Don't Believe Him
February 2, 2025 12:49 PM   Subscribe

Many Democrats agree that the first two weeks of Trump's second term have been rough, even if they don't agree on a message (NYTimes). NPR did its best to recap yesterday. Ezra Klein makes the case, perhaps hopefully, that "Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president." (Gift NYTimes link)

He has always wanted to be king. His plan this time is to first play king on TV. If we believe he is already king, we will be likelier to let him govern as a king.

I recommend listening, rather than reading the abridged transcript. (And despite what one might expect, this is the opposite of Doomerism - it makes clear Trump et. al. have not won yet)
posted by coffeecat (60 comments total) 28 users marked this as a favorite
 
>He has always wanted to be king

Somebody posted this here earlier: https://graymirror.substack.com/p/the-butterfly-revolution, calling for Trump to be the figurehead front for a CEO executive doing the heavy lifting vs. the career civil service (aka 'deep state').

Yarvin is aka Mencius Moldbug, a Usenet presence/prick back in the 90s.

Josh at TPM also wrote today that "Shock & Awe" is a a trick indicating lack of omnipotence . . . IMO that isn't quite right; it's a force multiplier...

The reason why I reject the Green Lantern theory pushed by leftists is that good governance requires deliberation and buy-in. Granted, we ran out of that road when the GOP decided in 2009 that the O stood for Obstruction, since that paid better and also won elections for them.
posted by torokunai2 at 1:10 PM on February 2 [8 favorites]


(archive.is link, for people who are into those)
posted by box at 1:11 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


Ezra Klein is right this time, but man, being wrong six months ago sure created some problems!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 1:17 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]


"Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president."

And? He's acting like a king because he wants to, and can. Saying he's "too weak to govern like a president" is a bit like saying the bully beating you up after school is too dumb to pass algebra. Probably true. But I doubt the bully gives a rat's ass what you think.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:18 PM on February 2 [86 favorites]


Maybe this thread doesn’t need to have the thousandth “NY Times is bad, actually” derail.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 1:18 PM on February 2 [51 favorites]


Can we not make this a debate about whether Biden should have dropped out? I think we've done that enough on this site already.
posted by coffeecat at 1:19 PM on February 2 [22 favorites]


God, it’s only been 2 weeks?
posted by MikeTheJanitor at 1:20 PM on February 2 [20 favorites]


And?

Well, you can read/listen to the article! It actually answers your question a bit.
posted by coffeecat at 1:20 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]


"There is a reason Trump is doing all of this through executive orders rather than submitting these same directives as legislation to pass through Congress. A more powerful executive could persuade Congress to eliminate the spending he opposes or reform the civil service to give himself the powers of hiring and firing that he seeks. To write these changes into legislation would make them more durable and allow him to argue their merits in a more strategic way. Even if Trump’s aim is to bring the civil service to heel — to rid it of his opponents and turn it to his own ends — he would be better off arguing that he is simply trying to bring the high-performance management culture of Silicon Valley to the federal government. You never want a power grab to look like a power grab.

But Republicans have a three-seat edge in the House and a 53-seat majority in the Senate. Trump has done nothing to reach out to Democrats. If Trump tried to pass this agenda as legislation, it would most likely fail in the House, and it would certainly die before the filibuster in the Senate. And that would make Trump look weak. Trump does not want to look weak. He remembers John McCain humiliating him in his first term by casting the deciding vote against Obamacare repeal.

That is the tension at the heart of Trump’s whole strategy: Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president. He is trying to substitute perception for reality. He is hoping that perception then becomes reality. That can only happen if we believe him."
posted by box at 1:28 PM on February 2 [27 favorites]


Maybe this thread doesn’t need to have the thousandth “NY Times is bad, actually” derail.

