I was thinking about the similarities between the two presidents and the closest person to them, who stand a lot to gain and have undoubtedly are very influential in their decision making. And I don't think in hindsight, many Americans and members of the Legislative Branch would still be on board for the invasion of Iraq if they knew how it would turn out- particularly regarding the no-bid government contracts with Halliburton to manage the oilfields after Saddam’s regime fell.

So I’m curious if you believe Musk is attempting to be Cheney 2.0? And if Musk were trying to do something similar to Cheney by exerting influence on the President’s policymaking, do you think the Legislative Branch would be able to prevent it in an effort to avoid a repeat of what happened during the Bush Administration? Why or why not?

If not, do you believe it is within the realm of possibility that Trump and Musk are instead working in tandem to attempt something akin to state capture? And could that be successful or will the Legislative check “their” Executive power and prevent policymaking that seems primarily to benefit Musk and Trump and clearly detrimental for the American people?

In such a situation, to what extent could we expect the military to act based on independent judgment rather than strictly following orders? Would their response prioritize the well-being of American citizens, or would self-preservation take precedence?

I've been wondering why he might of chosen to run for president in his 70s. Generally speaking, the United States in it's past is seen as less tolerant than the modern political climate in terms of what is socially acceptable. Do you think he would of done better or worse if he ran in say, the 80s or 90s when he was much more well liked?

Is there a way to prevent their government from, say, suppressing scientific research, promoting misinformation, creating concentration camps, and possibly starting war with its allies?

Or, is it doomed to end in civil war?

This seems to be an idea proposed after the events of 2020. I will say that at least where I live, the local police agency, most officers in the agency have a college degree already ? So.... Furthermore, what KIND of degree should we require ? Criminal Justice ?

I've been thinking about this topic lately and was curious as to other's thoughts. Once bad information became a noticeable issue online platforms went to third party fact checkers, and it seemed to work okay but during covid there ended up being a lot of tensions surrounding exactly when it was alright to remove something for being "misinformation", and who's to way what constitutes misinformation, etc.

Eventually Twitter/X had the idea to move to the community notes system, which has a good record in terms of accuracy but a debatable track record in actually stopping bad information from propagating. Now with the announcement that Meta is moving towards a community notes approach, a lot of people seem upset that they'd do this, and Zuck announcing this change has a lot of people associating the change with a move to being right wing?

What do we think is the best way to counter misinformation then? A community based fact checking system seems good in spirit, it makes it so that people can't accuse the platform of having partisan skews with regards to what's "true", but people don't seem happy with the solution. Thoughts?

There are many factors that influence a person's vote when choosing a candidate, whether at the local, state or federal level. But I would like to focus on the economic aspect because there are some examples of the economic situation at that time giving different winners in the elections.

Although it is too early to say what the economic situation will be like under this administration, I would like to know the level of influence they have on voters. In addition, how can the economic situation affect the 2026 and 2028 elections?

What can the U.S. and other NATO countries do to make the alliance more united and stronger? Many politicians from various NATO countries criticize the alliance, arguing that some member countries bear more responsibility than others and that NATO’s role has become less relevant since the Cold War. For example, Trump criticizes NATO for placing a disproportionate financial burden on the U.S., claiming that many member states fail to meet their defense spending commitments. How can NATO countries work together to address these criticisms? Do you believe NATO is less relevant today than it was in the 20th century? What steps should be taken to strengthen the alliance?

I was pondering over the results of this election and wondering why so many young men are voting for the conservative party these days.

I came across this article from 2024 and it really made me think Have Democrats Given Up on Men? - The Survey Center on American Life https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/have-democrats-given-up-on-men/

When you look at the Democratic Party home page for 'Who They Serve', they include Women specifically and exclude Men, outside of certain groupings that include them.

democrats.org/who-we-are/who-we-serve/

I'm curious what people have to say on this topic and will save my personal opinions for the comment section. Is it a wise thing for Democrats to bank on the morality of a large portion of the population rather than showing direct support, to gain votes?

With RFK Jr.’s nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services sparking intense debate, it raises broader questions about how public health officials are judged—and whether scrutiny is applied consistently.

Under Xavier Becerra and Dr. Rachel Levine, obesity rates continued to rise, particularly among children. Despite obesity being one of the leading contributors to chronic disease, no major policy shifts were implemented to combat the dominance of ultra-processed foods or improve national dietary standards. Meanwhile, some argue that the approach to obesity has shifted toward body positivity and weight inclusivity rather than stricter public health interventions like dietary regulations, calorie control, or exercise-focused initiatives. Others believe that body positivity is an important movement that helps reduce stigma and improve mental health outcomes.

