I’m not from the US so all of this is baffling. In Europe and even South America there’s tons of mechanisms to stop that from happening, and this kind of meddling would seriously result in arrests. However this is happening in the US with these people going completely unchecked. How is that even possible?!

  • @[email protected]
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    51 hour ago

    It doesn’t seem like people are really aware that the coup was successful this time. All the shit we are seeing is just fallout from that.

  • Match!!
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    82 hours ago

    south america has a tradition of government reform and transparency wherein criminals in government are arrested sometimes forcibly. no such tradition exists in the USA

  • @dhork
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    5 hours ago

    It is a real department, sort of. Trump used Legislation that was intended for an Obama Era “US Digital Service” and rebranded it “US DOGE Service”. He didn’t even need to change the acronym, although it is now a nested acronym.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_DOGE_Service

    They do, in fact, overstep their legal boundaries quite often. But the administration simply fires anyone in any other department who gets in the way until they get an acquiescent administrator who lets them grab the department by the pussy.

    • snooggums
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      “When you are rich and famous enough, they just let you do it.”

      I wish Trump bragging about sexual assault wasn’t national policy.

      • Optional
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        125 hours ago

        yeah but the non-voting lefties are way diggin’ it. They’re so glad genoside joe is out.

        • Jessica
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          94 hours ago

          Someone better than I should make a copypasta of the typical .ml response. Most of their shit reads as that way anyway.

          • Optional
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            14 hours ago

            Don’t worry. They’ll be by, directly.

  • @[email protected]
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    866 hours ago

    Laws are only a thing if enforced.

    The fox is in the hen house so if we want law enforcement we need to make sure it happens ourselves.

    • @[email protected]
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      4 hours ago

      To add to this: The Supreme Court has granted the president immunity from any wrongdoing in addition to pardoning powers.

      So Trump or anyone close to him can essentially not be convicted which leads to the massive corruption we’re seeing right now.

    • Drunemeton
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      125 hours ago

      The Devil is in the details, and he needs to get the fuck out!

  • @evasive_chimpanzee
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    84 hours ago

    there’s tons of mechanisms to stop that from happening

    There are tons of such mechanisms in the United States as well. Unfortunately the mechanisms essentially boil down to laws, policies, and norms. Doing an illegal action does not pull a lever that deposits you in jail. The whole system relies on the people in power choosing to do the right thing. That’s going to be a potential issue in any country with centralized power.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 hour ago

      I watched similar thing happen in my own country. It was just one decision (so far) and made with a very comfortable parlamentary majority. The problem was that it was supposed to be unconstitutional according to wast majority of constitutional experts. That turned out to be absolutely no problem for the parlament and the administration.

      It’s not even that I am too much against what they decided, but it did change my views on the nature of law. Any law or constitution is just a paper if it isnt enforced and will carry no weight, when it is simply ignored.

    • @[email protected]
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      62 hours ago

      It’s a coup. They are currently rewriting willfully ignoring the rules of how things are done.

      FTFY

  • @grue
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    185 hours ago

    It’s a little thing we call “tyranny.”

  • Nougat
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    145 hours ago

    The mechanisms only work if people enforce them.

    • The Quuuuuill
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      85 hours ago

      And the purpose of the executive branch is to enforce the policies created by the other two branches. Sooo. Yeah. A vote for Trump, or no vote at all, was a vote for this

  • @[email protected]
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    2 hours ago

    There are two kinds of true, and thus two kinds of ‘real’. There’s the kind where what you believe matters and the kind where it doesn’t. Gravity is the second kind. Step off the top of a building and it doesn’t matter if you believe in gravity, you’re going to fall. Politics is the first kind. If everyone believes I’m the king of North America, well, then that’s the truth. It’s reality. Likewise if everyone in the government believes that Elon Musk can fire whoever he wants, then he can, because everyone will just go along with it.

    • JaggedRobotPubes
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      12 hours ago

      While true, this takes the heat off the place it most belongs: individuals, individually choosing to go along with something so horrible, when they could instead choose not to.

  • @gedaliyah
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    85 hours ago

    There are all sorts of mechanisms in the USA to stop this from happening as well. However, Trump spent the first term embedding loyalists in the courts and congress, so there really is not much left to stop him. If the people who are there to act as a check on presidential power are in on the game, then who is left to enforce the law?

    Prosecution takes a very long time and authoritarians move very quickly. Time is not on our side.

    • shoulderoforion
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      44 hours ago

      Dude. Time was up on November 6th. I’m not sure who you imagine time is still available for to use in any way whatsoever. We had time between the start of 2021 to the election in 2024, and we squandered it. No time left my friend. It’s the end of time.

      • @gedaliyah
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        24 hours ago

        I think you misunderstand the phrase as I’m using it.

        Time is always on someone’s side. It’s the nimble, the patient, the determined who win. MAGA is more nimble than the institutions that oppose it. It’s been more patient and focused than the opposition which has been constantly chasing after the latest shiny object of the week/month/year rather than anticipating the need for focus and unity. The bad guys are winning and they are not slowing down; we are falling further behind.

        • shoulderoforion
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          04 hours ago

          again, you’re using the operative “falling” as if we’re still in a process, we aren’t, it’s done, barring the same fucking people who couldn’t be bothered to vote, turning into active effective terrorists or enacting a long term sustained general strike, there is no constitutional power which can any longer be employed to stop trump (and anyone he chooses) doing whatever it is he wants to do. none. zilch. rien. bubkas.

  • @Snowclone
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    85 hours ago

    This is like in Latin America when a president wins a CIA backed ‘election’ and then creates a NEW legislative branch of government that has twice the power of the current legislative goverment, it’s a very simple and obvious way to practice ‘legalism’ which is a Fascist principal of doing things that APPEAR legal. But clearly aren’t.

  • @[email protected]
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    65 hours ago

    I’m afraid that my country the US is entering a dictatorship similar to the 1973-85 dictadura in Uruguay. Even about 40 years later, when I (stupidly) left there, I could see the political and social PTSD from it. Along with Uruguayans being “never again with that horror” from there successful transition to one of the strongest democracies in the Americas.

    The big difference is, instead of being a “civic-military” dictatorship, the US is beginning a “civic-techbro” dictatorship.

    The military will follow along later. Much of the enlisted, non-officer troops are pro-Trump. Even some officers are.

    Source: immediate relative who is a sergeant in the US Army. He is horrified by the Trump supporters in his unit.

  • @[email protected]
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    5 hours ago

    there’s tons of mechanisms to stop that from happening

    Those are fake. Laws are fake. Government is fake. Money is fake. Everything is an illusion. It’s not a physical law of nature or something. It all boils down to if someone feels like doing something or meh… and the people in charge here are more like meh.

    • @count_dongulus
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      45 hours ago

      Yeah anything involving human behavior is ultimately…just based on how people feel and act. There’s (currently) no Robocop programmed to enforce laws to the letter.

  • Sibbo
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    25 hours ago

    Aren’t they able to veto all financial expenses of the state or so? Then they probably can’t fire people directly, but just decide that a certain role is superfluous, and doesn’t receive funding anymore.

    (I’m just guessing, but that’s how I’d do it)