On the other hand, maybe there should be fewer NYT links, and only exceptionally valuable or enlightening NYT articles should be left up for the foreseeable future. This is neither enlightening nor valuable.
posted by tclark at 1:33 PM on February 2 [28 favorites]


Donald Trump doesn't want to submit bills to Congress and have them implement his policies. He doesn't want to avoid his power grab looking like a power grab. He wants to say things and have them simply happen. He wants his will to create reality. He wants the entire world to simply submit to his infinite power. The idea that he has to talk Congress into doing what he wants, or to ask their permission, or get them to go along, is a terminal insult to his ego, a violation of his sense of self.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:44 PM on February 2 [48 favorites]


This is a bizarre take. We have a great variety of examples of countries becoming authoritarian, and they do it in basically this fashion, at this speed.
posted by constraint at 1:47 PM on February 2 [33 favorites]


Ezra Klein is a privileged fool. He is the Millennial David Brooks or Tom Friedman, saying intelligent sounding things that always, always, always flatter the pretensions of the ruling class. One is categorically better off ignoring him at all times and circumstances.

However, since it has been posted... The stated goal of the Heritage Foundation and etc is an "Imperial" Presidency (always implied to be ideologically ultra-orthodox so-called Conservative). They hate the tendency of Congress to trade favors - you fund this in my district and I'll fund that in yours - correctly seeing it as a one way ratchet that drives up federal spending. The entire aim of the moneyed powers backing the Trumpist cadre is to break this system.

Ezra either knows this and is pretending not to, or he is so insulated from the situation that he is clueless. Either way, he is unreliable as to the basic facts of the matter, and should always be assumed to be so.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 1:47 PM on February 2 [34 favorites]


On the other hand, maybe there should be fewer NYT links, and only exceptionally valuable or enlightening NYT articles should be left up for the foreseeable future. This is neither enlightening nor valuable.

I would genuinely love if we could get back to a best of the web philosophy instead of the low hanging MSM fruit. There is a lot of useful, insightful writing about this and many other topics happening online in less obvious places that incorporate specialist and insider knowledge that many of us might otherwise overlook. There are also a lot of deeply well read and connected people here – let’s do a better job of putting those two things together. Especially now.
posted by reedbird_hill at 1:48 PM on February 2 [31 favorites]


We knew Elon Musk wanted to be Emperor of Mars before, but I'm now thinking one of you physicists convinced him that Mars looks too hard, so now he set his sights on North America.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:50 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]


Thank you for this link. It was worth posting despite what some reflexive anti-NYTers think (and I get the hate for NYT). This is actually the most hopeful thing I've read or heard since the second great abomination started - even if Klein is likely overly optimistic.
posted by blue shadows at 1:50 PM on February 2 [12 favorites]


FTA: "Soon enough, you have to go beyond what you can actually do. And when you do that, you either trigger a constitutional crisis or you reveal your own weakness."

Not really. He's got nothing, really, to lose. He doesn't have another election ahead of him, so he's really not accountable to the voters. Actuarially, a pretty decent chance he dies while in office, be it a heart attack, stroke, or bird flu. For whatever reason--either to create a legacy worth of being on Mount Rushmore, a perceived debt to Elon Musk, or the simple thrill of having the world bend to you because you're the most powerful man in the world--he's going to push forward with all of this.

And no one is going to stop him.

The Supreme Court probably won't rule against him. If they do, they have no mechanism to enforce it.

The current congress won't vote against him: they've shown their loyalty, as well as simply fearing a primary challenge.

A hypothetical Democratic congress in two years probably won't be big enough to impeach him. Even if they manage to get the votes, Trump has made it clear that he supports or even encourages violence by his supporters on his behalf. Same is true of the Twenty-Fifth amendment.

So, yes, Trump could overreach. He could deport people born on US soil (and thus citizens), fire everyone in the executive branch, treat the budget as a big pot of money he can spend as he pleases, or anything else. And he can ignore anyone who tells him he can't.

It will be the least consequential Constitutional Crisis ever!

