Had this conversation with a friend, but I think as an America you can be very optimistic about the institutional strength of democracy in the country.

People are very pessimistic recently, but if anything, we are seeing that our system works well. A person got into power that a majority voted for, but when he oversteps, the courts and other institutions (even judges and fed reserve chairs he picked!) seem to hold him to the rules.

I get the pessimism, but for the most part, I kinda think the system is working.

I'm not an American but unfortunately I don't share the optimism. Your president shows time and time again he does what he wants, whether it's immoral or illegal or not within his power to do. And a majority turn a blind eye, especially his party. Some examples (correct me if I'm wrong): starting 2 wars; very questionable anti deportation methods by ICE; a DOGE that was ruthless and dumb; renaming a branch (ministry of war) in effect while in theory not having such power; pardoning crypto currencies pundits who have business with him; ties to pump and dump scams. Not to mention ties to Eppstein.

My prediction: in a vendetta, because they chose to contradict him publicly, and his cronies will put high pressure to have anthropic out of everything touching the government, and any rebel will be fired for an unrelated cause. The high profile CEOs (those we were attending his inauguration) will avoid anthropic, lest they find their selves out of some profitable contract or in some unrelated tribunal issue. Anyone in his party will surely avoid them too.

The question is not whether the walls can contain the bull until animal control arrives, but whether any china will remain intact.

lol judges have ruled 100s or 1000s of ICE detentions in various states illegal by now. None of that has stopped ICE from doing what it's doing. This kind of optimism in the law seems naive today because there is no mechanism to actually enforce it. All federal agents have very substantial legal & civil immunity, heads of departments have immunity as well. The head of the legal system is Pam Bondi who isn't even prosecuting child rapists, or Donald Trump who is one.

Even after Kristi Noem ruined countless lives and was responsible for deaths of innocent people, the only consequence she faced is being demoted to some made up job where she still gets paid to do nothing - no fine, no jail, not even being out of work, no accountability, no justice. None of the ICE agents involved have faced any consequences besides a leave either, we don't even know most of their names. The justice system is not working.

People who don't follow the news like most of the tech community are living in some dreamland of a system or treating it as a purely mental battle of optimism/pessimism vs. actually seeing what is happening.

For a problem the size of Trump, the intended function of the institutions would have been removing him from office by now. Not to mention ignoring basically all of his more publicized executive orders (I don't know about more obscure ones).

The judiciary sort of holding it together to issue orders that are mostly ignored is not the system working.

This is one ruling out of many, many of which directly benefit Trump. See Trump vs. United States 2024 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States

There’s absolutely 0 reason to be optimistic towards a court stacked explicitly in his favor.

Trump or various departments of his administration have a 90% success rate with cases at the Supreme Court, as compared to a roughly 55-60% success rate at lower courts. The judiciary can still work, but the highest judiciary in the land is pretty soundly in his pocket. Trump's most significant defeat at the Supreme Court, overturning his signature tariffs policy, was viewed by some as a sign that the Supreme Court remained independent and defiant... but that's pretty clearly not the case, at least not up to this point.

He’s never won a majority of the popular vote.

And people say that posting isn’t art…

It's insane to to say that the system is working when the ones responsible for enforcing the laws are the ones who are ignoring the laws. A judge said. Uh huh. And what's the judge going to do when they ignore it like they've done so many times before? The Trump DOJ is still in violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was passed nearly-unanimously by Congress months ago, and continue to withhold content that implicates Trump in a child rape and sex trafficking ring.

...what in the world...

We have a war in Iran that was not approved by legislature. Run by a Fox news host with no experience who has committed multiple war crimes on camera now. A war we are not exactly winning (now raising the enlistment age and losing million dollar aircraft to thousand dollar drones), having an enormous and lasting impact on the global economy - making us look downright stupid. And position us to be unable to defend allies in the region, sure, but perhaps even other critical regions like Taiwan.

We kidnapped a foreign leader and are talking about an invasion of Cuba - who we are committing human rights violations against by preventing them from having electricity.

We have tariffs across all our prior allies. Multiple trade deals have been ruined. America's reputation is permanently damage. Well, more than that, Trump has threatened to invade Canada and Greenland. And apparently our (former) allies took it so seriously they had begun to develop new strategies and elevate their military preparedness and make security talks with their allies.

And our "corporate stability" benefit is quickly falling apart as agencies and courts are rapidly being replaced with sycophants whose most important decree is "bribe or otherwise adorn dear leader with praise". Bills attempting to bring back manufacturing are dead. Infrastructure bills are dead. We're back to the rot.

ICE is acting as a Gestapo, who show no badges and wear masks and plain clothes. They have killed multiple people and faced zero repercussions and has been expanded to airport security where they have already assaulted citizens. And that's before we get into the concentration camps.

The president attempted a coup on our government in 2020, where he directed his supporters to storm the capital and stop the ratification of an election he lost - and faced absolutely no punishment. He is now nominating judges who are refusing to state in their Senate hearings that he lost the election. We have also passed a bill called SAVE that effectively makes creates a secret poll tax for married women, whose both cost and expediency are gated by a department directly controlled by the executive. That's if we even have a fair one, of course: Trump has floated numerous times cancelling the election in times of war or deploying armed ICE agents to key polling locations. He has made it very clear they cannot lose midterms.

And that executive is vaporized. Trust in public careers has been killed by DOGE, alongside the careers and decades of knowledge and progress destroyed by them simply hammering apart institutions . The department of education is dead. The fed, one of the last and most important hold outs, is losing independence and will soon by led by a yes man who will blindly slash rates for Trump to enrish himself - at any cost for the economy.

The SCOTUS, of which an entire third were placed by Trump - who is eyeing yet a fourth - have given Trump enormous wins, most famously the ruling that he is essentially immune from all laws and can do anything he wants. And they're looking like they may erode the state right to self-managed elections and/or ban mail-in votes. A ruling that essentially destroyed our ability to punish Trump for his colluding with a foreign nation to rig our democratic system with the help of the technofeudal corporations.

Which, funny enough, brings us full circle to the war in Iran. Where his actions now allow him to stop all support for Ukraine and drop sanctions on Russia without people noticing all too much. Yet again, benefiting the crooks a significant portion of the intelligence community believe - including our own - compromise the now president.

I cannot fathom how you can sit there and say that the system is "working". Has the frog seriously been sufficiently boiled? It was this easy? It's been one single year!

> that a majority voted for

A majority of people who voted. Not a majority of eligible voters and certainly not a majority.