What's Going on at the FBI?
188 comments
·February 4, 2025thih9
DyslexicAtheist
imagine being energy dependent on a regime that bullies you from Washington, and being asked to increase security spending to 5% of GDP by purchasing US weapons systems. while being told by the same regime they might take over Greenland or the Panama canal.
when putting US foreign policy into perspective over the past 30 (or more depending where you are) years, then aligning with China suddenly looks a lot less awful all of a sudden.
SlightlyLeftPad
I think when you look holistically at the promises that China has made, and broken, it still doesn’t make sense to align with China. That could change in the future but the time isn’t now.
An example; look at what they’ve been doing in the South China Sea, Hong Kong or Xinjiang.
Some instability in the U.S. is definitely uncomfortable but the alternative is not better.
monkeyfun
What are some of the broken promises?
I'm not well informed on the subject and now you've got me really curious.
DyslexicAtheist
touché
emptysongglass
Other NATO partners being asked to increase defense spending to 5 percent is entirely reasonable. And that's with or without Trump asking for it.
I live in Europe, I am European: we've outsourced our own defense for far too long. It is absurd that a country presenting an existential threat to us has been met with more supplied resistance from a country across the earth than Europe.
It's long past time for Europe to wake up.
mdhb
Agreed on this. It’s the other two parts that go with it that are the problem:
1. You have to allocate that budget towards buying from the US defence industry. You are not going to be allowed to spend that internally. Which arguments aside of if that actually makes sense is at least a conflict of interest.
2. We are also threatening to annex territory and rip up the only meaningful alliance that keeps you safe in practice at the same time.
This is all to say nothing about trade wars also happening in the background or that literally the only time Article 5 of the same NATO treaty was invoked it was done by the US and paid for with European lives.
I’m generally pro US alliance but it’s also entirely incompatible with a fascist takeover of their government and they absolutely cannot be trusted again until there is serious reform that honestly doesn’t look particularly realistic any time soon.
DyslexicAtheist
fully with you, but we should get our defense kit not entirely from the country that uses these 5% claims as a negotiation tactic for unrelated topics. It's going to be a very long process of "awakening".
guappa
I think we should not buy anything from USA, while their goal is just to sell us overpriced weapons.
fatbird
You're right, but this has been the explicit design of US foreign policy since WW2: we'll protect you, you rebuild as a bastion of western capitalism. It was all carrot.
When the EU tried to set up a small standing armed force in the 90s to serve as an umbrella org in the event of war, the US put pressure on Germany and France not to support it, and it failed.
Now you're seeing the stick. And NATO partners should absolutely up their spending on domestic defense industries. German tanks, Swedish anti-air, Ukrainian drones... you've got more than enough indigenous industry already to not feed the US with your defense dollars.
illiac786
I still hope for a next election in the US. I don’t in china. That alone makes china significantly less stable /reliable on the long run (while on the short term it might be the opposite actually)
Juliate
That.
The impact on commercial, technical, cultural influence of the USA is incredible.
How could we have any insurance that these (personal and professional) US-based infra/tools companies (even AWS, Microsoft, Apple) could be even operating as expected, and in good faith, now that some petulant, inconsequential mixed-business-political leader is able to trigger that level of damage on a whim?
Juliate
It just hit me, in the same spirit, aside political affiliation concerns, who would still now drive a Tesla and feel "safe"?
Just for the exercise, imagine Musk taking over Google or Apple: would you then still trust your computer/phone at the same extent as you do today?
null
woodpanel
But in fact we see the opposite: Countries are quick to comply with the new admin's demands. Because put simply, there is no alternative available to US hegemony. Culturally you will still be writing on this platform in 5 years (because, put simply...), no critical mass is leaving twitter/x (because...) and technically you very likely will be using an american made co-pilot (...).
Could it be, juuuust maybe, that you're believing what the US's other political side wants you to believe?
Juliate
> Countries are quick to comply with the new admin's demands.
Are you so sure? In just a few days you come to that conclusion? What's certain is the damage that the US is self-inducing. The reaction from abroad, whatever form it may take, has not had the time to take shape yet.
> Culturally you will still be writing on this platform in 5 years (because, put simply...)
The more I read here, the more I realise how both part of the audience, and part of the hosting, is veeeeery skewed to some peculiar mindset I could not imagine in the past 10 years. Let's say that it is a good continuous learning experience.
> no critical mass is leaving twitter/x (because...)
[independant citation needed]. I found most of my active communities back on Bluesky and Mastodon, as they have gone almost extinct on X/Twitter. While I see a significant surge of bots (not hard to spot) both in comments, posts and follows. The mass may stay the same, to call it critical is a bit of a flex to me.
> and technically you very likely will be using an american made co-pilot (...).
I feel it's a bit early to say "likely". As it's a bit early to say that it may still be relevant to use it at all in a few years.
> Could it be, juuuust maybe, that you're believing what the US's other political side wants you to believe?
