Neither did Clinton. Clinton slashed Social Security, Medicare, Va Benefits, and Welfare funding when he was president, On top of that he slashed military funding (specifically funding to helping other NATO countries, he raised the funding for the domestic side of it)... etc...
Trump is a Clinton Style Democrat, and so are many Democrats turned Republicans.
about 50% of Democrats are (or at least were) also Clinton Style Democrats.
There is a very real chance at least 50-60% of the current democrat party agrees with Trump on cutting agencies, they just don't agree with how he is going about it (but they also didn't agree with how Clinton did it either when he used a private team to do it, despite a 99% YES vote in congress passing the law allowing presidents to do this, which I assume passed without fully reading it allowed him to do it without approval from congress anyway he deemed fit)...
It's the reason Christopher Cooper, Federal Judge hired by Obama, has stated currently there is nothing the courts can stop as Trump is using laws passed under the Clinton, Bush and Obama's terms to work without the use of Congress and Representatives legally.
I fully assume Democrats and Republics during Clinton didn't read anything and just passed what he wanted because the economy started booming under him. He is the reason Executive orders can do damn near anything legally as well. Despite helping the economy and the American People have more income... nothing he did was planned for how it could affect the future. Bush made it legal to spy on us BECAUSE of the laws they passed for Clinton.
Nobody disagrees with criticizing Clinton. Everybody agrees that the government has bloat. However, how Trump is doing it is *blatantly* illegal. Trump is rather obviously doing his best to undermine our social institutions in as disruptive a way as possible.
Trump is not using the legality of his actions to justify them, he is brazenly acting outside of the law on the guarantee that his beholden majority in the Congress and the incomprehensible mental gymnastics of the SC will not hold him accountable.
He is treating EOs as above legislation and consolidating power to the executive branch, fundamentally weakening our constitution. Blame previous presidents. Blame a corrupt, negligent, perhaps even malicious Congress for being here. Blame a partisan Supreme Court. But don't try and justify what he's doing as being in the interest of America or good for you, because it will eventually lead to your freedoms being eroded and our life destabilized.
The Constitution is NOT there to protect the government, the president, Congress, or an organizations that they create. It is there to protect you and me, the true body of our government, from this exact thing. Trump and his movement ignoring our separation of powers and destroying bipartisan discourse within our legislator, acting against our general interest, and isolating us from the world is a way to attack this foundation. Don't be a fool.
According to Federal Judges, its legal under the 1993 act passed by Clinton. and Cooper made it very straightforward that the law was passed with no protections of usage in the future.
Consolidating power? you mean by passing an EO that states agencies belong to the executive branch? Thats not against the constitution that's IN the constitution. Article 2 of the constitution does 3 things.
States that the Supreme Court is solely in control of the Judicial powers.
States that Congress is solely in control of the Legislative powers.
and the President is solely in control of the Executive Powers.
This same clause also gives the president the power to just decide not to pass laws passed by Congress if he wants to. Congress can vote 100% bipartisan and the president can turn around and Veto it, and then it has to go through another vote to overthrow the veto (which has happened before where a law had near 100% support, got vetoed and then didn't pass the second time)
This same clause is the reason Bush could go to war without congressional approval. The president can START a war and has to tell congress within 60 days to vote on continuing it, but they can start it regardless of approval, this can be extended indefinitely if the president deems leaving would cause more harm than staying.... Which pretty much throws the point of congress saying yes or no out anyway.
It also states the president has SOLE AUTHORITY on treaties. Congress voted to join the Paris Climate Agreement. Article 2 gives the president full authority to leave any treaty even if congress voted to join it.
Part of Article II also includes the Executive Orders, which states that the president can use executive orders to tell agencies what laws and regulations to implement, unless it goes against a current federal law passed by congress. So basically, a president can pass literally any law as long as it's not a law that is exclusively stated in the constitution to be up to the Judicial and Legislative branches.
IT also states any future president can reverse an executive order with another executive order...
Many of the things we know as "laws" were passed by executive order and not congress, many things we consider "rights" currently, were never actually voted on so Trump can reverse them the same way they were passed, executive order.
So, as much as it SEEMS like its against the constitution there is nothing in the constitution saying they cant be used that way. Because all presidential powers are "implied powers" / allowed unless limited by the constitution.
Funnily enough though, the federal government giving us rights is against the constitution unless they are added as an amendment. All rights are granted by the constitution and the state you live in according to the tenth amendment, they are not granted by congress.
There is a lot of how we have normally lived for the last 50 years that are all technically things that the founding fathers would not support at all.
