[Onawa]

The dissolution and dismantling of US gov institutions that we are witnessing is unprecedented in modern times. Hell, a few of the agencies being attacked were created with bipartisan support.

I would say it isn't that our institutions were built on sand, more that its hard to stop a madman who broke into your house with a chainsaw (a la Musk) from knocking down a few load-bearing walls.

It is easier to destroy almost anything than it is to create it in the first place.

[khuey]

> Hell, a few of the agencies being attacked were created with bipartisan support.

It's worse than that. PEPFAR was a signature initiative of the previous Republican president.

[ljsprague]

Why must everything be viewed as Democrat vs. Republican? Trump is best viewed as a case of outsider vs. entrenched bureaucracy / deep state. Party is irrelevant.

[anigbrowl]

Because he is being backed to the hilt by the Congressional GOP, and most of the GOP-leaning states, a fact which I feel sure has not escaped your attention until now.

[dizlexic]

I'm guessing you only started to pay attention to the right in 2014.

Everything really changed with the bailouts then the tea party movement. The republicans went from big business, lower taxes, exclusively to populism.

The dems are going through a similar bend currently and probably would have happened sooner if they hadn't undermined their voters nomination of Bernie in 2015.

The republicans (love um or hate them) didn't change the rules to scuttle Trump. One party is listening to their base the other is trying to control them (and imo is imploding because of it). I'm honestly a bit of a neo con so there isn't a place for me in a populist republican party. I'll just keep throwing votes at Chase Oliver / similar outsiders until we have a return to sanity.

[anigbrowl]

Your guess is wrong by about 20 years. In any case, I was not opining on the causes but only on the fact that Trump has almost unanimous backing from Republicans in the legislative branch.

[BeetleB]

> I would say it isn't that our institutions were built on sand, more that its hard to stop a madman who broke into your house with a chainsaw (a la Musk) from knocking down a few load-bearing walls.

This isn't due to one man (Musk) or a rogue government agency, or even the executive branch.

This is Congress, which tells you how bad things have gotten.

[cryptonector]

> This is Congress, which tells you how bad things have gotten.

Ok, but to be clear, Congress gets to. Congress has done about-faces like this before, yet the Republic is still here.

[BeetleB]

> Ok, but to be clear, Congress gets to.

Obviously - there's no implication of processes not being followed.

My point, which mirrors yours, is that this isn't the result of a rogue actor. It's a result of collective action.

[DFHippie]

It isn't Congress writ large, is the Republican caucus in Congress. And the Republican caucus in the SCOTUS.

[BeetleB]

True, but the point being it's a large percentage of the government, representing a significant percentage of the population.

[subsistence234]

actually it's the voters.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

>more that its hard to stop a madman who broke into your house with a chainsaw

I think it's very fitting that you'd use this metaphor, because the people you oppose wouldn't even find that slightly challenging.

[cryptonector]

The institutions that are not being dismantled are the ones required by the constitution. The ones being dismantled, being statutory in nature, are fair game, and if anything this shows that the constitutional institutions are in fact able to rule over the statutory ones, thus the constitutional institutions come out of this stronger, not weaker. The constitutional institutions are:

  - Congress
  - the Executive
  - the Judiciary
  - the States and their constitutional
    institutions
  - the jury

CPB and the like are statutory institutions. Those can come and they can go. Sometimes they go. They can come back you know. The next time the Democrats are in power they can bring all those institutions back and then some, and they can tear down any institutions that Trump creates or takes over. The critical thing is that it be possible for the Democrats to win again in the future, and then that Republicans be able to win again in the future, and so on.

[garciasn]

This isn't Musk's fault; he's just the asshole scapegoat. This is directly from the Conservative Think Tanks who finally got a President willing to strip everything down in government while increasing insane spends elsewhere (e.g., $200MM ballroom for the White House while cutting revenue) based on the will of 44% of the voting population of the country.

If anything, government should have been cut AND revenues increased; but, that's not how either party works. (disgusting oversimplification: Republicans reduce revenue and reduce spend while Democrats increase revenue and increase spend).

[jordanpg]

This is it. It always was a house of cards. A house of cards that everyone tacitly agreed to protect and preserve through norms. Then, the Conservative Think Tanks found someone who was willing to dispense with all of those norms. They gambled that people and Congress wouldn't really care (in the short term, anyway). And they were right.

[bullfightonmars]

What else could it be? Elected institutions are made up of people who agree to a laws, rules, and norms that everyone else agrees on. It's all a farce built up on agreements to keep things running smoothly.

There is no system you could structure rigidly enough that it would not be vulnerable to bad actors. You can insulate yourself by distributing authority as we have, but if those authorities stop playing following the laws, rules, and norms well you end up where we are at, devolving into facisim.

[nobody9999]

>based on the will of 44% of the voting population of the country.

Actually, it was more like 25% but who's counting?

[subsistence234]

i guess they should have been more trustworthy. once its lost, trust is hard to earn back.