At the same time, Levine’s nomination was largely framed in terms of representation, as she became the first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the Senate. Critics argue that this emphasis on identity shielded her from scrutiny over her policies or personal health, while others see it as an important milestone in diversity and inclusion. Meanwhile, RFK Jr. is facing an aggressive confirmation process, largely due to his views on vaccines and alternative health approaches. This raises a question: does political or social alignment influence how much scrutiny a public health official receives?

Was the level of scrutiny RFK Jr. faced during his confirmation hearing proportional, especially when past health secretaries like Rachel Levine and Xavier Becerra received far less aggressive questioning despite overseeing rising obesity rates and unaddressed concerns about processed food?

It’s been argued that tariffs cause things to cost more. If trump’s tariffs do take effect and prices rise, are they ever likely to come back down?

We’ve seen before prices increase during periods of inflation and rarely ever do they come back down, but rather stabilize. Does this indicate that if we go through another dramatic period of inflation due to tariffs those higher prices will be the new norm going forward?

It seems like project 2025 is being implemented at lightning speed so what are its weaknesses? As in, what aspects of the plan are short sighted or not well thought out? Where might the plan be held up and fail? What does this look like post-trump?

In many nations, specifically European, they tend to protest by taking to the streets in mass amounts when large sweeping changes take place that are against the populace’s favor— How far and at what point will the citizens of the US have had enough with wealth disparity and political subterfuge, and take to large-scale general protests? Other than a brief moment in 2011 with Occupy, the 2014/2020 BLM protests, and the women’s march at Trump’s first inauguration there have been little protest movements. Why did they happen so much more in the early 1900s and the 1960s? Are people less educated now than back then despite access to better resources? In general I just am confused why there is so much apathy when something such as a general strike involving tens of millions WOULD be so effectual? Is it organizational issues?

Much has been said about President Trump's tendencies toward authoritarianism, his desire to be a "dictator," etc. Comparisons between him and Hitler are not uncommon. For example, former Secretary of Labor accused Trump of being a "neofascist" in The Guardian.

And so, I'm curious how members of the subreddit feel about the possible future of the United States. You can credibly argue that the State Department's move to reportedly no longer issue passports to transgender Americans, or the recent bill out of Tennessee which would criminalize lawmakers voting against Trump's immigration agenda, are authoritarian in nature. Another example could be what is happening to those who investigated Trump's alleged crimes.

I could give more examples, but I think I've summarized the situation well enough.

And so, do you think the United States is at risk of an authoritarian takeover? How do you feel about the doom-posting many on Reddit are doing, saying another Holocaust is imminent.

One point to start from: a recent political science paper has found that democratic backsliding is frequently followed by a "U-turn" towards more democratic governance. Read here. Could that be the United States' future?

I understand targeted tariffs have been used in the past to protect and develop domestic industries but how does a blanket tariff on all good from literally our closest allies?

What consequences could we expect and how soon will we see a change if any?

There's is momentum in a slightly-theoretical but still tangible movement to repeal the income tax. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the Fair Tax Act, the premise is around abolishing the IRS, and introducing consumption tax (in effect, removing other forms of taxes such as income, estate, etc).

There's a pretty interesting read by John Cochrane on advocacy for this that I remember reading last year: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/its-time-us-abolished-income-tax and a more thorough read on pros and cons by Bankman & Fried, at Stanford https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/default/files/publication/257986/doc/slspublic/86GeoLJ539.pdf (yup, that's SBF's dad 😂)

Thought I'd open up a discussion right before everyone heads to the weekend -

• How do you feel about this prospective change? For context, other economists do argue that the Fair Tax act is insufficient, and the actual consumption tax rate will need to be much higher to keep everything running
• In the backdrop of this is the idea that our current tax code is actually too complicated/byzantine. Do you agree (if you file US taxes)?
• Impact on the tax + accounting industry in whole - mainly, how real this proposal where we might actually see serious consideration on people's careers? If you're an accountant or work in taxes - how do you feel?

Talked about this with some friends last night, so it's top of mind and would love to get some thoughts.

Edward Snowden has been in the news recently. The Senate Intelligence Committee is conducting hearings to review the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence. In these hearings, there have been some intense exchanges regarding Edward Snowden.

Gabbard acknowledged that Snowden's actions were illegal, and she committed to preventing any such leaks in the future. However, she declined to call him a traitor after multiple Democratic senators demanded that she do so. Some Democratic senators seemed to feel that her sympathy for Snowden should disqualify her for the role.

In light of these hearings, it leads one to wonder, what are the Democratic views towards Edward Snowden and the mass surveillance program that he revealed? Is there widespread agreement among Democrats that Snowden is a traitor? Does the Democratic Party broadly support the surveillance programs?

Edward Snowden says that he was inspired to leak the information after watching James Clapper deny the existence of these surveillance programs. How do Democrats feel about previous attempts to hide the existence of these programs?

The Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee seemed to have strong negative feelings towards Snowden. Is this a bias of the Senate Intelligence Committee? Or, is this a feeling that Democrats hold generally?

What is the Democratic position on mass surveillance programs? Is this view consistent with their views in previous decades? Or, have the views of the party changed from what they were during the George W. Bush administration?

Athens is known for being a progenitor of democracy, but Athens did not elect most of its officials. The main ones who were would have been the strategoi, generals. Note that those who were voting were also its civil militia and they would have been soldiers too who knew what battle was like. The Boule had hundreds of members chosen by lot (having been elected in big batches, drawing some of those elected to the Boule) and this functioned as the governing senate of Athens. Juries of 201, 501, 1001, and 1501 people were also common, with the presiding magistrate also chosen by lot. They viewed elections as a risky way to govern a polity given that people could be bribed or intimidated to vote a certain way or otherwise to elect people who were risky people, but nobody could bribe the gods to choose one person over another in the drawing of lots, and an assembly of hundreds of people with time and ability to deliberate and seek information could make decisions likely to be representative of the whole people and not concerned over the short term political wish to be reelected or to otherwise climb in power.

In the modern era, we have juries, with jurors who are biased struck from the pool before the trial commences, but that isn't the only opportunity to use random chance. Some countries have turned to the idea of lottery to choose a large panel of people to deliberate on issues where it is seen that politicians might not be so good at, especially issues related to the rules of how politicians get put in office in the first place. In British Columbia, 19 years ago, a citizens assembly recommended a voting reform that was put to referendum and agreed to by 57% of voters, but the threshold had been set at 60% which was widely denounced as unconstitutional and illegitimate given that no such threshold was used to put the current system of voting into place and so why could it be legitimate to need 60% to change it?

Ireland used a citizens assembly to consider several issues, pertaining to whether snap elections can happen and if so how, how climate change reactions could occur, abortion laws, how pensions could be dealt with, and a few other things. They did divide over a few issues, but many votes actually had quite strong consensus. For months, they listened to people who presented their views, including experts, members of the public, affected people, members of the government, etc.

In principle, a citizens assembly could be given the power to compel information too from witnesses and to compel evidence too, or to demand a government official testify under oath on pain of perjury for lying or misleading them. Maybe they could do a budget analysis and plan and suggest that to the legislature or executive. They rarely have the power to make a binding decision of policy, but they may have their recommendation referred to a legislature or executive or the people for ratification. Maybe they could even be a third house of a legislature, even if it is more advisory or its decisions need approval by the people or the other houses to become policy or law.

The 2016 election was a lull in terms of turnout but ever since then the two elections since have had the two highest voter turnout of the last 6 decades. Whilst 2024 was slightly less than 2020 it was still a high turnout at 64%.

When one looks at international comparisons this can also be seen, for example the United Kingdom has had a historically much higher voter turnout than the United States but since the Trump era this has firmly reversed. In 2020 the turnout rates were very similar and by 2024 American turnout was actually quite a bit higher than British turnout for the first time in recent history.

The same thing also goes for midterms, the last two midterms have had the highest turnouts in recent history compared to the Obama era midterms for example. So is this new high turnout a now permanent fixture of US politics?

Listening to the questioning is confusing because Holly keeps stating that the stances Ted is referencing were from Holly’s career as an advocate but would not state if those are her current personal opinions since she is now a judge.

I have two big questions. First, is it true that Holly cannot answer Ted’s questions since she is a judge and if yes then why is Ted not reprimanded for repeatedly asking questions Holly is not allowed to answer? They are paid by our tax dollars and it seems like they are just wasting time in political theater to rile up uninformed viewers like myself.

My second question is about Holly’s statements around her previous statements being those of a professional advocate. Are professional advocates required to tell the truth and is it supposed to be understood that an advocate is just acting as if they care about the subject matter they are advocating even if they don’t themselves believe in what they are saying? Are they paid to convince others of something they may not be convinced of themselves? Are there any legal protections for the statements or actions of an advocate where they can say in a court room that they lied or committed a crime before but it’s ok because they were acting as an advocate rather than being themselves?

Whether the idea of his impeachment scares, angers, elates or relieves you, would this be possible?

I do realize Congress would have to actually take the action. I know how unlikely that looks. It falls on them to take the action, no question, but if they did a thorough inquiry, is he putting himself at risk here?

There has been discussion about the constitutionality of several orders and I’m not actually trying to debate whether they’re constitutional, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened in the comments.

Would this be grounds for impeachment?

Edit: To those that said this is reason to just vote in two years: how about making our voices heard now? Getting petitions together, calling our reps? Did we just stop doing that? What if the other side is doing it?

