It was really jut the people least agreeable to Twitter's new ownership. Whether you view like or dislike of Elon as toxic is more down to personal taste. I find the culture there perfectly pleasant.

*Some of the most toxic users, maybe (I have no clue, since I barely used it ever), but there are enough left on Twitter for sure.

Most toxic twitter users stayed on twitter.

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A lot of the dogpiling is from people who come out and say some dumb shit and demand respect. When they get ridicule for their ridiculous take, they play the victim.

That being said, there's also the tumblr->twitter->bluesky contingent who have always loved dogpiling and they're mostly there because the site doesn't have musk boosting nazi posters.

People casting such mean allegations ought look in the mirror.

Paconbork, I see no sign of this. You are being ridiculous. And this network doesn't deserve any of this slander.

I think one reason why HN is somewhat saner, is that computer nerds are one of the few demographics today who still largely post from a real computer and keyboard. Smartphones with their small screens and keyboards discourage longform text no matter how much people claim to be proficient writers on them, but people on HN don't have the same obstacle to typing a couple of substantial paragraphs with actual depth and nuance.

I am reminded about the effort and patience it required to have long-form conversations on fidonet with people 2-3 states away due to the bbs hop delay. While the topics weren't necessarily particularly serious, the effort required to have any communication at all meant both sides spent time and effort.

I often think back to this early networked communication as stark contrast to the ease and rapidity we communicate today and how that same easy and rapidity has driven the quality into the ground.

No public votes, and mods that aren't insane is what keeps HN quality reasonable.

I was active on Reddit up to 2018 or so, and at that point it was already sliding full speed towards the cesspit it is today. Public votes destroy dissenting views, and moderators treat the site as their personal fiefdom. There aren't a lot of danish communities left on the internet, but r/denmark was getting unbearable because of constant tone policing, finger wagging and micro management by the mods. That, and constant low effort meme spam. And that subreddit was far from being the worst case.

I miss the dk.* Usenet days.

Agreed. A No Executive Orders protest would be more clear and would be one I could get behind. It does seem like it would be good to limit the scope of Executive orders. Like, many were asking, how can he just close down the department of education with an exacutive order? Oh, it's because the department of education was formed by an excutive order of an earlier president in the first place.

DHS literally telling federal court judges that they are going to continue extraditing someone in face of a court order not to, that they are not going to turn a plane around.

ICE refusing to make officers available to law enforcement for investigation of issues.

A lot more happening than "making executive orders", though kudos to Trump for trying to sign executive orders that even his own DOJ are not just illegal, but unconstitutional.

Do you think making things up and attributing them to other people is more or less constructive than replying to what they actually said? Do you usually get a great response when you go for cute X clapbacks, or... what?

While I agree with you, there is also the fact that America chose Trump 2.0 - something we should try to understand and learn from. We, the credentialed elite (most people do not have a college degree), have failed to help our neighbors and fellow citizens.

The advent of the computer changed how automation impacted society. We (majority of HN audience) benefitted immensely, rising in wealth and social acclaim, while at the same time failing to create new tasks for regular people, who's jobs we replaced with technology.

I can't vote anyone out alone, so groups/ideas like No Kings seek to collect people around some general organizing principle. Involved people are more likely to vote and it's possible that you highlight the issues for people who aren't aware or energized enough to vote.

Plus, protests can influence other people in government, outside of elections.

There was an attempted self-coup last time he was voted out. I think it's pretty reasonable to be extra reactive to anti-democratic tendencies from him.

Let me ask you this: what is the purpose of a protest?

Keep an eye on the Texas Senate race and what happens if Talarico wins. Paxton has granted himself the ability to investigate election fraud as the sitting AG.

Let's see if the will of the people is honored, or if the king steps in too.

January 6, 2021 is well known. There are numerous examples leading up to, on the day, the years after, and even the first weeks of 2.0 - all interconnected - all anti-democratic.

"NoKings" is one identity for the resistance to autocratic tendencies and the backslide of democracy seen globally. We does not need to be so literal, step back to see the full picture.

There are ideas for how to improve representation, which comes first. I do not get the feeling that current elected officials are interested in ceding their position, power, and prestige.

