Dean
Flairless
Variously accused of being a reactionary post-modernist fascist neo-conservative neo-liberal conservative classical liberal Nazi Zionist imperialist hypernationalist warmongering isolationist Jewish-Polish-Slavic-Anglo race-traitor masculine-feminine bitch-man. No one yet has guessed multiple people, or a scholar. Add to our list of pejoratives today!
User ID: 430
Dean
Flairless
6d ago
Gullibility is the tendency to be persuaded, which is method agnostic. If your idea of gullibility is tied to social conformity pressure alone, your concept needs to be expanded.
So the same thing that's been happening for the last 3 months?
No.
What has been happening for the last 3 months is a result of the different legal authorities for government agencies existing.
While Congress is the root authorizer of all money for the government, Congress is not the origin of all agencies. Certain agencies / offices exist because Congress says so, and some exist because the President thinks it'd be a good idea. When Congress funds the later, it tends to be in a far more open-to-executive discretion way. Instead of 'spend X amount on Y program for Z purpose,' where a failure to spend is against the law, the authorizations may be structured more like 'here is X amount for you to figure out how to spend best for Z purpose.' The last 3 months has been, in effect, the Executive branch saying 'we don't need all this after all' in the agencies where the Executive gets to make greater calls in what to spend on.
What Schumer is referring to is what happens when Congress does not pass a spending bill at all, and/or shifts to a continuing resolution model. Which has far more expansive in implications.
Honey wake up. The US Fiscal Year 2026 Budget War started today.
Earlier today, the Trump Administration published its discretionary budget request for next year, fiscal year 2026 (FY26). The USA Today has a media-level summary here. You are probably going to be seeing various other coverings as various federal agencies report their relevant equities, and media coverage of these.
More interesting (to nerds, accountants, or political prognosticators who wouldn't trust a media summary) is the White House's own summary here.
The Discretionary Budget request is basically what most people think of as 'the budget,' but is really 'everything that is not an entitlement.' This is the part of the budget where Congress and Presidents really haggle over year-by-year. The US President's Request is just that- a request- but generally serves as an initial input for the rest of the Congressional process to work off of.
Which- since this is a year of Republican trifecta- makes the following opening a bit... spicey. (For a bureaucratic proposal.)
(As a disclaimer- the following should be read as raising implications, not advocacy or predictions of success. I am not making any moral argument on the proposal at this time. Feel free to hate or like the budget proposal as you will.)
The President’s topline discretionary Budget holds the line on total spending while providing unprecedented increases for defense and border security. Defense spending increases by 13 percent, and appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security increase by nearly 65 percent, to ensure that agencies repelling the invasion of our border have the resources they need to complete their mission. These increases would be made possible through budget reconciliation, which would allow them to be enacted with simple majorities in the Congress, and not be held hostage by Democrats for wasteful nondefense spending increases as was the case in President Trump’s first term.
**Nondefense spending is reduced by $163 billion or 22.6 percent while still providing support for our Nation’s veterans, seniors, law enforcement, and other critical priorities for the Federal Government. Savings are achieved by reducing or eliminating programs found to be woke and weaponized against ordinary working Americans, wasteful, or best left to the States and localities to provide.
Well, maybe the partisan jabs are spicier to most. But the point of planning to pass through reconciliation is an opening salvo of an intent / threat to pass without seeking Democratic buy-in. That doesn't mean there will be no negotiations or concessions for votes, but it is signaling an interest/willingness to brute force through the legislature as needed.
This is very much maximizing the value of a trifecta while you have it. It can also galvanize an opposition party to call 'bet,' and try to target / pressure vulnerable Republicans to flip their vote, and thus make it fail. In which case, either the Republicans compromise, or a government shutdown results. This is what some Democrats wanted Chuck Schumer to do earlier this year, rather than pass the Republican budget through the Senate.
Keep a pin on that shutdown. We'll come back to it later.
The budget says it prioritizes three main things. This is the surface-level 'what they want you to know'-level priorities, not what specific elements are more important than others. Just in general terms, they are-
Rebuild our Nation’s Military. The Budget request for the Department of Defense builds on the President’s promise to achieve peace through strength by providing the resources to rebuild our military, re-establish deterrence, and revive the warrior ethos of our Armed Forces. In combination with $113 billion in mandatory funding, the Budget increases Defense spending by 13 percent, and prioritizes investments to: strengthen the safety, security, and sovereignty of the homeland; deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific; and revitalize America’s defense industrial base.
No real surprise. Generally ambiguous / non-specific.
Secure the Border. Amounts for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the 2026 Budget complement amounts that the Administration has requested as part of the reconciliation bill currently under consideration in Congress. The resources provided would empower the DHS to implement the President’s mass removal campaign and secure the border.
This is notable not because it's a surprise, but because budget laws are a key way for the US government to be granted authorities to do things. Part of the current judicial holdups on the Trump judicial programs have centered on 'you can't use that law in this way' objections. While the administration is likely going to argue in court that they do and see what it can still do, expect the cases they lose to lead to language in these bills giving a more modern congressional authorization.