And that would be?
bryanlarsen
Every single Canadian IT board I'm on is filled with conversations on viable alternatives to American service providers and tips on how to switch.
guappa
The only insurance is using libre software only and dropping them completely.
dariosalvi78
maybe the people from US will learn that presidentialism is not a good idea?
fransje
They seem to be heading towards dictatorship, so it looks like the presidentialism issue will solve itself..
Tarq0n
Honestly the legislative branch is welcome to act anytime they choose to, they just love hiding their own dysfunction behind the lightning rod of the presidency.
Like the whole USAID debacle, this is the kind of task and budget that is set by the legislative branch, and the president can and should be held to account if he refuses to execute on that task.
hnbad
I think "unstable" is the right word.
You can argue that far more appalling things happen in places like Russia or China, sure. But this doesn't feel like a controlled assumption of power. It doesn't even feel like Trump is personally in control - let alone his "shadow president". It feels more like a chaotic romp through the federal government, disrupting operations and vital functions with little care or planning, then quickly dispatching a crowd of untrained, unqualified interns to put up scaffolding for something new and more aligned with whatever political goals may have inspired this.
Not just the FBI, not just the onslaught of EOs that seem to be more designed to test the limits of power by defying well-established constitutional and legal limits, not just the inconsistent threats of tariffs either. But also random acts like dumping water reserves ahead of summer for no clear benefit other than spite.
It's all very unpredictable - not Trump personally but the entire organism that surrounds him in this presidential term. I think this may be because of the many conflicting interests at play. You have Trump himself, the MAGA cult, the Evangelicals and hardline conservatives who supported him, the various interest groups within the GOP and so, so many billionaires trying to get a piece of the pie. I don't think he actually has much control over this. It's not just ideologically incoherent, it seemingly lacks direction.
I wonder what it will look like once the dust settles and the momentum has died down. As much as libertarians like to talk about running the government like a business, if the USG were a business right now I would expect it to be on its way to being shut down and sold for scrap like e.g. Toys'R'Us.
1659447091
> ... not Trump personally but the entire organism that surrounds him in this presidential term ... I don't think he actually has much control over this.
It was always strange to me when the far-right, and then mainstream republicans, started really leaning into this "Deep State" conspiracy theory--not liking the others politics is not reason to believe it was ever a thing on either side. Not in the way it was meant, there was no "shadow government".
At some point during Trumps first term something about that idea started to seem like they knew what they were talking about--and not talking about their projection of it onto the "other side". Now, if there was anything that has actually resembled this "deep state", it's what is being put on full display: our emperor got new clothes[0] and we're only at the stage of everyone frozen in cringe.
krapp
Every accusation by the right is a confession.
aaron695
[dead]
kragen
J. Edgar Hoover ran the US for decades and was more powerful than any president. His successor, far less powerful, is in a power struggle with the richest man in the world and a political party that controls all three official branches of government.
The situation looks unpredictable.
It may be worth rereading Mike Lofgren's essay from 11 years ago, before Trump's first campaign, in which he tries to apply the Turkish concept of the "derin devlet" to analyzing the workings of the US government, and why Obama's administration had accomplished so little of what it promised: https://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/
cjameskeller
Who do you mean by "his successor"? Surely not the new, 'acting' FBI director, as they have comparatively little power?
kragen
I didn't realize Wray had already resigned, and would have assumed the same as you, but, much to my surprise, this article about acting director Driscoll came out yesterday: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/us/politics/fbi-director-...
By Adam Goldman
Reporting from Washington Feb. 4, 2025
Brian Driscoll, the acting director of the F.B.I., has become an improbable symbol of quiet resistance toward the Justice Department’s campaign to single out F.B.I. employees who investigated the Jan. 6 riot.
To start, Mr. Driscoll’s appointment was an accident. Shortly after President Trump’s inauguration, the White House identified the wrong agent as acting director on its website and never corrected the mistake.
Even if he was not meant to be leading the agency, he has defended the rank-and-file. His refusal at the time to furnish the names of employees, as top Justice Department officials desired, and his insistence that a formal review process be put in place, has spurred widespread support for Mr. Driscoll.
Former and current agents have traded memes and satirical clips celebrating him, offering a rare moment of levity as dismay and deep unease set in across the F.B.I. and as Mr. Driscoll navigates the political perils of Washington and a president who is deeply hostile to the agency.
Known as “Drizz” among his friends, Mr. Driscoll, 45, does not possess the typical G-man bearing of his predecessors, with a bushy mustache and his face framed by long curls. It is a demeanor that has become the focal point of artificially generated memes.
In one, he is depicted as a saint grasping the handbook for agents running investigations. In another, he glances upward, encircled by the words “What Would Drizz Do?” One video, a compilation of scenes from the movie “The Dark Knight Rises,” portrays Mr. Driscoll as Batman doing battle with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency in Los Angeles.
Former agents jokingly called his appointment a providential mistake.