Seriously, my only hope is arterial plaque catching up with him. At that point, Vance and the rest of the GOP inherits an massively unpopular party (and about to get more unpopular with the tariffs), and actually subject to reelection. There is no heir apparent for the MAGA base to latch on to, so a coalition will have to be built. But it absolutely sucks to sincerely hope for one man's death.
posted by MrGuilt at 1:52 PM on February 2 [49 favorites]


Thanks coffeecat. I posted this on the tariff thread but I'm glad you made it a separate post. I'm not a huge fan of Ezra Klein but I found this to be very clear-eyed. It's analysis the likes of which I haven't seen elsewhere. Bypassing congress in these illegal acts says a lot about the lack of support he would likely get there.
posted by bluesky43 at 1:58 PM on February 2 [7 favorites]


Well, you can read/listen to the article! It actually answers your question a bit.

I did. It's irrelevant to his goals this time around. He'd be pushing EOs regardless, because legislation takes time (even with a more solid majority) and his thing is to make this shit happen now, not next month. He's on a retribution offensive, and he's not going to allow it to be slowed down by (or share the stage with) congress.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:13 PM on February 2 [8 favorites]


Don't be so sure he won't get Congress to do what he wants. We have a CR that expires in March.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 2:20 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Wait there are people who are mad at Ezra Klein for beating the drum for Biden to drop out?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:29 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


Thorzdad, I'm not trolling here, but I genuinely don't know what you wrote conflicts with anything in the article - I'd say Klein would agree with what you've just written. Same with Smedly, Butlerian jihadi.

The point is not that it's surprising that the Trump admin is using the approach it's using. Nobody is claiming that. Nor is anybody claiming such an approach never works - yes, it has in some countries. Again, that point by constraint doesn't contradict anything Klein has said. The point is that these first two weeks (and yeah, they do feel ungodly long), have been a test of sorts, and we've gotten some initial results, and they aren't all bad. That doesn't mean these two weeks have been neutral or haven't had devastating affects already.

But, for all of the worry (here on Metafilter, in DC, etc.) about Project 2025 meaning that a second Trump term would be a brutal well-oiled machine, there are already signs it's cracking. That's good. The article lays out evidence for this. Klein is far more upfront than most that he has no idea where any of this is going - nobody does. But I think there is value in not giving more ground to your enemy than they've already won, a sort of doomerism that I've noticed growing on this site. That's why I posted this - because it provides a good synthesis of the cracks that have already started to appear.

I particularly liked:
There is a subreddit for federal employees where one of the top posts reads: “This non ‘buyout’ really seems to have backfired. I’ll be honest, before that email went out, I was looking for any way to get out of this fresh hell. But now I am fired up to make these goons as frustrated as possible.” As I write this, it’s been upvoted more than 39,000 times and civil servant after civil servant is echoing the initial sentiment.

In Iowa this week, Democrats flipped a State Senate seat in a district that Trump won easily in 2024. The attempted spending freeze gave Democrats their voice back, as they zeroed in on the popular programs Trump had imperiled. Trump isn’t building support; he’s losing it. Trump isn’t fracturing his opposition; he’s uniting it.
This gels with what I've seen in my own workplace (Higher Ed). People were kinda sleep walking post-election, but that's started to change a bit, at least among the people I regularly interact with.
posted by coffeecat at 2:33 PM on February 2 [46 favorites]


In Iowa this week, Democrats flipped a State Senate seat in a district that Trump won easily in 2024.

First noticed this on CNN mid-last year, but it’s interesting how quickly “Trump” is replacing GOP or Republicans as the default party identifier.
posted by reedbird_hill at 3:05 PM on February 2 [9 favorites]


I'm perfectly willing to let Elon Musk become Emperor of Mars.

I'm also perfectly willing to cut off shipments of food, water, fuel and air after the first mission. No one going with him will be an innocent at that point
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 3:16 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]


They never fight.

