(Shrug) This is what the American people voted for. Destruction of institutions, abandonment of traditions, concealment of resources.

▲

slg an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I'd be surprised if there was a single American who had the CIA Factbook as the deciding factor in determining their vote. It being shutdown is more evidence of how broken the American political system is rather than an indication of the will of the people.

▲

bdcravens 31 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

As a single issue, probably not. However, the meta-issue that they did vote for was eliminating anything the government pays for (other than military, ICE, or related to drilling oil)

	▲	slg 18 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Maybe in the philosophical sense in that this is what their vote wrought, but there is absolutely no way to conclude that people wanted their institutions dismantled. The number of Americans who voted for Donald Trump was nearly identical in 2020 and 2024 once we compensate for population growth (22.4% of the population vs 22.7%). Anyone making drastic conclusions on the will of the people is just making something up whether they are conscious of that or not.

▲

simonw an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Right, World Factbook single issue voters probably don't exist.

That aside, something that frustrates me about US politics is that I rarely see any evidence of consideration given to taxpayers who want value for their money as opposed to having their taxes cut.

I pay taxes here. I like it when those taxes spent on wildly ROI-positive initiatives like the World Factbook.

The Trump lot appear to be killing off a huge range of useful things that I like getting in exchange for the taxes I pay.

	▲	oldmanhorton 43 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Sure, but this is based on a fundamental trust in governments ability to spend money effectively. The ineffective spending has been in the news way more than the effective spending, so some people take this to mean all of the spending is ineffective. I don’t know how to square this skepticism of government against very vocal “patriotism” coming from the trump camp, but humans can contain multitudes, I guess?

▲

cucumber3732842 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I think it's a pretty strong condemnation of the CIA that they can't find something more important to flamboyantly kill though.

https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/03/13/budget-pol... (you can stop reading after the first couple paragraphs, it goes into federal budget politics circa 2013)

▲

sylos 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Actually I don't think he did win. Not legally, but he is there now.

▲

daedrdev 2 hours ago | parent [-]

nope, us Americans are truly the kind of people to vote for him, no matter how bad a reason each of them had

	▲	russdill 15 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Very much "that's not who we are! ... Checks history book, oh, oh ,oh my". Much more apt to say "that's not who we aspire to be'