The left won't be competitive in elections until they learn what it is, why it results in alienation of people who would otherwise support them, and find a way to escape it.

- Imagine if the president allowed Jeff Bezos to reprogram the Treasury’s payment system as if it were an online shopping cart.

- Picture the president authorizing Sam Altman to treat the federal payment system maybe as a live AI experiment.

- Envision the president allowing Larry Page to run the Treasury system.

- Imagine Mark Zuckerberg not only with the power to update federal payment rules, with access to all U.S. taxpayer data. Incredible coincidence Musk runs, privately, a social networking site...

I dont include an example with Palantir...Because some of the 19 years old bros working with the Musk team, were interns at Palantir. So I am just going to assume Thiel has all the info on all US citizens now...

No concerns with conflicts of interest, no vetting, no official role because...People voted for the current president? When did voting become a blank check?

Call it whatever you want, the fact of the matter is that you have an unelected private person, who happens to be the richest person on earth, taking control of federal agencies. I don't think anyone should consider this silly, as nobody thought it was silly when MAGA tried to actually stage a literal coup by force 4 years ago.

> You don't win by insulting, by dunking on the other guys on ~Twitter~

The last years have made it very clear that's exactly how you win. You seem to be under the impression that the democrats, not MAGAs, are unhinged in their rhetoric.

Because if people in the middle can be so damn gullible to vote for a criminal who said:

"I don't care about you, I only want your votes",

like Trump because he promised good economy I don't know how anyone can conclude that the issue here is with democrats and not the people's lack of critical thinking.

It's a bit late to correctly point out that focusing on demographics as you voter base is stupid and that it's interest groups you should focus on (as this should've been done in 2008 after Obama's victory), because this isn't a race between two sane candidates.

The reason people are calling this a coup is not (only) because they disagree with what Trump/Musk are doing, but because their actions are illegal. A president is still expected to follow the rule of law and respect separation of powers. If there are no more checks and balances, then it's a coup. If Congress decided to allocate budget to something, the president should not ignore this. The legislature is losing its power.

At this point any discussion on HN about Trump delivering his campaign promises (which got him a resounding electoral victory) seems to be filled with elitist rage ("Every single IT board I'm on") and thus is just proving his point.

This is the blowback for the medical overreach of the covid years, for the 1984-esque re-labeling of open gender- and race-based discrimination as DEI, for basically shaming every opposing view as

> evil, fascist, dastardly white supremacists

and many more transgressions.

I'm saying this as a non us citizen working in a sector in Europe that is very likely to get absolutely clobbered by Trump. The blame is simply to put at the losing side.

Them denying the merit of their loss, the lack of any introspection and instead just one-upping their everybody-i-disagree-with-is-hitler mantra is at least comforting in the sense that I know they shouldn't be in charge.

Then he certainly didn't say that he was going to dismantle the US government with Elon Musk outside of any legal framework (or I missed that). And even if he did, that wouldn't make it okay either.

> You win in a democracy only by convincing the very reasonable middle that you share their values

I feel like you haven't paid enough attention, this isn't a democracy anymore but a mixed regime, convincing opponents is still necessary but isn't enough to influence power anymore.

Look at Hungary if you want some indication of how it's going.

> You don't win by insulting, by dunking on the other guys on ~Twitter~ bluesky

The guy who won did exactly all that

And what on earth did Trump do to convince the “reasonable middle” that he shares their values?

Who are these reasonable people who decide that Kamala spends too much time insulting people, so they’re better off voting for Donald Trump?

Sources requested for this statement, made unilateral with no evidence.

> Declaring it a 'coup' is as silly as when Trump lost in 2020 and declared it a 'rigged election.

A single person, who somehow owns multiple major companies with, clear conflict of interest, is not a coup? What? He & his "engineers" reportedly have access to American citizen information. Where's the required oversight by Congress? I get trimming the government, but let's talk about it in the open rather than relying on his word and his word alone.

> You don't win by insulting, by dunking on the other guys on ~Twitter~ bluesky, or by protesting.

Would you say that to Tea Party folks who widely protested Obama? What? This makes no sense. Didn't they also insult Obama and his birth? Or anyone who voted for Obama? Whataboutism.

Frankly, I feel you are delusional and have bought into the ruse of the current news cycle.

> "Everyone not already in our tent is evil, fascist, dastardly white supremacists," but to their chagrin, their current tent is under 50% of the voting public and it isn't growing.

Trumps share of the vote was <50% via https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2024pres...