You gotta fight. Trump’s motivations for why he’s doing what he’s doing don’t really matter. It’s WHAT he’s doing that matters. And you have to fight it.
posted by awfurby at 3:16 PM on February 2 [9 favorites]


First noticed this on CNN mid-last year, but it’s interesting how quickly “Trump” is replacing GOP or Republicans as the default party identifier.

I don't think "a district Trump won easily" means "a district that the Republican candidate for state legislator won easily."

I think they mean "in the presidential election, in that legislative district Trump got a large majority of the votes."
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:58 PM on February 2 [11 favorites]


And? He's acting like a king because he wants to, and can. Saying he's "too weak to govern like a president" is a bit like saying the bully beating you up after school is too dumb to pass algebra. Probably true. But I doubt the bully gives a rat's ass what you think.

FTFA:
But the president cannot rewrite the Constitution. Within days, the birthright citizenship order was frozen by a judge — a Reagan appointee — who told Trump’s lawyers, “I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.” A judge froze the spending freeze before it was even scheduled to go into effect, and shortly thereafter, the Trump administration rescinded the order, in part to avoid the court case.
A few judges didn't give a rat's ass what the guy who wants to be king thinks, and so he lost.
posted by gwint at 4:13 PM on February 2 [18 favorites]


TFG wants to be a f'cking murderous dictator. Kingship is benign compared to what he wants.
posted by BlueHorse at 4:25 PM on February 2 [10 favorites]


A few judges didn't give a rat's ass what the guy who wants to be king thinks, and so he lost.

That's nice for the courts? Whether people's kids get american citizenship going forward or whether the money flows is still an open question. Are there enough palace seneschals, immunized by proximity to people with guns, to operate as Trump dictates outside of the court's reach?
posted by Slackermagee at 4:30 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


This breaks it down the plan and it’s horrifying.

(If it starts in the middle please rewind to the start. )
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:38 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


And this Reddit thread that a mefite posted in a different FPP.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:40 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


coffecat, just for the record, I will totally admit to being allergic to Ezra Klein and his perpetually reasonable, above the fray approach. One gets the feeling if he were being hauled away personally he would be calm and collected, composing his next precisely worded column about how it's not a crisis yet even if a few people are being unlawfully detained.

So please understand, my vitriol is aimed entirely towards him and his Ivy League privilege, and not towards you for posting his piece.

It's great that after two weeks there are signs of resistance. People are literally marching outside my door right now in favor of immigrant rights (I'm recovering from a pretty gnarly respiratory bug or I would join them). This kind of resistance and others is to be expected. But the fact that Trump isn't yet defacto dictator after two weeks is probably not the argument Klein and his editors want people to think it is, especially considering the conspicupusly not mentioned absolute legal immunity he has already been granted by the most radical, reactionary Supreme Court in 100 years. A Court that is still sitting, has shown no remorse, and may yet go after many other basic rights that Americans have heretofore taken for granted.

Remember, top editors at the New York Times were so in the tank for Trump that Paul Krugman quit. The fact that they're supportive of Klein telling people not to worry should frankly make us all more worried, not less.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 4:47 PM on February 2 [26 favorites]


A judge froze the spending freeze before it was even scheduled to go into effect, and shortly thereafter, the Trump administration rescinded the order, in part to avoid the court case.

And yet spending is still frozen. Trump won; he (and Musk) has wrested the purse strings from the legislative branch, and no one who could stop him did so. Trump is acting like a king because that's effectively what he is. I don't say this to be a doomer, I say this because wresting power from a king is a much different, uglier fight than blunting the works of an idiot president.
posted by dirigibleman at 5:02 PM on February 2 [17 favorites]


I was reading some random blog and nodding along with the writer since he really knew his stuff (i.e. agreed with my takes) and then I was all eewed out when I realized goddammit-that's-matty-glesias!
posted by torokunai2 at 5:04 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]


This is a worthwhile read: The Logic of Destruction. Some text:
What is a country? The way its people govern themselves ...

