He already wants to send people to Gitmo, you don’t have to sell him on it even more

Exactly. Putin has leverage on almost the entire GOP. Additionally, I’m pretty sure this is all stuff they want to do anyway. It’s easy to blackmail people into doing something they already want to do.

We’re in this mess because First Past The Post (FPTP) voting inherently results in a two-party system, which in turn creates polarization and extremism.

To create lasting, meaningful change we need to move away from FPTP to Rank Choice (my preference) or Proportional Representation. Thankfully, the voting process is determined at the local level (state, county, or city depending on your location) which means the goons taking over the federal government will have a much more difficult time resisting this change.

We need people in local governments pushing for this change. Once we’re off FPTP a lot of other changes are going to be easier to make.

Could you be more specific? Because the only safeguard I’m aware of is impeachment and removal, which requires both chambers of Congress to act against Trump and I just don’t believe that’s going to happen while Republicans control both chambers and impeachment certainly isn’t going to “kick in” as if it’s some automatic process.

So I’m genuinely curious about what’s got you so optimistic

There are a lot of good answers already but I want to add that this changes the situation for any Hispanic people swept up by ICE. If officials feel like they can connect a person to the cartels in any way whatsoever, that individual can now be accused of being a terrorist. This changes the legal process they face, and that’s not good news for them. It’ll be easier to send the person to Gitmo. It’ll be harder to fight for that person’s freedom. They’ll likely be tortured, and anything they say can be used as pretense for further aggression by the Trump administration, both domestically and foreign.

not voting is voting

I like to be more nuanced with ideas like this, because I like to acknowledge the widespread voter disenfranchisement that happens in our country.

If a person could have voted and didn’t, then I agree; they made an active choice and that counts.

If a person is eligible to vote but can’t–maybe their voter registration was wrongfully purged, or they genuinely can’t afford to take time off work, or something else valid I dunno–then that’s not an active choice to not vote and I don’t think “not voting is voting” can be applied.

Wasn’t the stated goal to eliminate 2 trillion in spending? So, he’s destroyed the government’s ability to function and compromised the security of the government’s computer systems he’s only reached 2.75% of his stated goal? But not actually?

I want off this ride

People say that about the rich in America too. “Don’t tax them, they’ll leave and take all their money with them!”

But I dunno, maybe we shouldn’t let people get so rich we’re terrified of them leaving with their money? Just a passing thought…

But also I call bullshit. Doing business in America is, for the foreseeable future, profitable. The rich aren’t going to leave because they’re making less profit as long as “less profit” is more than “how much profit will I have if I leave”

Of course, now that they’ve completely captured the US government, the conversation is kind of moot.

In comparison, Reyes said, Trump needs only to provide Congress with 30 days’ notice and a written explanation to remove an inspector general.

She cites the legal procedure in her comments declining the motion. If that’s not an acknowledgement of the illegality of what happened instead, what is?

So putting a stop, even temporarily, to plainly illegal actions by government official(s) is unreasonable if the illegal actions aren’t illegal enough? And “illegal enough” doesn’t include “taking one of the biggest ever steps to remove one of the largest barriers to corruption”

And that’s… Reasonable?

Not anymore :(

Ordinarily you’d need ground for dismissal, yes. But one of the first things Trump did was follow the plan for Project 2025 which included, amongst other things, reclassifying a fuck ton of government jobs as political jobs, enabling Trump to hire and fire people for political reasons.

They either have a death wish, they’re stupid or there’s something else

You know what they say. Everything that comes out of their mouths is either a confession or projection!

I want to be clear that I disagree with the EO; it’s not well written, has holes, and (most importantly) is ethically abhorrent. Your first paragraph gives many examples, good job.

But accurate understanding is crucial to effective resistance.

“Sex at time of conception” can ONLY be interpreted as chromosomal sex, as there is no other means of determining sex at that time of development.

The EO doesn’t concern itself with which gametes a person ACTUALLY produces, only which ones they WOULD produce based on the zygote’s (chromosomal) sex.

Thank you!

I hate these “gotcha” responses like the “everyone is female” thing.

Of the many MANY ways that “biological sex” can be determined (phenotype, hormone, etc) the ONLY one that exists at the time of conception when we’re not even talking embryo stage yet because there’s only one fertilized cell (or two if you want until mitosis begins) is chromosomal sex.

“But we’re all female at first” isn’t going to hold up in court, and it’s NOT going to save trans lives. We need to do better.

Yeah, hypothetically anyway. I technically count as being “in the thousands” because I own my home and car but I have no savings, no retirement, and have only 3 digits in my bank account which will go down to 2 digits soon enough.

That’s the tricky thing about “net worth.” It can be a very descriptive deceptive way of measuring things.

Edit: is the autocorrect error why I was getting down votes? I can’t figure out what else people would be objecting to :(

Agree 100%

The biggest reason we (the USA) are losing to fascists is because half of Americans are fascists, whether they realize it or not. And it’s been that way for a hundred years (and they were proto fascists, aka Confederates, before that)

Hence “with all due acknowledgement” because I understand that 10 mil is nothing, comparatively.

But I also understand that, to the Amazon warehouse worker with a net worth of a few thousand, or the disabled person who isn’t allowed to have a net worth greater than 2 thousand, 10 mil is a a fuck ton of money. You know, comparatively.

That’s nepotism, totally different thing

/s

Man worth 10 million dollars warns of rule by the rich.

I guess he would know.

(With all due acknowledgement that 10 million is chump change for the likes of Elan and Musky)