One of the good ideas are expanding ranked choice voting.

One of the bad ideas is justifying gerrymandering because the other side is doing it too.

Roughly only 10% of House seats are actually competitive. This is a problem that needs fixing.

> disregard democracy because they don't like the current president

What, specifically, do you think this means? Do you think they're trying to install a new government without a vote?

Or is "disregard democracy" just word salad nonsense that you're repeating for some reason?

Naming taxpayer-funded public facilities for a living politician has been historically unusual in America. LaGuardia Airport and Shushan Airport in New Orleans were both named for sitting politicians because they were strongmen or allied with strongmen.

Living ex-presidents were not fair game until the partisan late 1990s. It was still done primarily as a posthumous tribute. Naming taxpayer-funded facilities for a sitting president who hopes to find a way to run again was not done under Franklin Roosevelt and has always remained drastically outside of the Overton Window. While in office, Trump has now directed attention to making the following public items promote his personal brand, name, image or likeness:

US Passports, US entry visas, US Naval class of vessels, US Institute of Peace federal building, National Park entry passes, and currency struck by the US Mint;

Moreover, presidential staff have confirmed that the president has asked for New York Penn Station to be renamed for himself before he would agree to release congressionally approved federal funds for its improvement. He also explored having Washington Dulles International Airport renamed for him; since then, his supporters have renamed Palm Beach International Airport (IATA PBI) for him and changed the IATA designation to DJT.

The president recently diverted over $22MM from Homeland Security and Border Protection to pay for television commercials featuring himself talking about causes dear to himself. I have not tracked whether this spending went to all major broadcast networks or was directed to be spent at networks that the president considered deserved the tax money. The third commercial "was virtually identical to an ad for Trump's Republican reelection campaign in 2024 and showed him walking down a hallway as his voice can be heard warning of a 'final battle' against 'globalists' and 'warmongers'." The president has reportedly agreed not to continue spending government money on this series but refuses to reimburse taxpayers the $22MM.

I don't think any other president promoted anything like January 6, and doesn't recognize an election of a president to this day - undermining democracy, the same democratic system that elected him twice.

Just that alone is enough I think.

But you can also see his disgust to western democracies, and his fascination with autocracies, the vast majority of them are extremely incompetent - thank God for that at least.

What has he done that is any more undemocratic than previous presidents?

You're joking right? In just the past 48 hours he attempted to remove over 20,000 people from the voter rolls. A preliminary check of the data revealed that more than half of these people were born in the U.S. and thus were automatically entitled to vote.

Last week he attempted to denaturalize a sitting U.S. legislator based on supposed irregularities in her immigration paperwork from when she was a child...even though the paperwork had been reviewed without issue by the federal government when it was first submitted and again to confirm her eligibility for office at the start of her first term (which began during Trump's first term).

He has openly mused about using the Secret Service to assassinate people he doesn't like. For the past 2 years, he has been threatening to jail and murder his opponents, and ordered his DOJ to prosecute his opponents for made-up crimes.

> What has he done that is any more undemocratic than previous presidents?

Can you recall any other instance where FoxNews boycotted the White House press pool in support of left wing media outlets?

That is unprecedented as far as I know. What did Trump do that inspired FoxNews to make this choice?

> was terrifying to America during the election. Terrifying. No one wanted it.

If you can't separate your personal opinion from a factual statement like this, you're not someone worth listening to.

I don't think they had a wealth tax back then, but if that's somethings the voters had wanted their representatives put into law, I don't see why not. And yes I do support it to prevent even great concentrations of wealth across generations.

But what is that have to do with No Kings being a protest against the president acting like a tyrant?

The UK had a wealth tax back then in the form of a land value tax paid by landowners.

Several of the colonies had general property taxes on land, buildings, and physical property which continue today. Given that "capital" was not a thing back then and wouldn't be for almost 200 years, these property taxes were in effect wealth taxes.

And somehow the federalist society folks stick their head in the mud and make up some nonsensical interpretation, violating the clear and obvious interpretation, to justify further eroding rights and democracy. A party of greedy and traitorous fools taking down the country they pretend to love, enriching themselves at every step.

