The USA is moving away from concepts like 'laws' and 'illegal' and more towards a system based on vibes and bribes.

"Vibes and bribes" is such a wonderfully apt description of our current regime.

	▲	kotaKat 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Hey now, the system of “checks” and “balances” is still holding up - the checks clear, and the balances go up.

AreShoesFeet000 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Laws and morality have always been bendable. It’s just that doing the bending requires a certain competence that was somehow lost.

	▲	lazide 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It used to be they had enough shame to try to cover it up. That certainly is in the past!

lazide 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s always been a case of ‘if they can’t catch you/enforce it, it didn’t happen’.

It’s absurdly blatant now, however, and backlash is likely to be pretty crazy in 5ish-10ish years once it’s impacted enough people.

Not if the democrats can help it

zombot 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

By then the opposition will have been renditioned to black holes or killed.

The current opposition maybe. No empire/government/strongman lasts forever.

Russia has been a basket case for the better part of the last 1,000 years.

History sucked for a very long time. It is not a natural law that things will just get better.

	▲	lazide 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sure, but it is a natural law that the specific strongman in charge dies eventually. So far at least. Every tsar was different, Stalin and Lenin had their own flavors, etc. Sure it may suck, but the flavor does change? And that is something!