Achieve American Energy Dominance. The Budget supports the President’s commitment to unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources. The Budget cancels over $15 billion in Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) Green New Scam funds provided to the Department of Energy for unreliable renewable energy, removing carbon dioxide from the air, and other costly technologies that burden ratepayers and consumers. The Budget reorients Department of Energy funding toward research and development of technologies that could produce an abundance of domestic fossil energy and critical minerals, innovative concepts for nuclear reactors and advanced nuclear fuels, and technologies that promote firm baseload power. The Budget also cancels an additional $5.7 billion in IIJA funding provided to the Department of Transportation for failed and unnecessary electric vehicle charger grant programs.
Hostility to renewable energy spending is not a surprise. The emphasis on baseload power is consistent with Trump's arguments of reshoring domestic manufacturing, as baseload power dynamics are a major consideration for energy-intensive heavy industry.
The next three pages are 1-paragraph summaries of specific lines of effort. Call these sub-priorities, and expect these to be the Trump-aligned media's preferred framings for various efforts.
Due to the formatting dynamics, I can't copy-paste the whole thing. Instead, I will bring the main section headers, and what I think are the most interesting implications to the motte cultural war thread audience.
Make America Healthy Again (MAHA). The discretionary Budget request builds on the President’s MAHA Commission. The Budget provides resources to the Department of Health and Human Services that would allow the Secretary to tackle issues related to nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety.
Generally unobjectionable. However, don't be surprised if progressive medical policies (particularly for transgender health) get involved in the medications and treatments section.
Support Our Veterans.
Includes a proposal to allow veterans to see local community providers, rather than go to specific Veteran Affairs installations.
This proposal will allow Trump to cut Veterans Affair federal employees due to offsetting care to the private sector. This is part of a reoccuring theme of 'things that would allow the Federal government to reduce workforce.' Expect it to be raised as cutting care for veterans, but also to be a popular-ish proposal with veteran groups depending on how it's done.
Preserve Social Security. The Budget also includes investments in program integrity, to reduce fraud and abuse in Social Security programs, and in investments in artificial intelligence to increase employee productivity and automate routine workloads.
The social security fraud angle will almost certainly tie into authorizing DOGE to access to social security data, which was subject to an injunction and was part of the mid-April media cycles. The AI-to-automate is the first mention of AI use, and is an enabler of a key theme of reducing the required government workforce.
Streamline K-12 Education Funding and Promote Parental Choice. To limit the Federal role in education, and provide States with more flexibility, the Budget creates a new K-12 Simplified Funding Program that consolidates 18 competitive and formula grant programs into a new formula grant, and a Special Education Simplified Funding Program that consolidates seven IDEA programs into a single grant. The Budget also invests $500 million, a $60 million increase, to expand the number of high-quality charter schools, which have a proven track record of improving students’ academic achievement and giving parents more choice in the education of their children.
Grant program conditions are occasionally subject to criticism for which criteria they favor. Consolidating them not only provides a more uniform dynamic, but- again- reduces workforce requirements to manage.
A more than 10% increase in charter fund support, which is completely compatible with undercutting public employee teacher unions, which are a significant Democratic party interest group in various states.
Make America Skilled Again (MASA). The Budget proposes to give States and localities the flexibility to spend Federal workforce dollars to best support their workers and economies, instead of funneling taxpayer dollars to progressive non-profits finding work for illegal immigrants or focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Under this proposal, States would now have more control and flexibility to coordinate with employers and would have to spend at least 10 percent of their MASA grant on apprenticeship, a proven model that trains workers while they earn a paycheck and offers a valuable alternative to college.
Ignoring the (expected) DEI jab / defunding, this both (a) uses the grant model to decrease federal administrator roles in determining how grants are used, as opposed to checking for violations in state use, and (b) increases a local-state emphasis on manufacturing / 'apprenticeship' jobs. This later is consistent with the broader re-shore industry premise of other policies.
Support Space Flight. 7 billion for lunar exploration, 1 billion for Mars-focused efforts, and a reductions in 'lower priority' research for a 'leaner' workforce.
Expect 'lower priority' to go after environment-science related areas.
Realign Foreign Aid. The Budget reorganizes the U.S. Agency for International Development into the Department of State to meet current needs and eliminates non-essential staff that were hired based on DEI and preferencing practice.
Codifying what was already de facto being done under the Rubio dual-hat arrangement at the beginning of the administration. The probable expectation / intention of codifying this into law should update people's understandings of why the USAID shutdown went about the way it did, and view it as part of an opening move in the months that followed.
End Weaponization and Reduce Violent Crime. The Budget ends the previous administration’s weaponization of the Department of Justice (DOJ), and instead prioritizes the Department’s key functions: combatting lawlessness; restoring order to America’s communities; fighting crime; and supporting America’s men and women in Blue. To that end, the Budget proposes to eliminate nearly 40 DOJ grant programs that are duplicative, not aligned with the President’s priorities, fail to reduce violent crime, or are weaponized against the American people.
Expect this to be the shoe to drop on parts of the FBI that Trump has a suspicion / skepticism / has felt internally opposed by, but which have been protected by their establishing laws that limit USAID-style Executive-only actions against them.
Maintain Support for Tribal Nations. The Budget preserves Federal funding for the Indian Health Service and supports core programs at the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education, sustaining the Federal Government’s support for core programs that benefit tribal communities. At the same time, it streamlines other programs for tribal communities, to reduce inefficiencies and eliminate funding for programs and activities found to be ineffective
This matches a general theme of 'healthcare to Americans is not the target; administrating programs that disperse it and other types of programs are.'
