Trump's Second Term

As long as the judiciary don't cave and allow him to rule by EO.
One of my SFW fantasies has a candidate running for President pledging to rein in the power of the office. Unfortunately even if it happened, the new President would suddenly find that (s)he liked those powers once elected.
 
I feel like our foreign correspondents should be more enthusiastic about this nudge towards Europe being more relevant and influential on the world stage.

An EU that can contain Moscow on its own has little use for a friendly America on that front.
But I thought America was essential for global security - that we can't handle ourselves without you.
 
Power struggle?
Perhaps. As many reasons as there are to dislike and distrust Kash Patel, he does hold a recognized office in the United States government to which he has been lawfully appointed and duly confirmed. For now, that outranks whatever Elon Musk is. Why? Because not even the administration can decide what Elon Musk is and where he belongs and what he does.

Your real question is how much we can depend on the Trump agenda to be undermined by infighting. I have no prediction. The notion of an Elon Musk basically calling all the shots without having any official authority is a new thing for all of us.
 
Haven’t FBI staff already been vetted for loyalty to Trump, election 2020 was stolen, etc.? No need to be redundantly cleared by Elon then.
That's still under adjudication. But Trump did propose to fire anyone who had anything to do with charges against him or to do with the January 6 prosecutions. Which is something like half the agents.
 
Perhaps. As many reasons as there are to dislike and distrust Kash Patel, he does hold a recognized office in the United States government to which he has been lawfully appointed and duly confirmed. For now, that outranks whatever Elon Musk is. Why? Because not even the administration can decide what Elon Musk is and where he belongs and what he does.
Elon is trying to find the outside of the envelope that Donny will let him inhabit in government.
Your real question is how much we can depend on the Trump agenda to be undermined by infighting. I have no prediction. The notion of an Elon Musk basically calling all the shots without having any official authority is a new thing for all of us.
With any luck, it will dissolve into an incredible infantile Royal Rumble at Donny's crusty old feet, with (most of) the rest of the USA looking on in horror at their nation's leadership dissolution.
 
With any luck, it will dissolve into an incredible infantile Royal Rumble at Donny's crusty old feet, with (most of) the rest of the USA looking on in horror at their nation's leadership dissolution.
There is comfort in that we live in a year when 20- and 30-something gamers can bring enough receipts to humiliate Elon Musk into first throwing a characteristically infantile tantrum and then finally having to admit they were right and that he's a fraud. What this says to me is that well-connected, well-supported people will also be able to bring enough receipts that Musk will eventually have to reckon with it. When your life is fundamentally a lie, your billions cannot save you; your AI bots cannot save you. It is possible to be too hubristic.
 
Noe existent and dead people are being used to collect pay checks, that's why his email is important.
How stupid does Musk need to be to not understand that a significant number of federal employees do not have access to official e-mail and will never get a chance to rely directly? Perhaps not stupid, but too out of touch with the realities of life and work in America to be making any policy decisions. But this makes Musk a good fit for Trump; remember when Trump told American they needed an ID to buy food?
 
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Yeah, but if they don't even have email how can they possibly be doing anything useful?


May contain traces of irony.
I'm assuming that you're being sarcastic, but just in case. :) I spent 16 years in the military without an official e-mail address. I got lots of work done. I finally got an official dot-mil email account in 1999. Meh.
 
How stupid does Musk need to be to not understand that a significant number of federal employees do not have access to official e-mail and will never get a chance to rely directly? Perhaps not stupid, but too out of touch with the realities of like and work in America to be making any policy decisions.
He is everything that's wrong with the tech-bro demographic. He has no business understanding outside of the very narrow, tech-focused world of Silicon Valley. I've seen softer examples of this from Apple and Google, but Elon Musk is trying to make it an art form. Of course everyone has this year's smart phone and is checking their work email religiously every 15 minutes even on weekends. The government is not a tech business. He is not the CEO. He can't just bully his way through forever. He's not even good at business. He's good at gaming financial systems, but that just about the only gaming he can do competently.
 
I'm assuming that you're being sarcastic, but just in case. :) I spent 16 years in the military without an official e-mail address. I got lots of work done. I finally got an official dot-mil email account in 1999. Meh.
You do realise that was 26 years ago now, right? I'd say it's likely that most government employees have an official email address now. In the Australian Public Service, which is the one I have direct experience of, creating an IT account with email is simply part of any onboarding process. Do all employees actually access that email on a daily basis? No. But they all have one.
 
Perhaps. As many reasons as there are to dislike and distrust Kash Patel, he does hold a recognized office in the United States government to which he has been lawfully appointed and duly confirmed. For now, that outranks whatever Elon Musk is. Why? Because not even the administration can decide what Elon Musk is and where he belongs and what he does.

Your real question is how much we can depend on the Trump agenda to be undermined by infighting. I have no prediction. The notion of an Elon Musk basically calling all the shots without having any official authority is a new thing for all of us.
When you have a bunch of people vying for power who are by all standards mentally ill, in-fighting is almost guaranteed. In a typical dictatoraship, they'd all have to answer to Trump and he would simply 'eliminate' those who are going against his personal agenda. But they all recognize Trump is slipping fast into dementia, so I suspect the infighting will intensify and lead to some sort of impasse.
 
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Now that there are Nazis* taking over the USA will Russia invade the USA? If you recall Nazis taking over in Ukraine is one of the major reasons Putin has given for his non-invasion of Ukraine.

*I'm not one for saying people are Nazis as a perjorative unless they have identified themselves as Nazis however when a Nazi salute can be made on the stage of a political rally at which the USA president is going to give a speech and there is no official censure and no distancing from that then one has to conclude that Nazism is now acceptable to the official government of the USA.
 
Just as there were no good nazis, there are no good republicans today.
Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist, humanitarian, and member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews
As the saying goes, he is the exception that proves the rule.

Now, I know that our resident "MAGAchud lover who claims they don't love MAGA" has already jumped in and agreed with this, but the situations are significantly different...

In the time period in question, membership in the NAZI party was pretty much mandatory, especially for someone in Schindler's position, (For that reason it should be questioned whether Schindler actually WAS a NAZI, or was more or less acting "under cover".) The U.S. at this point is a (sort of) democracy, with at least some protection of basic personal rights. A republican could in theory stand up against Trump without risk of being arrested by the government, but they do not.

More importantly, we have evidence that Schindler actually acted to benefit jewish people. Meanwhile, all we have is evidence that republicans of all types are enabling Trump.

Schindler->Nazis want to kill millions, I will act to try to save as many as I can, even though I am putting myself at risk
Republicans->Trump wants to destroy democracy, I will do everything I can to enable him, even though I live in a free society
 

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