stickly

joined 1 day ago
[–] stickly 1 points 1 hour ago

The dirty little secret is that nobody in any government has control without the backing of guys with guns. In the US, that's the executive branch headed by the president.

If Democrats (and any handful of Republicans secretly hiding their shred of dignity) have any chance, it's not going to be as a toothless opposition. Best case they're ignored, worst case they have a terrible accident involving a high window.

Ensuring they have some semblance of support from the military would be priority #1, second would probably be hoping the Supreme Court would lend them legal support by not tearing up the constitution. With the backing of both, the non-treasonous remnants of Congress could pick up the pieces with some semblance of legal continuity.

Without the military, your only choice is to concede to the executive branch. You could stand firm and end up a constitutional martyr to fuel some civil unrest, maybe even form your own government in exile, but not much beyond that.

[–] stickly 0 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

It's politics because it's blatant racism from a public figure but all political events are not created equal. Engaging with toxic (but ultimately shallow) headlines like this is amplifying the Flood of Shit.

Your outrage is a smoke screen keeping the actual dismantling of democracy out of the public eye.

I'd even go so far as to say too much political gravity is conceded to tariffs and other international Trump panic. America loses credibility but tariffs can be rescinded and alliances slowly rebuilt. It's not so easy to regain control of a government with no opposition after a political purge.

Trump's last term quietly expanded ICE resources in one forgettable 24 hour news cycle. Now we're seeing how they use the GOP Gestapo as a federal police force against undesirables. People need to see that, but it won't get through their (sometimes literal) Trump content filter.

 

As an English speaker, most easily accessible news sources on the internet are very Americentric. Given the current state of global politics, I want to break out of that bubble.

I have dual American/Italian citizenship, so I'd like to keep up to date with Italian + EU current events. All I can find are the most major national scandals, Prime Ministers talking about Trump, and the results of ~~soccer~~ football matches.

So leggere un po' di italiano, but not enough yet to read a newspaper. How can I keep up?