The oligarchs have no plan to govern. They will take what they can, and disable the rest. The destruction is the point. They don’t want to control the existing order. They want disorder in which their relative power will grow.

Much of what is happening, though, involves private individuals whose names are not even known, and who have no legal authority, wandering through government offices and issuing orders beyond even the questionable authority of executive orders. Their idea is that they will be immunized by their boldness. This must be proven wrong.

Individual Democrats in the Senate and House have legal and institutional tools to slow down the attempted oligarchical takeover. There should also be legislation. It might take a moment, but even Republican leaders might recognize that the Senate and House will no longer matter in a post-American oligarchy without citizens.

Mr. Bully should obviously be impeached. Either he has lost control, or he is using his power to do obviously illegal things. If Republicans have a sense of where this is going, there could be the votes for an impeachment and prosecution.

Those considering impeachment should also include Vance ...

Democrats will need instruments of active opposition, such as a People’s Cabinet, in which prominent Democrats take responsibility for following government departments. It would be really helpful to have someone who can report to the press and the people what is happening inside Justice, Defense, Transportation, and the Treasury, and all the others, starting this week.


(h/t Heather Cox Richardson)
posted by Dashy at 5:04 PM on February 2 [16 favorites]


A judge froze the spending freeze before it was even scheduled to go into effect, and shortly thereafter, the Trump administration rescinded the order, in part to avoid the court case.

And yet spending is still frozen. Trump won


Nope. Your link regarding NSF funding is from 3 days ago. Here's one from today: National Science Foundation restores payments after five-day pause, but worries over science funding persist
posted by gwint at 5:13 PM on February 2 [19 favorites]


There is a lot of useful, insightful writing about this and many other topics happening online in less obvious places that incorporate specialist and insider knowledge that many of us might otherwise overlook.

Yes, agreed. But since this thread already exists, how about linking some of those pieces here?

To the larger point, the power of belief: Early in the Harris campaign, calling Trump "weird" seemed like a major "Emperor has no clothes" moment. I remember other GenXers and Millennials posting about how cathartic it felt that someone in power had SAID it.

But then they started listening to old-guard middle-of-the-roaders like Garin and Emmanuel, who said "stop calling them weird, reach out to Republicans, treat Trump as a serious threat." And he was (and is) a serious threat, but for Harris to treat him as such put the clothes back on the Emperor. It led to overlong stump speeches full of sadness and fear, which were real, but neglected the fact that stunting on him might have been far more effective, because there's a large section of the American TV-watching public who will always choose comedy over tragedy. And a large swathe of cis/het men who are happier voting for an object of fear than an object of laughter.

We needed that laughter and the catharsis it brought, and the feeling of being free from fearing him. Of actively diminishing him.

Now all we have is the bloody-throated laughter of the desperate.
posted by Pallas Athena at 5:15 PM on February 2 [28 favorites]


It boggles the mind a bit that a major point of the article was: Trump is not a king but he wants to be and the fastest way for him to actually become a king is for people to just give up and say "Yeah, he's a King, that just the facts." and this thread is full of people saying exactly that.
posted by gwint at 5:18 PM on February 2 [29 favorites]


Seems like that’s one reason that doomsday stuff is in some ways less than ideal.
posted by box at 5:28 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


They never fight.
Yeah, they spend a lot of time wringing their hands about the constitution, the law, mores, conventions, manners, etc. but at some point they have to recognize that they're past all that and the only recourse is physical resistance.

(Unverified by me) people are already asking for help to keep Elon's highschool-aged goons out of the OPM office. These requests for help are eventually going to be answered by both supporters and opponents, and this being America, I don't think I need to mention what they'll be bringing along.
posted by klanawa at 5:30 PM on February 2 [10 favorites]


One thing I wish was emphasized more is that the point of moving fast with stuff is not just to make it hard to focus on any one thing and oppose it. The point is also to achieve a fait accompli. People won't be undeported. For the most part, people illegally fired will stay fired. The tarriffs might stick if the trade war is already started. It doesn't matter if there's an injunction on Monday, if the damage was already completely done by Sunday night.
posted by surlyben at 5:37 PM on February 2 [16 favorites]


Seems like that’s one reason that doomsday stuff is in some ways less than ideal.