Edit 2. I actually think blatant Constitutional violations obvious to everyone, piling up, could be the Republican red line, even for Trump-supporting citizens.

I’ve seen a few articles point to the fact that Baldwin gave a better answer than her opponent when asked about the farm bill. It makes sense that this helped her win, but was it the most important factor that led to her victory? Or were there other, equally important, things that helped?

“The Great Communicator” and “Slick Willy” were famously charismatic so I would hesitate to label either a greater authority on charisma. Both had political success and skill so it’s not like either had less of a grasp on campaigning?

What are your thoughts on one of trump's new executive orders? That being the order titled: Restoring America’s Fighting Force. Below is a brief summary I wrote so let me know if you dislike how I have written this summary.

What it does: Bans the armed forces and the nation’s service academies from promoting/agreeing with any of the following topics: race or sex stereotyping, race or sex scapegoating, that America’s founding documents are racist or sexist and gender ideology. Additionally it bans the promotion of divisive concepts as defined in Executive Order 13950 which includes: promoting one race or sex as superior to another, the USA is fundamentally racists/sexist, that you can be consciously or unconsciously discriminatory based upon your sex/race/etc, that a person should receive different treatment because of their race/sex, that someone should feel guilty because of their race/sex etc, meritocracy or traits such as hard work are racist/sexist or were created by one race to oppress another. The order also includes banning the promotion of:

“members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex”

And the bill disbands DEI offices within the armed forces and mandates color-blind & sex-blind hiring process.

Michigan Senator Gary Peters announced today that he won't be running for reelection in 2026, because he wants to do better things, like ride his Harley. Peters is 66 and led the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for the last two cycles, so his retirement was unexpected. Coming on the tail of a Trump victory in Michigan, this means we'll have yet another nominal battleground Senate race next year on top of Jon Ossoff's bid for reelection in Georgia. Peters was first elected in 2014 in a landslide, right in the middle of a massive Republican wave. He was reelected in 2020 by a little more than a point and a half, defeating now-Rep. John James, who was considered one of the best GOP recruits that cycle. Notably, this was half of Biden's 3-point margin in the state that year.

Democrats have a very deep bench in Michigan, and with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ruling out a bid, and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson running for Governor, the field appears to be wide open. Some of the names floated for this seat include Reps. Haley Stevens and Hillary Scholten, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a recent Michigander who's "taking a serious look" at the race.

On the Republican side, the party is once again looking at Rep. James, although it's possible he may run for Governor or seek reelection to his House seat instead. State Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt has already announced his bid, and former GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon - who lost to Whitmer in a landslide in '22 - is also considering jumping in. Other names being floated include former Rep. Mike Rogers, who lost the race for the state's other Senate seat last year by less than half a point, and Tony Dungy, ex-head coach of the Buccaneers and Colts, a Michigan native.

Who's the strongest Democrat that could run for this seat, in your opinion? Do you think Trump's victory in November puts this seat in play, and if so, who would be the GOP's best recruit?

In the latest election Kamala Harris received over 90% of the vote while Trump received only 6.47% of the vote. I understand that it has a huge black population and it's has lot's of universities and all but I never understand why it's that progressive. Can someone explain why?

In California, conventional wisdom is that the present day post-Arnold California GOP is its own worst enemy. I've heard it said "they could win if they made like they were in Massachussetts, but instead they make like they're in Montana." Moderate northeastern style establishment Republican politics aren't what the California Republican base wants.

Then there's Florida. I've heard that the Democratic Party there could win more votes if they weren't so lackluster, underfunded, and incompetent. For example, they ran Charlie Crist against DeSantis in 2022, which wasn't the most inspiring or logical choice.

Which states could realistically be a bit more on the 'purplish' side if the minority party were to change its ways or get more money?

Starting later today, hundreds of billions (maybe trillions) of dollars earmarked for various programs throughout the country will be halted for review. Will Trump only turn the faucet back on for the programs that meet his approval? How is this even legal, since many of the grants have already been approved by congress?

Note that a ton of centrists generally glorify the political liberals who were politically resistant towards George W Bush’s administration, but look upon Anti-Trump liberal resistance with disdain.

This is the same with many Anti-Idpol leftists who argue that the Iraq War alone makes Bush worse than Trump, and also view his administration as pure evil while viewing both Trump and his political opposition with apathy.

If one sees the ascension of Reagan into power, we don’t see a general revile of Jimmy Carter for being too far left, but there is a general popular antipathy against Reagan for his victory and the policies he created.

How are we able to consistently view modern politics as some morally grey space,but refuse to see the voters for past politicians that are seen unfavorably today as people with legitimate concerns and goals?

Always fascinated about Communism as a theory and practice. need to know in about its core principles, and their practical outcomes. Also need more juice on socialist and capitalist approaches and which is best for the society?