They were describing their experience dealing with kings and people who want to be kings. King is a personality type, not only a role. In more clinical settings they’re called narcissistic sociopaths, which is what Trump has proven himself to be, so that’s why we call him a king. Sometimes their title is “dictator”, sometimes it’s “emperor” or “fuhrer” or “chairman”. In this case his title is “president”, but he acts like a king, so that’s why we say we don’t want kings. This applies equally to wannabe kings.

I do not believe you have been "reading the Federalist Papers".

I do believe you read a blog post where someone told you there were passages which "describe Trump to a T".

This one, probably: https://archive.thinkprogress.org/how-hamilton-warned-in-the...

You could argue he did change the name: the name “Kennedy” is nowhere to be found on the building. The Kennedy Center is in state of existing but also not. It’s mandated to exist, it’s funded, there’s laws and courts that say it should be opened and operational… and yet, it isn’t because one man doesn’t want it to be.

Yeah, it's a mostly ceremonial role. But that's my point, really — it's not the title, it's the behaviour.

I would argue that, even though it's not my preference, there is real political value in the monarchy today still. E.g. Charles's speech to Congress[0] has a certain weight to it that wouldn't be there if Charles were an elected leader instead of a monarch.

0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCUZWnX8JIM

I read the replies and see a large number of them listing quite specifically, perhaps you need to reread?

Obama certainly did his part in strengthening executive power and your attention to the role that Democrats played in this is well deserved. This whataboutism, however, does not absolve the Republicans who are pushing the Unitary Executive theory -- of which a monarchy is the ultimate expression. Therefore, the name "no kings" -- a catchy title that captures the undeniable thrust of the founding of the USA and warns of the end of the slope our country is accelerating down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory

The Obama comparison is a great one to bring up to destroy your point. Obama made frustrated comments, but he never revoked their press badges or used government powers to stifle their ability to report on him, which Trump has done. There is a huge gulf between simply making a comment and actually using your official powers to force a change. Trump crossed that gulf, Obama did not.

I can't take it seriously when someone compares Obama's comments about, say, Fox, vs. how Trump behaves.

The scope and the shamelessness of his behavior is unprecedented. Nothing any other president has done compares to what Trump has done, with the negative impact to the country, with such explicit opposition to American interests.

Off the top of my head: Illegal tariffs, sicking ICE on society with brutality, trying to overturn elections, constantly lying about election security to sow doubt in our democracy, declaring that any election he or the GOP loses is illegitimate, declaring that anyone who criticizes him is an enemy of the state, enriching himself and his friends with bribes and insider deals 10x what anyone could possibly claim any other politician in the US has done, selling pardons and stopping DOJ investigations for money, destroying the independent agencies that serve the country, threatening to invade allied territories, mocking our allies and reliable trading/military partners, betraying Ukraine for the benefit of his friends and Russia.

I cannot think of a way in which a determined deep Russian asset would behave differently than how Trump operates. If he isn't one, he's putting on a perfect impression.

Democracy is in crisis, both parties are to blame.

Try out some Michael Sandel content, see if it speaks to you more than your preferred wing of the Oligarchs.

I do hope the No Kings protests can grow into a movement beyond Trump because he is just a symptom of a larger issue and the real “kings” are not elected officials, those people are just their servants. Virtue Hoarders by Catherine Liu is a great book on this topic.

"Deportations under Obama may have been approximately equal to under Trump. Obama did it without nearly so much violence, though."

Is there good data for that or is it observation bias?

I'm not saying scale is the same. I'm saying that these abuses will continue to happen without accountability. The scale argument is not an excuse, merely a manifestation of cognitive dissonance.

Plenty of lies and corruption on any president if you care to look. https://lists.grabien.com/list/complete-guide-scandals-obama...

Please reflect on how this comment of yours relates to your prior comment to which I replied, and how others might perceive to to be equally applicable there. I do not understand where I said anything about your politics, can you tell me where or how? I thought I was replying to your perspectives on NoKings

There are a lot of heated comments here today, we all need to chill a bit. Why did you choose the words you did in your first reply to me?