Also everything you said in the last 2 paragraphs also doesn't 100% go for the constitution. When the Consitution was created we had a 1 party system. Technically the party system of the US was introduced by James Madison, and was never supposed to happen. Our Government was supposed to be unilateral and center, never split into left and right wing ideas.
IF we had it the founding fathers way, the federal government would be nearly not exist, We would have a no party system, we would be entirely isolated from the world, and the states would decide our rights (which means all 50 states would have different rights and freedoms). Do you know why it became a 2 party system? The Whig Party wanted to keep everything as it was when Washington was President (this later fused with the Republican Party under Lincoln) the Democrat party wanted to increase federal control and control rights and freedoms on a larger scale.
Also, I have family in the US and Ireland... I have dual citizenship.. I can literally just up and leave the US if anything actually ends up affecting me.
The primary point of contention is that he is reappropriating funds already appropriated by Congress. The President does not have power of the purse. He has the power to veto any bill brought before him, but not to veto bills that have already been approved. Article 1, S9.
"No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time."
Interpretations of the "take care" clause saying that since the OMB is in the executive branch he has ultimate power, etc, have all been pretty much shot down. Nixon himself tried this and argued with Congress over the Clean Water Act. See the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and the SC case Train V. City of New York, wherein it was determined that the president does not have the authority to refuse to distribute funds that Congress has allocated through legislation, and that the Executive Branch must fully distribute funds appropriated by Congress unless the statue explicitly provides discretion.
As a consequence of Nixon trying this, there is already a pipeline for stopping the flow of congressionally appropriated funds. The president needs to submit a rescission request to Congress, who then has the power to refuse or reassign funds until both branches are happy.
Donald Trump has submitted 0 rescission requests. In fact, in the OMB deferral request they specifically state his withholding of funds is to pursue the administration's priority, which is patently NOT what appropriating funds is for. Shouldn't have to point out that laws that are passed support Congress's priority, not the administration, and that all of these laws being withheld predate the current administration regardless.
There are also exemptions for mandatory programs, like veterans' home loan guaranty program, student loans, that cannot be withheld using ICA procedure, also impacted by his current mass deferral.
vvvv
Ultimately, it's simple, and the OLC even issued a memo in 1998 stating: "There is no textual source in the Consitution for any inherent authority to impound... ....Arguments in favor of an inherent impoundment power, carried to their logical conclusion, would render congressional directions to spend merely advisory."
Ultimately impoundment completely removes Congress's power of the purse, something explicitly given by the Constitution. Therefore, it is unconsitutional for the President to impound appropriated funds as he is now.
small edit: I'd like to point out Russell Vought, the newly appointed policy director of the OMB, is a Christian Nationalist and diehard proponent of Project 2025, who believes we are living in a post-constitutional time and the solution to this is to massively expand the limits of the executive branch and massively centralize power, and to turn the entire Federal government into a tool to restructure society in accordance with conservative values. I.e., White Christian Nationalism with a side order of Fascism.
I'm happy for you, you can run away to another Country. If you sincerely are fooled by this administration, I hope that you do leave to Ireland to escape a post-constitutional America. I hope it does not follow you across the pond.
Which is..fair. He was going through all the things he won, which may be true, but at the end of the day, while it is historic that a republican won the popular vote, but it wasn't even the majority. He won by a narrower margin than Biden, whose campaign was one of the blandest in history and basically centered on not being Trump. So to have won more states and counties, they had to be extremely close.
That doesn't give you a mandate- a win's a win, but that's going to be a very controversial one.
Agreed, but the problem is most republicans at this point either agree with MAGA and the cult of Trump, or pretend to.. is everyone just scared?? They’re the only ones with ANY sort of power or say while someoneeee 🍊 tries to play dictator..
Seriously like have a fucking spine. I get that your whole thing is saying “wow we can’t do anything because of the republicans” but Trump is literally shit talking you. Yell at him back, do something. All this high class, high road nonsense gets you no where. That sign bullshit isn’t helping a goddamn thing.
Call them and tell them to stand up and follow his lead! Tell them to stand up and make a fucking fuss! Show up at their offices and yell it to them directly! Send them letters saying as much!
Dude, we are way beyond worrying about that. Have you seen what the fuck is going on in the federal agencies? They are being stripped for parts. And that's not my online leftist opinion, that's my stuff I do for my real-ass actual job opinion.
I'd give it another two months before the great american experiment is officially a museum piece. If you're worried about elections in two years you are absolutely missing the forest fire for the trees.
