And this time, people don't seem to care about that anymore. Despite the right supposedly being the group that's all about the constitution and rule of law.
That's true in theory, but it's not what's happened in the recent past. A lot of the problems Trump faces are due to "rules" established by the civil service itself - often directly and unashamedly just to spite him, and stop him implementing the policies he campaigned and won on. There's no theory of government in which this is supposed to play a part.
For example, the civil service passed new rules in the dying days of the Biden administration intended to stop Trump implementing Schedule F. This didn't come from Congress or the courts. They just passed it themselves. Trump is the boss so can undo that rule with a new rule, but they passed it within a framework of yet more rules they made themselves to slow that down so - if followed - it will take months. This is purely self serving protectionism and has nothing to do with democracy or the Constitution.
There's an interesting document here [1] that goes into all the ways the civil service betrayed Trump in the first term. Betrayal is a correct and moderate term to use. They were doing things like forging documents, lying to appointees about non-existent laws, refusing to prosecute legally clear cut cases in order to propagate woke ideology (e.g. discrimination against Asian Americans), deliberately keeping their bosses in the dark, refusing direct orders to do work if it would run contra to woke ideology and many more things.
From the Trump team's perspective the rules are largely fake: when they align with what the left want they're followed to the letter, when they don't they're ignored or subverted without consequence. He played that game in his first term, and is apparently no longer willing to do so. It's hard to know what Congress will do but presumably they're aware of the fact that their own laws have created this situation to some extent (even if not the full extent). It wouldn't be surprising to see civil service reform bills appear soon.
OK, well, but that sword cuts in both directions. There has been eight years of subversive #resistance to Trump and now he holds the whip hand, with allies who are highly effective. What's happening now is their own #resistance.
There is such a thing as true and false, and there is such a thing as right and wrong.
I know which side's views and plans are almost always on the side of the false and the wrong.
One side wants to divide, one tries to unite, one seeks the truth, the other side does more than lie, it attempts to erase the very notion of truth. One side denigrates, insults and immiserates the weak and the poor. The other attempts to lift them up.
Often in a moral quandary ask yourself 'Which position would be more difficult for me to take?' that's a strong indicator of what is right.
It's easy to divide, denigrate, spread rumours, and to make statements without regards to truth or falsehood. It's easy to hate, to dehumanise and to cause pain.
I've said it in another post. Why are there so many people ready to line up to defend the powerful against the weak, the rich against the poor?
What a brave and noble purpose! I'd love to see you defend that.
> I've said it in another post. Why are there so many people ready to line up to defend the powerful against the weak
Don't you see? They would give the exact same speech about the other side and absolutely believe it, and in fact so would many other people. You say one side is clearly right and the other clearly wrong - that's what the people at DOGE think, just the other way around from you.
That doesn't mean right and wrong don't exist. It does mean that interpreting real world events is often hard and people can come to opposing conclusions, either because they interpret shared facts differently, or because they're aware of things the other side isn't, or because they believe things that aren't actually true.
Right now the Republicans perceive themselves as the weak and oppressed (or did until five minutes ago), and they perceive the Democrats as the powerful oppressors. Putting aside the question of whether it's true or not, they believe that the Dems control every part of the Federal civil service and are willing to systematically lie and conspire in order to completely destroy the Republicans, up to and including imprisoning them on false claims, smearing them with coordinated fake news, and even directly putting their lives in danger by turning a blind eye to assassination attempts. They think the Dems are the side of the rich and powerful and they have solid reasons to believe that, e.g. they systematically out-fundraise the Republicans by a massive margin and right now Musk is busy uncovering the ways billions of dollars in federal funds are diverted into a 100% Democratic NGO ecosystem.
You might think all the above is obviously untrue, equivocation or whatever, but they think it's true. So be careful with rhetoric about resistance. That isn't how democracy is meant to work; such talk can be and is being turned around on you.
>Don't you see? They would give the exact same speech about the other side and absolutely believe it, and in fact so would many other people.
Of course I see, and like in a chess match I looked past it cos I thought it was too obvious.
But I say again your argument amounts to false equivalence.
They can believe crazy and false things as fervently as they like, it doesn't make those beliefs an equivalent mirror image to what liberals believe.
This whole thread started with a complaint from you about Schedule F being 'unfair.'
Apparently anything except the liberals handcuffing themselves and letting themselves be frogmarched out of their jobs is unacceptable.
Meanwhile the new 'unitary executive' is allowed to jump up and down like Donkey Kong on anything he feels like no matter what the rules norms, laws or the constitution says.
Did I capture the essence of it?
I am totally serious about the need for resistance. The new people in charge just walked up to an unguarded lemonade stand which runs on the honour system, drank all the lemonade, pissed in the jar stole the money and smashed everything.
And why can they do that? Because they don't go in for honour and decency, but they expect us to. Democracy provides the tools and the freedom for people to subvert democracy.
I don't expect the new regime to grant such generous 'equivalent' terms should it manage to consolidate it's position.
I don't mean violent resistance, but we do have to resist.