Comment by averageRoyalty

Comment by averageRoyalty a day ago

All I've seen about this DOGE stuff is negativity based on hypotheticals, this is the first optimistic hypothetical I've seen so far.

It's an interesting point. As a thought exercise, tech is absolutely the core of modern America, #1 export (I assume) and a key market. Private sector influence probably can give huge amounts of low hanging fruit.

I think peoples main concerns stem from not trusting Trump (which seems odd given he's a second term president, he is objectively wanted) and not trusting Musk (which is probably fair, he's publicly and openly an arsehole).

Speed probably concerns people too, however "move fast and break things" is a pretty fundamental American tech mantra, so entirely unsurprising and usually effective.

n4r9 a day ago

Trump winning the election wasn't necessarily because he was "objectively wanted". It could be because he was less disliked than Biden at the time. Plus I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people voted Trump but then his first couple of weeks made them go "hang on a sec...".

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jart a day ago

Trump is a populist. Populism is sort of like an advertiser being surprised when he discovers that sex sells even though no one ever talks about it. The ultimate trump card in modern politics is to pander to those sorts of predilections. One of the responsibilities of the ruling class is to temper many of the primal instincts that people have, which requires handing out bitter medicine. But that only works if everyone in the ruling class agrees. If one elite breaks the consensus and chooses betrayal in this prisoner's dilemma and survives, then he instantly wins the popularity game. That's why it's called populism.

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averageRoyalty a day ago

> Trump winning the election wasn't necessarily because he was "objectively wanted".
Isn't that exactly what the popular vote is though? Maybe people weren't passionate about it, but my loose understanding of the US popular vote is it's quite direct unlike preferential voting, so the people who chose him actively chose _him_.
I'm not saying there aren't regrets, but it seems to me defintively that the majority of voters selected him as the president they wanted.

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- n4r9 8 hours ago
  
  Well, you said it's "odd" if people don't trust Trump, since they voted him in. I'm saying that plenty of votes may have been because they trusted Biden even less. In a 2-party system it's difficult to distinguish between "I want A" and "I really don't want B".
  
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DiogenesKynikos 17 hours ago

> not trusting Trump (which seems odd given he's a second term president

You might recall that at the end of his first term, he tried to overturn the results of the election he lost, calling up the Georgia attorney general to demand the vote total be blatantly altered, and even siccing a mob against the Capitol to physically prevent the certification of the results.

That's why many people don't trust him.

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