What would Hank Hill do? Sure he's Texan, but he dislikes bullies
posted by ginger.beef at 5:40 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]


The editorial pages of all the major newspapers are pretty bad and have been that way for a while. Reading this I can only think what planet is Ezra Klein on with his framing. It doesn’t matter what trump and his ilk think. It matter what they are doing and what are we doing to stop him. From the govener’s call thread, It blew my mind that chuck Schumer couldn’t get all the Dem senator on board to not confirm any of these goon and would only focus on high profile appointments. They should be going to town on the DOGE and Elon.
posted by roguewraith at 6:22 PM on February 2 [17 favorites]


A smart take on the legacy press and its coverage of the current state of affairs. Worth a read.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 6:48 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


Ezra Klein is right this time, but man, being wrong six months ago sure created some problems!

Oh wow, just wait! You ain't seen nothing yet!
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:06 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]


I think Klein is one of the better opinioneers at NYT, which admittedly is a little like saying "the least stinky diaper" or "a carcinoma, but only a little one." He's right here, but I think the issue is that there is no way to approach the Trump issue with a steady-nerved calm without seeming to minimize it. Klein seems to be saying "Trump thinks he can just decide we're all playing football, but if we keep in mind that this is really a game of checkers, we can beat him," and I'm not sure that's really true. Because, to tangle this metaphor all out of shape, yes, if there is a referee then someone will call bullshit at a dude putting his head down and ramming the checker board at full speed. That's not how you play checkers, buddy!

But. What if there's no referee?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:01 PM on February 2 [8 favorites]


Nope. Your link regarding NSF funding is from 3 days ago. Here's one from today: National Science Foundation restores payments after five-day pause, but worries over science funding persist

Your correction is highly misleading: Trump paused funding for a business week, instead of a day, while false reports circulated that funding was restored last week. If you're going to correct someone and collect favorites for it, then fine, but at least be truthful with the timeline, the implications of that, and the implications of your apparent "correction" of the factual record.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:46 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]


It’s a bit like a Monty Python sketch where a placid, considered, “even-handed” moderator is narrating mob violence. Has its place but is entirely useless.
posted by From Bklyn at 11:52 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]


despite what some reflexive anti-NYTers think

i'm trans. it isn't reflexive, it's earned.
posted by secret about box at 12:37 AM on February 3 [28 favorites]


National Science Foundation restores payments after five-day pause, but worries over science funding persist

An awful lot of my friends couldn't pay their staff their January paychecks on Friday because the NSF funds were frozen. Will they be able to issue those paychecks today? I hope so. But for many of us in the real world, having our paychecks delayed, even a few days, is not just a matter of inconvenience but a matter of rent is late, electric bill is late, no groceries this weekend, kids don't have lunch money.

I know there's a popular perception that all academics are living pretty but 1) we aren't and 2) our contracted support staff whose jobs come and go with grants because there's no permanent funding really really aren't.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:05 AM on February 3 [18 favorites]


Good thing Musk isn’t in direct charge of federal funding, with the ability to delete funding from the system he and Trump doesn't like… He hasn’t stopped giving payments to government contractors, right? It’s not like USAid’s website has been disappeared and they plan to illegally nuke the entire agency. I’m sure they can’t delete the database backups or anything that would make recovery easier.

Thankfully congress will save us, with government affirming bills like eliminating the Department of Education and OSHA, clearly the correct focus instead of stopping Musk. It’s pretty clear that while they are slow, they’ve got Trump’s back.

Seriously, who can stop him? Trump will just fire any federal employees who try to carry out the law, or their bosses. And with each passing day, the Heritage Foundation’s hand picked federal replacement army will be the ones in place to help out.