Address Drug Abuse and Mental Health. This includes redirecting DEA’s foreign spending to regions with criminal organizations that traffic significant quantities of deadly drugs into the United States—Mexico, Central America, South America, and China. The Budget also proposes to refocus activities that were formerly part of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, by eliminating funding for programs that duplicate block grant funding, or are too small to have a national impact.
This is actually the first budget-level section focused on foreign countries, and it's focused on the Western Hemisphere. This is particularly notable due to Trump designated the drug cartels as terrorist organizations. This- and the earlier DHS- indicate an expected / intended increase in emphasis in Latin America efforts, which... could be not well received, depending on how Trump goes about it. (Or- alternatively- foreign agreement in cooperating is a basis of ongoing tariff negotiations.)
The second sentence of programs that duplicate block grant is notable as part of the block grant trend. For those unfamiliar, in the US block grants refer to money given to states and localities directly to use for specific programs, as opposed to programs managed by the government. It's basically delegating to state levels, as opposed to a federal bureaucracy. Advocates typically argue on grounds of efficiency / local expertise. Opponents of block grants have claimed they are a back-door to reducing programs, and/or make it harder to monitor.
Support Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Research. The Budget maintains funding for research in artificial intelligence and quantum information science at key agencies, to ensure the United States remains on the cutting edge of these critical technologies’ development and responsible use.
Quoted in full for the interested. There are no cuts advocated here, but also no increases claimed.
Improve Wildland Firefighting. Federal wildfire risk mitigation and suppression responsibilities currently are split across five agencies in two departments. The Budget reforms Federal wildland fire management to create operational efficiencies by consolidating and unifying Federal wildland fire responsibilities into a new Federal Wildland Fire Service at the Department of the Interior. This new service would streamline Federal wildfire suppression response, risk mitigation efforts, and coordination with non-Federal partners to combat the wildfire crisis.
Further reorganization / consolidation / implicit reduction in overall scope.
And that's it! At least on the White House summary.
Something not mentioned- but which may be hidden in the non-public spending- was anything about relocating federal agency headquarters out of DC. I made a point last month about how relocating agencies out of DC could be expected to have long-term effects on their political alignment with hyper-blue DC norms. I would be surprised if that doesn't come up.
But- to bring back to an earlier point- how likely is this to pass?
A lot of this is naked culture war politics. That's not surprising, even if the previous administration used different political interest language in its proposals and such. There are also some pretty clear institutional interests. In so much that any agency is seen as 'too friendly' or 'too hostile,' reorganizations, reductions, and so on, any reduction is a risk in future allies and influence. Or a mitigation, depending on your perspective.
So, that's going to be a major question of the next few months. Coincidentally, right as Trump reduces his interest in Ukraine after the mineral deal, freeing up decisionmaker space for ongoing tariff negotiations and then the later budget battle culminations.
What will happen? Who will win? Will the Democrats be able to peal off enough Republicans and deny the budget the votes it needs to pass? Will the Democrats compromise and support a bill that guts treasured programs and threatens some interest groups? Will the Democrats be able to save their institutional allies?
Or will the Republicans lose, and be forced to take blame with a government shutdown?
In a respect, that last option may not matter. When it comes to saving certain agencies, this budget may be heading for a 'Heads I win, Tails you lose' dynamic.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ignited a party rebellion by averting a government shutdown earlier this year. He has been accused of being too weak on Trump, of not picking the fight the democratic base wanted. I can fully see one occurring again, but worse, with a few more months of political pressure.
As bad as passing the CR is, as I said, allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.
First, a shutdown would give Donald Trump and Elon Musk carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now.
Under a shutdown, the Trump administration would have full authority to deem whole agencies, programs, and personnel “non-essential,” furloughing staff with no promise they would ever be rehired.
The decision on what is essential would be solely left to the executive branch, with nobody left at agencies to check them.
In short, a shutdown would give Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE, and Russell Vought the keys to the city, state and country.
...
Many federal employees and government experts are rightly worried that a temporary shutdown could lead to permanent cuts.
Second, if we enter a shutdown, Congressional Republicans would weaponize their majorities to cherry-pick which parts of the government to reopen.
In a protracted shutdown, House and Senate Republicans would pursue a strategy of bringing bills to the floor to reopen only their favorite departments and agencies, while leaving other vital services that they don’t like to languish.
...
Extremely troubling, I believe, is that a shutdown could stall federal court cases – one of the best redoubts against Trump’s lawlessness. It could furlough critical staff, denying victims and defendants alike their day in court, dragging out appeals, and clogging the justice system for months or even years.
I will note in this last section that judges legally cannot require the Federal government to spend money on programs Congress has not authorized money for in a budget or continuing resolution.
So each of those judicial-injunction fights? The ones stopping Trump from closing a program now / demanding employees be re-hired / spend money on the already-passed budgets? Money that would be legally unavailable for the government to spend without a FY26 budget?
...yeah... you can't injunction a shutdown of government agencies during a government shutdown...
A lot of the ongoing DOGE fights aren't necessarily about shutting programs literally right now or not at all. In some respects, they should be thought of as preparatory actions. Testing limits, generating early wins for the base and provoking some doomed fights from the opposition, seeing what polls better or worse with the electorate they care more about. Setting conditions for the FY26 budget that Trump's team was planning for.
