[ncr100]

This is fairly routine -- for Democratic executive administrations to unfuck financial / other poor performance / bad health promulgated by prior Republican ones:

Republicans since Reagan have prioritized tax cuts as an end in themselves, treating deficit concerns as secondary

Democrats have generally accepted the post-1990s norm of PAYGO (pay-as-you-go) budgeting more consistently

Trump has been remarkable effective and impactful, for a US President.

His term makes me think maybe we DON'T want Presidents, as they're too powerful and it's too risky a structural design.

[JohnFen]

> His term makes me think maybe we DON'T want Presidents, as they're too powerful and it's too risky a structural design.

Or we could go back to actually following Constitutional intent. In that, the executive branch isn't the most powerful at all. Congress is.

[ncr100]

I wonder if that idea would support enhancing the Congress with more members + more true-representational (not Gerrymandered) membership, and eliminating the Senate?

I have Zero fundamental understanding of governing, or best-practices for representational government, nor for my own / USA's system. And I wonder wtf should I actually know, in order to fore-arm myself for this upcoming period where the USA must adapt to the perils of this new age.

[jacquesm]

We're well beyond what a democratic administration following the Trump one can undo, there is a large amount of permanent damage.

[tstrimple]

Democratic measures against Republicans is always one step forward for every two steps back. It’s not enough and has never been enough because liberals don’t fight a fraction as hard to help people as conservatives do to fuck people over. Every single democratic administration wastes months to years trying some sort of reconciliation path with people who actively hate them and wonder why politics as usual isn’t working.

[anigbrowl]

I agree, but believe jacquesm is pointing to a larger problem: even with diligent and committed efforts by a different administration or a series of them, the rest of the world is not going to trust the US any more for a very long time. Partly thanks to social media, it's obvious that the political realignment we're seeing is not just the work of a few political strategists and manipulators, but that about a third of the US is consumed by a revanchist mindset with whom accommodation is impossible.

[jacquesm]

Indeed. Even Canadians, who - as a rule, and of course only in my experience - are fairly mild mannered are now outright aghast at the way their Southern neighbor is behaving. This is something I never expected to see and here we are, and that little bit of damage alone is going to last for a decade or more if it doesn't get much worse compared to where it is today.

The damage we're talking about will last for generations.

[stopbulying]

> "don’t fight a fraction as hard to help people as conservatives do to [f] people over"

I attribute this more to the relative difficulty to destroy compared with the effort required to create.

It's easier to burn bridges than build them.

It's easier to forfeit external relations saboteurially than to be a decent f person and listen.

They just forfeited 66 very big deals. When they run away like that, they forfeit.