I don't think "Republican vs Democrat" is a permanent institution.
See that right there. Oh Trump is not that popular, he barely won the second time.
Then why is he sitting in the White House running the country?
Your democratic institutions, your constitution, allowed him to win elections. Your group of Americans are incapable of enacting meaningful change that will prevent his brand of fascism from taking root in America.
> What was my type of American supposed to have done? This is a sincere question, since I'm racking my brain over it. People debate this with one another constantly. We may have more common cause with you than it might seem on the surface.
Honestly? Your type of American is supposed to make sure the Democrats stop behaving so stupidly that they create openings for someone like Trump to win.
The dysfunction is America is bipartisan, but I put a lot of fault on Democrats for not rising to the occasion, as they present themselves as the party of responsible people opposed to this craziness. But that's a lie, because unfortunately they lack the maturity to escape from their own narrow partisan ideology, and keep handing opportunity after opportunity to people like Trump. They need to own their role in this mess, which they never, ever fess up to.
Like seriously: if Democrats handled immigration better and took some flashy steps against free trade and globalization (like Trumps tariffs), Trump would have lost handily. If they put a lid on strident progressives setting the tone on social policy, they'd be dominant for a generation. Democracy would have been saved! Unfortunately they're too beholden to technocrats and activists, and the result of that is Trump.
Also, what commitments? Since this is a tech centric forum, the easy guess would be breaking the dominance of the US tech industry. I'm a cheerleader for that effort.