And baiting out the nation-wide injunctions, so that the ongoing Supreme Court case about them can limit a current go-to policy obstacle. Which- whatever the outcome- will clarify the legal environment, and Trump's legal strategies, for the next few years.
So... who wants to register predictions on a US government shutdown later this year?
Dean
Flairless
6d ago
Personally I don't find this theory plausible - officially the Blinken rules were cancelled by Biden during the lame duck period, and Ukraine's attacks on Russian territory seem to be capability-limited.
My read is that Ukraine has politically-limited a significant part of its drone campaign since Trump came in due to the cease-fire process. The Ukraine drone strikes on Russian refineries earlier this year sharply curtailed after the Zelensky-Trump-Vance summit blow-up and subsequent Ukrainian alignment to the US for ceasefire talks. The capabilities almost certainly exist, but the peace process- or rather the US demands to support the peace process- were prioritized.
We don't / probably won't know what the new restrictions are, but I wouldn't be surprised if the post-talks status quo shifts to 'the US will not help, but will not prohibit, Ukraine using Ukrainian arms deeper into Russia.' That just needs to come after the US formally ends the cease fire process.
At the risk of self-reference...
Points made at the time, with a supporting premise from each section-
Point one, it's not necessarily as time sensitive as it is being presented, as opposed to being part of a possible multi-week push for a truce.
This creates a risk that even if all parties wanted to end the war, they could miss the opportunity if some (Russia) attempt to draw out negotiations in the name of trying to get more.
We're at 2 weeks after that post. We'll see what else, if anything, progresses, but VP Vance and Secretary of State Rubio are both signalling an expectation of a longer war, without threatening to cut off Ukraine aid.
Point two is option two- the (unlikely) prospect that Russia reigns in its demands to accept a cease-fire deal is likely sooner than later.
But the more unlikely it is, the more likely any window-of-opportunity with the Trump administration is to close. And re-opening a window can be much, much harder the second time than the first.
Russia did not accept a Trump proposed cease-fire. Russia announced its own micro/unilateral cease-fires, such as the easter cease fire, but maintained many of its maximalist demands throughout the rest of the month, including
- Ukraine must commit to not joining NATO
- Ukraine must confirm neutral and non-bloc status
- Ukraine must address “neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv” formed after the “coup in February 2014,” particularly regarding policies affecting Russian language, media, and culture
- International recognition of Russian control over Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts
- Legally binding agreements with enforcement mechanisms
- “Demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine
- Lifting of sanctions against Russia
- Return of frozen Russian assets
Demands 2, 3, 6, and 8 in particular are the sort of lower-cost demands that Russia would likely drop in a non-grasping proposal.
Point three is what Trump 'passing' on the peace process means for Ukraine if it does occur.
My position is that a collapse of US-Russia negotiations means sustained, not diminished, US aid for Ukraine.
1 May: Newsweek: Donald Trump Opens Ukraine Military Sales Tap After Minerals Deal
The Trump administration has told Congress that it intends to give the go-ahead for roughly $50 million of defense-related products to be exported to Ukraine through American industry sales direct to Kyiv, according to a new report.
Note that this sale is after the signing, but before the ratification of the mineral deal by the Ukrainian legislature. 50 million is not 'a lot' in the context of the war as a whole, but military sales as opposed to military aid is a notable distinction.
Point four- parallel negotiations as a means of leverage on each other.
As noted above, if the Ukraine-US mineral deal goes through, that undercuts the US leverage against the Russia position. And if the leverage against Russia fails, then the war goes on.
1 May: AP: Ukraine and the US have finally signed a minerals deal. What does it include?
The agreement — which the Ukrainian parliament must ratify — would establish a reconstruction fund for Ukraine that Ukrainian officials hope will be a vehicle to ensure future American military assistance.
This structure of military sales / assistance rather than aid matters because-
Point five - the importance of having tried and failed, over having never tried at all, and covering the costs with a skeptical-but-not-hostile electoral base.
I'm not here to argue which you should believe is right. My point is that both of these readings suggest that the potential news of the coming weeks- the Ukraine mineral deal and Russia peace deal- may shift the Republican coalition towards a greater 'right amount or more' coalition balance for further Ukraine aid.
We'll see when future polling comes out, but I suspect that any increase in disapprovals for Trump over the next month will be far more about trade policy than Ukraine arms sale policies.
Point six - how the deals (and Trump walkway from a ceasefire) may shape Trump's base into a more pro-Ukraine-aid direction.
This is where the Ukraine mineral deal can start prying apart the 'too-much' coalition, because expected future gains can offset costs. And the more Democratic / international media criticizes the deal as 'extortionate,' the more credible it can be to an otherwise unfamiliar base that, hey, aiding Ukraine is not just [cost].
The NYT is not calling it extortionate- leaving that to the 'early' versions. The anti-Trump right National Review does call it sordid but logical. The WSJ is approving. Newsmax reported a Russian position that the deal forces Ukraine to pay for weapons with minerals.