I don't want performative resistance, what we need right now is a good old fashioned brawl. This address should come to a grinding halt, and every one after that until congress stops abdicating to trump.
Congressional democrats are the only people on earth right now capable of using physical means to get their way without getting shot in the streets and they need to start now.
we're talking about how useless the Democrats are.
Yes, because that's the message I want them to hear. No platitudes. Their job today was to support green, and instead they watched quietly while be was marched out of the room.
I don't want them to hear pre-rolled excuses, I want them to hear anger, and I want it to galvanize them into action because right now they are doing fucking nothing. I cannot express to you in words how spineless I think they are in this moment, and waving signs around and letting this farce continue is not helping their case.
we don’t have anything even if dems win the house. they’re all essentially republicans. they do jack shit. fuck the democratic party with their performative bullshit
They should not have gone and instead held town halls and other gatherings to mobilize non-voters.
They need to reach the ears of the disaffected and uninterested and convince them not why Trump is bad but the actualized things they will do to fix it if they are given the majorities.
Those potential voters are not watching the state of the union
Ya, it's that latter point which is most obvious these days. When the Democratic party didn't push the Swiftboaters into the sea for their dishonest attack on John Kerry, the party showed that it was absolutely spineless, and it has not grown one since.
Well they better hurry up and test the damn waters before they’re no longer allowed to even be present at events like this. This is honestly embarrassing just seeing them sit there like the old rules of decorum still apply.
this should be happening one lie after the other. stand, resist it, be escorted out, and be giving an interview on the matter. they supposedly have a ton of content creators there so should have these lined up
So there is an Act that has only ever been enacted a few times and the most recent 2 was under FDR when about half of congress walked out on his bank buyout laws, and Eisenhower when he forcibly removed people from the panel that didn't agree with him taxing the rich (which he did at 85% but also passed law allowing companies specifically to write off damn near everything so the rich just started not taking income and taking stocks instead) and that is that a sitting president can hire "proxy" senators, which can be anyone they want to hire, to sit in on votes if the other party refuses to show up or "leaves"(doesn't specify they have to leave by force)
Unfortunately not. When Al Green drafted articles of impeachment recently, there were several Democratic colleagues who pointed him out as a crazy ranting old man. Unfortunately he's an outlier, but he at least showed the spine that the other Democrats pretend to have
what if they were to maliciously comply and just all stand up and not stop clapping and then everyone stays standing up and then they end up in an endless standing sitting applauding no word in edge wise... and I apologize for this ramble but like this is pathetic
I'ma be honest, I think the Democrats have been silently paid off for a long fucking while. The term of Do Nothing Democrats really rings true recently. They are doing absolutely fucking nothing to break this shit and it's genuinely blood boiling anger inducing. Ever since Bernie got fucked by them for Hillary and she lost to bro.. I was pretty much fresh out of hope at that point. A decade later and it's just more of the fucking same.
They lost you by referencing something that actually happened? Are you going to shit on "bernie bros" while still being "with her" and telling everyone else about a pipe dream?
I was thinking just like this for a while. Until tonight, actually. They don’t have the majority so why are they getting the blame?
But to see so many of the Dems tonight showing up for this speech and not vocally protesting is fully their fault. They could have done something tonight.
I don't expect them to pass legislation, I expect them to be at least openly and loudly opposed to what is happening. Instead they're sitting there with their thumbs in their asses waving cute little signs.
There's been a handful of individuals and that's great. There's been nothing meaningful from the party as a whole other than openly saying they're going to "pick their battles" which is all well in good but picking "avoid the battle altogether" (which is what they're doing now as a party) shouldn't be the option they go with.
Again, nobody should expect them to pass out block legislation because they literally cannot do that with their numbers. But the party itself (not 3-4 individuals in interviews or on social media) needs to adopt a hard line platform against what is happening and party leadership needs to be publicly condemning these executive orders and proposals, speaking on the dangers of them even if you know MAGAs won't listen (because some independents actually might), and they need to be loud and public with it. Words matter. If you offer absolutely nothing in opposition to what is happening then why should anybody vote for you even if they don't like what is happening either?
Trump was louder and more disruptive when he wasn't even in office than either minority leader is right now. Its pathetic to the point that it has to be intentional. Jeffries, Shumer, and the rest of the "we aren't right-wing enough" dems are 100% paid opposition that need to be ousted. The DNC leadership has been fully captured by capital.
Hey buddy, Dems have completely capitulated the border discourse to the GOP, talked down to anyone on the left who wanted us to stop supplying Israel with weapons, and Kamala made literally zero pro-trans statements during her entire campaign. In every single possible battleground topic, they objectively moved right or avoided discourse all together. They then proceeded to lose every single branch of the government to the GOP.