I’d love to see Musk and his fascists perp walked out of the offices they’ve taken over, and find out they failed at purging the systems.
posted by rambling wanderlust at 4:17 AM on February 3 [12 favorites]


That Yarvin piece talked about a strong executive like FDR in the crisis years or the Allied occupation of Japan & Germany.

But you know who staffed our occupation of Iraq in 2003?
When you talk about the life in the Green Zone, one of the things that interested me was your phrase, the "brat pack." What did you mean?

It was a bunch of young kids -- had no experience managing finances -- who were given the task of running Iraq's budget. It turned out that this group of kids who had come over together couldn't quite figure out why they'd been chosen. They finally discovered that what had tied them together was that they had all applied for jobs at the Heritage Foundation, this conservative think tank in Washington.
posted by torokunai2 at 5:36 AM on February 3 [15 favorites]


but it’s interesting how quickly “Trump” is replacing GOP or Republicans as the default party identifier..

That's because, with no resistance to Trump from within the party at any level, there is no difference between "Republican", "GOP", and "Trump". Any person who isn't publicly and vocally leaving the Republican party at this point is literally a Brownshirt. Doesn't matter why they are still Republicans, only that they are still Republicans.
posted by JohnFromGR at 10:30 AM on February 3 [10 favorites]


but it’s interesting how quickly “Trump” is replacing GOP or Republicans as the default party identifier..

I've started calling them Magas, without the caps, because it's self-inflicted, accurate, and Maga is a word that sounds awful and sounds like an insult. There's a ton of precedent for turning acronyms into everyday words, for example, "Laser". See also how "Nazi" came out of National Socialist.
posted by surlyben at 11:18 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]


> insult

"Ok maga" is my go-to to trolls now
posted by torokunai2 at 11:29 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]


Mod note: LOne comment at the beginning of the thread deleted. Remember that cursing at someone not okay and goes against our content policy.
posted by loup (staff) at 1:21 PM on February 3


Good thing Musk isn’t in direct charge of federal funding, with the ability to delete funding from the system he and Trump doesn't like

Remember when asking for a line item veto was a thing?

good times...good times.
posted by MrGuilt at 7:58 PM on February 3


despite what some reflexive anti-NYTers think

The purpose of a system is what it does. If the NYT op-ed page pushes out Paul Krugman and promotes a plethora of intellectually dishonest conservative voices -- but I repeat myself -- then the job it has defined for itself is pushing conservative ideology on its presumably more liberal readership, will-they or nil-they.
posted by Gelatin at 10:15 AM on February 4 [3 favorites]


WaPo: Federal workers shouldn’t sign OPM’s sham resignation agreement Sign the “Deferred Resignation” contract at your peril. A law professor says you may be giving up some essential rights.

In a blog post for Lawfare, Bednar wrote that the “deferred resignation program may violate existing statutory law.”

He points out that the Antideficiency Act prohibits federal agencies from obligating funds that have not been appropriated. A continuing resolution currently funds the federal government only until March 14.

“This means an agency can’t contract to give funds that would go past March 14,” he said. “And in fact, it’s criminal to do so, and that is what they are purporting to do by saying we will pay people [until] September 30.”

There’s also a loophole that could result in people still having to work. There’s a hiring freeze. What would prevent an agency from saying it needs folks to keep working because their positions are necessary?

Typically, the Administrative Leave Act allows an agency to put an employee on administrative leave for only 10 days within a calendar year. The promised leave would far exceed the statute, Bednar said.

He said conditions being raised in this contract that were not in the original description of the deferred resignation program should be red flags for workers.

The only guarantee is that you will be exempt from the executive order requiring federal employees to return to the office five days a week.

If not enough people resign, there could be early retirement offers, voluntary separation incentives and/or layoffs, which in the federal government are called a reduction in force (RIF), all of which come with more legal protections, Bednar said.

posted by jenfullmoon at 6:21 PM on February 4 [3 favorites]




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