Final Point - The Trump Effect: If Trump Supports Aid It Can't Be Wrong
This means that once (if) Trump takes a position that negotiations are no longer something he's going to pay political capital for, but that mineral deal/etc. make continued Ukrainian aid acceptable, then the political influence of the [any aid is too much] factions is going to wither. They will still exist, but they will not have the platform or the following if they try to critique Trump-support for Ukraine like Trump signal-boosted their condemnations of Biden-support for Ukraine.
We'll see what it turns to, but initial media responses don't suggest any sort of 'Trump's base is about to revolt over selling weapons to Ukraine.'
There is likely to be a Republican base... maybe not revolt, but internal struggle, over next year's Fiscal Budget. Trump avoided a dispute over the recent budget for the rest of the fiscal year by promising steeper cuts in the coming budget fight.
Which led to...
Summary / Conclusion - What Does This Mean?
In the next few weeks we may seeing the start of a political transition to a more stable US/Republican support for Ukraine aid for the next year(s).
This won't be immediately apparent, but will be observable over the months to follow, particularly by the fall when the 2026 US budget negotiations culminate. How Ukraine aid factors into that will indicate a lot about the new state of the Republican party and Ukrainian aid politics.
And coincidentally, the FY 2026 budget proposal was presented... today.
Which supports the 'Trump is serious about walking away from the Ukraine Peace Talks,' because the Washington budget war for the next year, including a $163 billion in proposed cuts, is just getting started. And this includes the formal cuts to programs he's already ordered dismantled, including some actions frozen by courts, which would get around judicial freezes if passed by Congress.
Dean
Flairless
6d ago
Unfortunately you edited your comment though
The edit was for grammatical clarity. You remain free to assign to me any positions I have not taken as part of your goalpost moving.
Dean
Flairless
7d ago
Can I extend this to your view on the OP being that it doesn't matter at all that the article that Adam Silver reposted is AI slop, versus your definition of "slop" in general? It doesn't move your priors on Adam Silver (the reposter), X (the platform), or Yahoo Entertainment (the media institution) even an iota?
You can strawman me in whatever way you prefer.
Dean
Flairless
7d ago
Well, I might have misunderstood the association. Still, and regardless, please keep posting the counter-arguments against 'the Democrat law would totally have reformed immigration, and Republican opposition to it is proof of bad faith' in the future. I find your take more convincing, but couldn't recreate it myself from memory, and I doubt they are going to stop invoking the argument in the future.
Though I hope your boilerplate response doesn't get any wags of the fingers from mods, since I'd appreciate you to keep posting longer than not.
Dean
Flairless
7d ago
Building in stakes for the sake of urgency and invoking emotional rather than deliberate reasoning is a cornerstone of many fraud and propaganda techniques, i.e. human gullibility exploits.
Surely articles written by an actual human, no matter their political bias, are universally better than AI slop of any particular bias? Can't we all agree on that across the political spectrum?
Obviously not, or you wouldn't be making an appeal to elitism as opposed to popular consumption, i.e. the numerically broader basis where 'we all' consensus derives.
The NPC (non-player character) meme arose during the first Trump administration precisely noting the formulaic and non-introspective nature of a good deal of partisan discourse. The belief that AI outputs would be equivalent or even higher quality than human writers at election propaganda has been the basis of AI election interference concerns. The market impacts of generative AI has weakened the bargaining position of creative types ranging from holywood writer guilds to patreon porn makers. is all slop. Non-slop is the exception, regardless of source.
Huh. I knew he was a old-forum poster, but I'd forgot/never noticed he was an alt of unitofcaring. Why did unitofcaring have to change personas again?
Dean
Flairless
7d ago
Not the OP, but the framing (social sciences) page on wikipedia isn't the worst place to start. The page has a fair amount of info, but additional related topics, like spin (propaganda).
Once you get a handle of connotation usage as a practice, honestly TV Tropes isn't a bad place to deep-dive as well. A lot of the trop pages describing a trope will have a smaller section of related / adjacent tropes. For propaganda purposes, these distinctions can make a difference, since a trope that is associated with more heroic connotations can be subverted by a related trope with more nefarious nuances, and so on.
Dean
Flairless
7d ago
Yes. And then the mandate of 'intervene to stop the advance to prevent a massacre' was reasoned into 'and then reverse the advance in the other direction.'
And so one of the only people in history to actively give up a WMD program under external threat ended up ensuring that they would be one of the only people in history to give up a WMD program under external threat. WMD non-proliferation had a terrible setback that year, but at least Hillary got a quippy one-liner and bolstered her tough-on-national-security reputation.
Republicans have a failure mode of cult of personality; Democrats have a failure mode of cult of not personality or ideology but of whatever bureaucrats and various cultural elites organically land on as the Important Signifier of the day.
Failure mode implies a repeated failure in this mode. Which other Republican cults of personality beyond Trump are you thinking of? Reagan?
What makes Democrats distinct from this? Obama actually did have an adoring media, and to this day there are people that unironically argue that he had no scandals. Clinton and his charisma was so central to the Democratic party's adoption of neoliberalism that he almost made Hillary electable. If we want to go back to the cold war, JFK was subject of so much mythologizing that the term 'camelot' only refers to him in a US political context.
Dean
Flairless
8d ago
If that's the case then I will apologize once more and bow out of this discussion.
I will accept the sentiment with a 'no apologies are needed, misunderstandings happen' and happily part ways.