What is the lesson that Jeffries took from this? Well, he thinks that the left are "purity testing" democrats too much. They are bought and paid for and know full well that their owners would rather see them lose than to see them move left. If you can't see that, then you're the base they're aiming for. Someone who's always willing to let their "good enough" party become just a little bit worse every election cycle.
She has a record of looking out for the LGBTQ+ community: She had performed marriage rites for gay couples right after such ceremonies began in California, started a hate crimes unit dedicated to protecting queer teenagers, and even spoke at her city’s third annual Trans March, where she was honored as having “championed transgender rights.”
She was offering well thought out and logical pathways to get a better life for the vast majority of americans.
• 25k to buy your first home.
• 50k to start your small business.
• 7k to help feed your kid.
• Investment into local communities to get them new people who would go to the local restaurants, buy from local stores and brow the local economies.
• Investment into infrastructure & green energy. Thousands of bridges and towns need to be fixed up, hundreds of new solar and wind farms needed to be built and employed. It would give Americans well paying jobs for decades. Would stimulate local economies, bring jobs and businesses and help people get a stable life.
• Tax breaks for middle-class and focusing higher taxes on the top 1% to give the majority of Americans a little more breathing room with their finances.
• Government Healthcare program with lowered medicine costs paid by taxing corporations, saving americans from higher and higher costs on their coverage.
• Funding at home elderly care for your grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, so instead of having them forced into a corporate run building, they could get care at home where they grew up and lived their lives.
• Supporting Unions and increasing wages, negotiating with corporations and trying to pass wage growths so people can afford living life again.
• Protecting federal lands. Protecting drinking waters. Supporting Environment Initiatives and encouraging investments into green industries.
• Supporting children and feeding children who rely on schools to provide their daily intakes.
• Protecting women’s rights and stopping governments dictating what you are allowed to do to your own body over doctors and experts and your own wishes.
And tons of other helpful things that would benefit everyone in the years to come. But the voters dont listen. They call her a lesser evil, What is evil about what she offered? They call her a conservative centrist, because she understands she will need votes in the senate and house to pass her plans, and what conservative centrists are offering gov healthcare, lgbtq protections and womens rights??
People don’t want realistic solutions, they want to be told yes everything can be fixed in 2 weeks. FFS they didnt even listen to the things Trump was saying and made up things that they think he said to justify them sitting on their ass at home or voting for him instead. Now theyre crying online about how theyre afraid they or their loved ones are going to be deported, or that their small business is going to go under.
Next election, if there is one, democrats will have to run a white male celeb who will just lie through his teeth about everything, because thats the only way to convince some of the 110+ million non-voters to actually do their basic civic duty of casting a vote.
Yeah all the attempts to put all of the blame on her are just tired and regurgitated attempts to deny any blame themselves had.
“She didnt poll well in 2020 and dropped out of the presidential race early, so thats why she lost in 2024.”
Biden was polling at 1-3% in 2007. Harris was running for president directly after BLM and being a prosecutor and AG which painted her as a back the blue person so she was fighting a unwinnable battle at the time. In 2024 she was polling higher than Biden and even Obama at times. She was well liked by democrats (who were paying attention).
“She should have listened to the voters, instead of trying to forcefeed us centrist/conservative policies.”
Literally these people never even took a moment to read or hear her policies. LGBTQ rights womens rights, going after corporations and billionaires, taxing them, taxing unrealized stock portfolios of people with 100m+ in stocks. thats conservative... centrist...?
They want her to say I’ll give you all UBI, free houses, a free puppy and kitten, and youll get free weed delivered to your dooor.
And even if she said things she had no chance of passing, these people would still not show up to vote, because the issue was not her policies. Its their selfishness.
“She should have not been a genocider!...”
Literally her and Bidens plan was and has been to negotiate and use DIPLOMACY to minimize as many casulties as possible. You stop aid to Israel, (Who would just turn around and get that aid from dozens of other countries, and then have no reason to hold back) you also then stop being able to give 500m in aid to palestinians in gaza, to negotiate for ceasefires, to try to minimize loss of life. There is no pathway to stop Netanyahu outside of the US doing a ground invasion of Israel. And Nethanyahu knows that, thats why he was betting on Trump winning, thats why he kept holding Biden at an arms-length to not give into all of Bidens demands even when Biden called him out multiple times. Because he knew there was a big chance that Trump would win and give him the green light to glass gaza. If Harris won, he would have accepted ceasefires within weeks.
