volkris @volkris@social.cleverlibre.org

There's an old idea of fairness that when cutting a cake between two people one person cuts and the other picks the piece they want.

This method aligns the interests of both parties, no matter how corruptible and *human* they may be.

I think it's underappreciated how often the US government design has a similar method in its checks and balances: one group can reject an official, but they don't get to choose the replacement.

See, for example, impeachment proceedings.

After all: "This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public."

--Hamilton (maybe)

#USPolitics #politicalscience #federalistpapers #hamilton

To understand the state of #USPolitics, and US society more broadly, a person has to realize that the process against #Trump isn't merely two camps who want the guy found innocent or guilty after a weighing of the evidence.

No, it is as if there was a murder trial where one side believed they were having beers with the purported victim as the trial was going on.

It's not a matter of legal technicality or weighing preponderances of evidence or reasonable doubt; it's a matter of the country being divided over fundamental fact, here whether a person is alive or not.

It's not a political division. Sadly it's a reality division.

The latest in #USPolitics for the many on this platform that never seem to have any exposure to #Republicans is that different factions of that side have contradictory claims about what's in the text of the immigration bill introduced to the #Senate.

One side says that the bill is awful because it does x, y, and z, while the other side says those things are emphatically not in the bill.

One side calls out the other for having supported the bill without reading it even as they themselves vociferously reject the bill... without reading it.

It's a really sad thing to watch, but in order to understand this moment in domestic politics one has to know that this intra party dispute over matters of fact is looming large.

And my impression is that it's really not about #Trump, at least not directly, even though he seems to be trying to claim credit for the tides that were moving already, as he often does.

From what I see it's more about conservatives who have no idea how the US government actually works and so had no ability to properly judge legislation, and so threw a giant hissy fit when they didn't get their uninformed way.

#GOP #border #politics

My experience with #Musk is more interesting than just he's a liar or he's a capitalist or most of the other stuff being thrown at him, and in a really important way:

Over years I watched interview after interview where some reporter or fan would press him to answer questions outside of his level of expertise, and he would tell them they'd need to ask an engineer, but they'd demand an answer from him until he sheepishly gave in and told them what they wanted to hear.

I think over time Musk largely decided it wasn't worth trying to resist and started playing along a lot more.

But this is something we see with many public figures. They become caricatures over time, becoming the thing the public wants them to be.

This isn't at all to let Musk off the hook for anything. But since I personally really don't care about Musk, the larger picture is more interesting.

I think this really captures the state of things with Republicans shooting themselves in the foot because even though these numbers will be staring them in the face, they're going to miss the critical lesson about independants.

#USPolitics #Trump

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