I still find it problematic that a person can't criticize any fundamental pillars of a society while "benefiting" from them. Like, how can we expect the OP to not "take advantage" of personal property ownership by your standard and still be able to function in a capitalistic society?
Who says they have to operate by my standard?
The point of using someone's own standard against them is precisely because it isn't your own standard. You are co-opting provider's credibility and stake in the standard as a less questionable source of legitimacy. You are also forcing the person to defend, or to not defend as they chose here, the implications of their own definition.
If they inevitably fail by their own standard, that can mean anything from that they are unfit to pass judgement, to that it's a bad standard. Some bad standards are bad precisely because they are non-falsifiable.
If someone raises a non-falsifiable standard, then the claimed judgement of the standard loses all meaning. That's not a problematic basis of disregarding a criticism- falsifiability is a prerequisite for a complaint to have any onus.
Are we supposed to disregard any criticism they have because they themselves are forced to participate in the society as it is currently structured?
What do you think social structuring has to do with the fact that only one person can use a computer at a time?
But then you just have one illegitimate government invading another illegitimate government. Probably every war at that time was like that. If every government is illegitimate, how is it even meaningful to say that some particular side is a valid target because they're illegitimate?
By treating legitimacy as a matter of degrees, rather than as a binary state. Same as with most justification categories.
It is very rare for any party to be purely in the right or wrong by any given judgement criteria. That does not mean judgement is impossible. Nor does it mean moral equivalence is necessary.
Well, I didn't expect you to bite this bullet.
If it makes your expectations feel better, I didn't. I did say 'If you define...'
I don't restrict myself to your definition. I am just nodding and agreeing that, yes, if you set a condition in which IF X THEN Y, then when X then Y.
But it wasn't "retroactively gerrymandered", that's my point! It was accepted at the time, and by the north, before secession, that slaves weren't citizens and couldn't vote. Nothing changed retroactively.
And the point that people who were denied representation don't get to have the legitimacy of their implicit support invoked remains. As does the point that they are, in fact, part of regional population majorities.
Franchisement and representation of non-voters was a significant aspect of the foundational american political disputes. The 3/5ths compromise resulted from the slavers wanting slaves to count as much as a citizen for legitimate representation in the political system.
Ah, so the north's government wasn't legitimate either?
Sure, why not? It's not like Union (il)legitimacy affects whether the Confederacy was or was not legitimate. Independent variables.
We could question whether legitimacy is a binary state (legitimate or not legitimate), or a status of degrees (more or less legitimate), but if you don't want to stake a position I won't force you.
Is the current US government illegitimate because illegal aliens can't vote,
If you define the scope of legitimacy to include illegal aliens, certainly. Hence why various pro-migration coalitions support things like giving Congressional representation based on non-citizen (and thus including illegal) residents, and why other parts of their coalitions are very uninterested in proof-of-citizenship requirements in elections that are routinely popular with the electorate that opponents claim to be defending against disenfranchisement.
and if they could we probably wouldn't have elected Trump?
Sure, why not?
This is a relevant point not only for Trump, individually, but the Trump coalition backing him on tariffs. A critical-mass policy coalition doesn't need everyone to want the same thing from an action, only enough people to believe their priority concern is addressed enough to be worth the cost.
The [reshoring industry is worth a high price] people and the [we need to break supply chain dependence on China even if it costs a high price] are not necessarily the same people, even if they are both willing to endure [high price]. They want different things, and would likely not be as willing to accept [high price] were they not getting something they feel was worth the price.
This is a reason why people who go 'if they wanted X, why didn't they do Y?' have been confused. There is no single desire of [X]. There is [X1], [X2], [X3], and so on, and the policy coalition is- as most policy coalitions do- cluster against various interests of [X[#]].
LOL, Strawman City here, looks like -- and in Strawman City, everything you say is true by definition. Great! The only problem is that nothing that happens in Strawman City affects anyone but you, cuz you're the only one there. Sorry, just too many baseless assumptions and leaps of illogic for me to engage much. No, physical possession is not theft. No, physical possession does not entail deprivation. No, "paranoid", "not sharing", and "psychopathy" have zip-all to do with morality. No, I'm not engaging in a hobby. Before trying to construct a polemical trap, make sure you've got facts to work with. But speaking of ironies and hypocrisies, what about the fact that you know squat about me but pretend to know?
Thank you for your illustrative response. It provides the audience more to know you by.
This response is a useful demonstration of how you respond when the moral implications of your claimed standards reflect poorly on yourself. Rather than clarify or refine an argument, you invoke the fallacy of fallacies to try and dismiss implicit criticism as irrelevant. Rather than engage any particular part, you dismiss all elements of pushback. This is a useful way to tease out someone's inclination for using arguments as soldiers, as opposed to genuine positions worth holding and defending despite implicit disrepute.
It is also enlightening to consider not only your use of highly pejorative language, but then your denial that there are any moral connotations with your choice of words. This is not only an excellent example of a particularly blatant motte-and-bailey. It is also enlightening for the speed you withdrew from the bailey, and on what strength of argument you gave to its defense.
It is very useful to know when someone is both the sort of person to deny their words have commonly understood connotations, but also opens with them while inviting others to come up with new definitions of old concepts.