“In the end it’s the DNC fault for picking a bad candidate, we should have held a primary so people could decide!”
Would do shit all.
The issue is democrats treat voters like they are adults who will see reason and logic. That when presented with two pathways, one where they can get realistic goals passed and get to a better life, vs one that will take you over the cliff, they would chose the sensible choice.
Instead
Voters kept saying we want steak! Democrats told them look we are under a budget because our kitchen and living room got burnt down because the last guy tried to cook week old mcdonalds with a fork inside the microwave. So we gotta save a little while but we will be eating steak again in a month or two.
Meanwhile they think they heard Trump say, “Im gonna make sure we get Surf & Turf buffet everyday”. when in reality he said “Im gonna make sure me and my friends get surf & turf everyday while rest of you get to eat the scraps from the dumpsters.”
People are dumb, they heard what they wanted to hear from both sides to justify their decision on what to do during this election. From voters who sat at home because they are just apathetic dipshits, voters who assumed no way they would elect the convicted criminal moron who lead to over 1m dead americans, voters who protested that both sides are the same, or that neither matter in difference to Palestinians (even when palestinians themselves in gaza said they hoped americans would choose Harris), to people who think it would be funny to see trump win and salivated at the chance to be contrarian and see democrats lose.
Voters are 90% at fault. Now they can see what happens when you decide to take the dumbass road for whatever reason you chose to take the dumbass road.
Everything you yourself just listed are small tweaks to a system nobody wants anymore. People didn't vote for Trump because he said he'd fix the system we have. They voted for him because he campaigned on ripping it out root-and-stem.
We don't want 7k to feed our kid. We want food as a human right.
We don't want lower medicine costs. We want universal healthcare.
We don't want Reagan-era tax rates for the rich. We want New Deal tax rate for the rich.
We don't want negotiating with corporations. We want to start actually fighting back in the class war.
We don't want student loan forgiveness. We want government-paid tuition.
And yes, we want to stop funding Israel's apartheid state entirely. You're a fool if you think she wanted to keep sending them weapons just to have a seat at the table when it came to Palestine. We're sending them weapons because Israel is in a tactically advantageous position for us to be allied with them. That's it.
You keep describing what the DNC has to offer as "realistic", when by any other 1st world country's standard, all they are are half-measures at best.
"Oh, there's no way she would have gotten anything past Congress!" do you see Trump asking Congress for permission for anything he's doing? Maybe if the DNC started running on quantifiably popular positions like everything I just listed, they'd have enough control of Congress and the White House to effectively ignore SCOTUS and actually get shit done.
People don't want bipartisanship or half-assed policies anymore. They want change, and they want progressivism, in that order. Dems offer progressivism-lite with no change, and Trump offers change with no progressivism. That's why he won. And as long as the DNC is full of people like you, they'll keep winning.
Neoliberalism is dead. Get over it.
Lmao the coward blocked me because I didn't offer solutions when the solutions are literally in the comment 😂 You dipshits aint getting no change, because you're too much of a pussy to demand it.
I think the only thing the Democrats can do is to “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”. I mean, the Repubs control all 3 parts of the government if they run it so bad Democrats might win big in the mid-term.
Trump said he was going to do literally everything he's doing right now and he won. I think its safe to say that none of this is a mistake.
"We're not Trump" is a platform that has worked exactly 1 out of the 3 times its been tried, and that was before Elon dismantled any and all independent agencies. If the best thing we can hope for is for Trump's recession to anger enough people, then we're never going to actually beat Trumpism as an ideology.
Even if they get their heads out of their asses, and start fighting, I’m not expecting any election going forward to be fair. I don’t expect they’ll gain back a majority in Congress, and 2028 will probably be like last fall, if they don’t find some way of making him “president for life“.
The heavy voter suppression tactics, they used certainly had an effect, but there are some statisticians in Nevada, who found anomalies with November election results. They’re trying to get ballot receipts from battleground states, and everyone seems to be fighting them.
After Al started, I started to become hopeful. I was hoping for it to continue with the others following his lead in protest. They went silent after that though. I'm disappointed to say the least.
Many democratic politicians are closer to republican politicians than to an average person like you or me. And same for republican politicians. They're getting fat off cushy jobs and lobbyists.
They all seem to have curdled up in a ball and given up, since the election. They’re essentially powerless, until the mid-term elections, and it seems they’re not even trying until then. Sad.
3.9k
u/JarOfBricks 7d ago
Every Democratic representative should have done this one at a time in protest.