You have also provided additional insights into your mindset and character. Assuming you are honest and that posting here is not a hobby, then posting here is indicative of some kind of cause or other less-trivial, more serious purpose. This supports a bias towards motivated reasoning and engagement. Your counter-argument by counter-attack to an ad-hominem, rather than over your position, suggests a motive focused on the inter-personal engagement than on advancing an ideological premise. This is consistent with your response to other people, suggesting a combative personality. Combined with the [serious purpose] position, this provides insight into potential motives, and your conduct in pursuit of [serious purposes].
Of course, if you are lying, the above could all be wrong. But lying, or even an inclination to loose and fast exaggerations, is another useful thing to know about a new poster.
But the slaves weren't citizens. Non-citizens don't get to be part of a ruling majority.
And women couldn't vote either. That doesn't mean they are not part of the whole population, or the voting minorities were not preventing self-governance by numerical majorities.
You are arguing by a different standard. I can appreciate why, but it is a different standard. The political legitimacy of the Confederacy derived from claiming to represent the legitimate will of 'the people' is certainly up for dispute when 'the people' is retroactively gerrymandered to exclude people who might disagree after making a claim to represent them.
We had a former lawyer who went on the podcast route as well, IIRC
It doesn't even benefit Trump himself. Who would benefit is China. That is self-destructive.
Only in a compositional fallacy sense of the term.
Self-destruction is part of the broader category of things considered [bad]. It is not synonymous with the entire category of [bad]. Things can be both [bad], and not self-destructive.
The rest of the dispute comes to the nature of the [bad], which in turn depends on whose standards of 'benefit' apply. This leans into the typical 'they are acting against their own interests' critique that regularly dismisses differences in preferences by supposing one's own preferences are the agreed upon standard.
The difference between the meme and hoisting someone by their own petard is that a petard must be provided by the owner and initial user.
The nature of the meme is that the counter-argument strawman figure is claiming 'gotcha' moments, despite not actually addressing any position presented. The person on the iphone criticizing Apple's pay of employees is arguing from a position that Apple could be paying the employees more with what has been provided, not that Apple should be boycotted for not paying people more. The car seatbelt person is not a hypocrite for saying there should be seatbelts, because they have not made a standard that such an expression would be hypocritical by. Society-peasant's panel isn't even about a choice of action, which is the punchline against the strawman's degeneration. The strawman is not actually using anyone else's standards, not least because they provided no standard of 'right' by which they violated. The strawman has to invent a standard they did not claim in order to condemn them.
Arguments made from a position of morality can be challenged on their own terms because they provided a standard that the arguer can be judged by. They present an argument of right or wrong that applicable examples can be compared to. The use of moral connotation language indicates what the arguer views as correct / incorrect behaviors. Pejorative language is a framing device- no one calls a reasonable decision 'paranoid' because paranoia is by its nature unjustified/unwarranted/irrational. When personal actions are subject to condemnation under a paradigm, the paradigm-provider can be judged under the same.
The OP chose to offer a definition to judge others by. They used emotive and condemnatory language to indicate their own judgement. Having established the standard and a moralist framing, they can be judged by it in turn.
Has the DOGE Buyout/Firing Campaign Been Setup for This Year's US Budget Negotiations?
In 'culture war developments easily missed in interesting times,' around 60% of the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is expected to resign rather than stick around for the Trump administration's change of focus on civil rights priorities.
To quote the set-up...
Over a 100 is vague. 100 lawyers isn't cheap, but scale matters. How does this compare to the office?
140 of 380 is a 37% retention rate.
63% turnover is an organizational-culture-destroying amount. Just in terms of base-load responsibilities dropped as no longer supportable, an organization is fundamentally changed on what the members expect to do. If the organizational mission shifts...
Newsweek's 'Why It Matters' frames the difference in focus.
Obviously the framings are their own, and may / may not properly characterize what was done / what will be done.
This article, and a few others this week as the second-round buyout tallies come in, are raising the implications of the upcoming US federal... 'exodus' is probably too strong a term, though appropriate in the DOJ Civil Rights division. 'Buyout' is more accurate
You may remember the initial DOGE buy-out from February, which about 75,000 Federal Employees took. The general offer was pay and benefits through September, the end of the fiscal year. This was less than the desired target (about 3.5% of work force to a 5-10% target), and was part of the general legal injunctions as it and other firing actions were taken to court.
Last month, the Trump administration offered a second round of buyouts, and media reporting from the last week suggests the court-confusion / insecurities / etc. have let more to take the offer. In the USDA, less than 4,000 took the initial buyout offer, but over 11,000 have taken the second. It's unclear how typical this is- I didn't find many first and second round stats at this time- but it does suggest that the last three months have increased, not decreased, the Trump administration's ability to shake the federal bureacracy.
A (non-supportive) Politico E&E article reviewing different agencies affected emphasizes not just numbers, but levels of departees, with an emphasis on more senior personnel. While the article emphasizes ways that will hurt Trump's policy agendas, I suspect many of the red tribe will see this 'problems' more ranging from 'acceptable costs' to 'good.'
For example, when the article raises-
-I suspect the Trumpian right doubts the personnel lost would have supported rather than undermined Trump's agenda anyway. That may be an inaccurate doubt, or at least not universally justified across every buy-out departee, but it is a foreseeable consequence of the Resistance strategy played in the first trump administration.
Other quotable quotes by agency include-
Overall, Reuters estimates that about 260,000 federal workers- over a quarter of a million- have been fired, taken a buyout, or retired early since Trump came into office.
So, what else does this mean, besides an increase in job applications for DOGE-scrutinized federal workers?
I think this buy-out process is best understood in a similar light- as a deliberate culture-change strategy to change the institutional culture of the Executive Branch administrative state. You can even see the outlines a corporate turnover strategy.
I've noted before the organizational-culture implications of the Trump administration trying to relocate federal agencies out of the hyper-blue DC area to other places in the country.
I submit that the current government curtailment efforts look to have been part of a deliberate phased process to reach this buy-out point in preparation for the mid-2025 budget negotiations.
End-Jan: At the end of January (29Jan), the initial buyout-offer was made and set to expire on 6 Feb. This was the initial offer. It would receive some court resistance. As previously addressed, it didn't get as much traction as the Administration wanted.
Feb: February is the month of DOGE fear, starting with the USAID takedown. I wrote in February about how the takedown and releases were enabled by the dual-hatting mechanics of Secretary of State Rubio becoming USAID director. This was a unique legal dynamic due to USAID's specific legal structure, but it served to create insecurity in the work force. Similar dynamics like the OPM '5 bullets' email. Requirements for complaince build credibility in DOGE-threats.
March: Transition from DOGE-fear to Secretary Management. In mid-march, Trump signals that DOGE will take a supporting role to the department heads. This was conveyed in the time as Musk having his wings clipped. How much was stage-managed kabuki theater is up for debate. Regardless, Department heads are now 'backed by' DOGE-threats, without having had to make the threats themselves.
March-April: Early Trump lawfare as efforts at initial cuts / firings / etc. are resisted in public and in the courts. While courts create setbacks for Trump, this actually increases uncertainty overall. Trump is able to get enough wins enough of the time such that the threat of reductions in force (RIFs) / future firings are credible.
April: Buyout 2.0 offered. The anti-Trump resistance in the courts gets ominous foreshadowing that the Supreme Court may strictly limit the sort of injunctions being used to stop Trump's federal efforts. As the public chaos / pressure over jobs occurs, more federal employees take the buyout.
May: On 1 May, Trump announces his budget priorities for FY 2026. This includes cutting $163 billion from various US government programs, with the NYT choosing its highlights.
May now: Here we are
So, where does the clickbait title come in?
Basically, the next few months are the typical annual US budget negotiation season. Its far from the only thing going on, but the first federal budget of a new president is kind of a big deal. It's where the new administration goes from inheriting the policy priorities of the previous administration to making their own, and this year in particular is the start of a (probably brief) Republican trifecta. The US entered a (somewhat surprising) rest-of-the-year budget stability when back in March Senate Minority Leader Schumer decided to support Trump's spending bill out of concern of the increased power Trump would get if there was no budget or only continuing resolutions.
I bring this up now, because the DOGE-Buyout plan is, itself, a lever / tool in the next year budget cycle, where Congress discusses not just budgets, but manpower authorizations for agencies.
Government shutdown politics change when there a quarter-of-a-million fewer federal employees suddenly out of work and not getting paid. Federal employees out of work are free to do stuff. Ex-Federal employees go on with their non-federal jobs. The bigger the federal bureacracy, the more painful it is to get into these kind of fights. On the other hand, the smaller, the easier.
Position vacancies are also a big implication for program cuts. It's politically easier for Congressional negotiators to cut billets / positions / parts of agencies that are currently (or will be predictably) empty than parts that are filled. Part of the reason few things are as hard to end as a temporary government program is because there is a person whose job is on the line, and a department supervisor whose authorities / money / personal influence network hinges on the people they have. These are not the only obstacles, but they are diminished when relevant leaders take a buyout and aren't there to advocate to the death.
This is particularly true when partisans negotiate over politically sensitive institutions that a former partisan 'owner' may or may not want to see fall into 'enemy hands.' The DOJ Civil Rights Division, for example, has a reputation for being Democrat-aligned in political sympathies. It was 380 lawyers, and is expected to go down to 180 lawyers. That is a 200-lawyer gap.
Does an arch-progressive true-blue Democrat really want to insist in the DOJ-authorization bill that Trump must hire 200 lawyers to get back to 380 lawyers? Even though that will almost certainly mean 200 red-tribe lawyers who now form a majority of the civil rights division?
Or do they maybe feel that 180 mostly-old-guard lawyers are preferable, and deny Trump the influence of reshaping CRD composition? Hoping that- next presidency- they can re-expand the government service?
Even if that happens, my final point is that nothing that's going on right now is so easily reversed as the next administration in 4 years simply going 'reverse all that.' Even if an alternate Democratic trifecta emerges with the next Dem president, things will have changed.
However these dynamics play out, I suspect the Trump administration's effects will still be felt decades from now. But this year of DOGE so far has been setting the stage for the budget negotiations that will make these changes far more long-term than they would otherwise be.
(Finally- none of this is any sort of dispute / counter / negation of the warning/accusation/predictions that the federal drawdown will hinder Trump or the Republicans in predictable/unflattering/unhelpful ways in the future. To quote H. L. Mencken, Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.)
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