A heated confrontation on Friday with top Justice Department officials left many wondering at the time whether Mr. Driscoll had been fired. Scrutinizing agents and others involved in the sprawling investigation into the Capitol riot would touch a startling number of people: The F.B.I. opened about 2,400 cases that involved about 6,000 intelligence analysts, agents and other employees.
In a defiant email Friday night, James Dennehy, the top agent in the New York field office, warned his staff that the F.B.I. was “in the middle of a battle of our own.” Praising Mr. Driscoll and his deputy, Robert C. Kissane, as “warriors,” Mr. Dennehy asserted they were “fighting for this organization.”
In fact, Mr. Kissane, the top counterterrorism agent in New York, had been widely believed to be in line to be acting director, several current and former agents said, with Mr. Driscoll as the No. 2 official. But when the White House unveiled its website to reflect its staff under the Trump administration, Mr. Driscoll was identified as the bureau’s chief.
Rather than correct the error, the administration left it.
Mr. Driscoll had been in charge of the Newark office for only about a week before he moved to the director’s suite on the seventh floor of F.B.I. headquarters in Washington, thrust into the middle of a political firestorm. Rumors of his dismissal continued to swirl on Friday until the bureau released a statement a day later to confirm that he was still in charge.
Friends and colleagues describe Mr. Driscoll as unflappable. He was a special agent with the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service in San Diego before joining the F.B.I. in 2007. His first assignment was in the New York office, the largest outpost in the bureau, where agents form powerful alliances and deep connections.
In 2011, he passed rigorous tryouts and was selected to the F.B.I.’s Hostage Rescue Team, a highly trained unit formed in the years after the massacre at the Munich Olympics in 1972. Many operators were once in the U.S. military and served in the Joint Special Operations Command.
Rescue team operators, including Mr. Driscoll, have repeatedly deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq during the wars there, embedding with Navy SEAL and Delta Force commandos.
Former members of the rescue team said that Mr. Driscoll was dispatched in 2013 to Alabama, where they successfully rescued a 5-year-old boy who had been taken hostage in a bunker. He was a gunfighter on the blue squadron.
He also took part in a dangerous raid with U.S. commandos in May 2015 in Syria in the hopes of finding clues about Kayla Mueller, a young woman from Phoenix who was kidnapped by the Islamic State. (Ms. Mueller died in captivity.)
During the operation, Delta Force commandos killed a top militant leader and captured his wife. Mr. Driscoll later testified in a criminal trial in Northern Virginia about the evidence he collected at the scene, including a red laptop that the Islamic State had used to force Ms. Mueller to watch jihadist videos.
In 2020, Mr. Driscoll returned to New York, where he supervised terrorism cases in Africa, Western Europe and Canada. He then took over the Hostage Rescue Team in 2022, which handles the most dangerous missions inside the United States, like disabling a nuclear weapon or rescuing a hostage held by a terrorist.
Chris O’Leary, a former top counterterrorism agent in New York who worked with Mr. Driscoll, pointed to his experience.
“What the F.B.I. needs most is a principled leader, and we have one right now in Brian Driscoll,” Mr. O’Leary said.
He added that Mr. Kissane, a West Point graduate, is of the same mold as Mr. Driscoll.
On Friday, Mr. Driscoll notified staff about the Justice Department’s efforts to collect the names of all F.B.I. personnel who worked on the Jan. 6 cases.
“I am one of those employees,” he wrote.
Indeed, Mr. Driscoll took part in the arrest of Samuel Fisher, an adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory, in Manhattan two weeks after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
F.B.I. agents found over a thousand rounds of ammunition and several weapons, including an illegally modified AR-15 rifle and machetes, in Mr. Fisher’s Upper East Side apartment and car. Among them was a “ghost gun,” which is unregistered and thus untraceable.
In 2022, Mr. Fisher was sentenced to three and a half years in prison after he pleaded guilty to a gun possession charge in Manhattan Supreme Court. He also pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Mr. Fisher was pardoned by Mr. Trump.
trhway
the guy predicted today's coup by the broligarchy against the Deep State (more precisely what happens isn't coup even though it looks like it, in the short time i think we'll see that it is really a takeover of the Deep State by the broligarchy):
>That said, evidence is accumulating that Silicon Valley is losing billions in overseas business from companies, individuals and governments that want to maintain privacy. For high tech entrepreneurs, the cash nexus is ultimately more compelling than the Deep State’s demand for patriotic cooperation.
tmaly
Wasn't Marc A saying the last admin was basically preventing the ability of crypto and AI startups from thriving?
mmastrac
Wild to see a bloodless coup in action.
vizzier
The worst part is, how do you even counter the injected rot? If they demand loyalty tests and infest your institutions how is it countered? do the other side also have to do the same (assuming they have the opportunity)?
All feels incredibly illiberal. I hope for the best that the oaths of office specific to these institutions hold.
jimkleiber
One way is for the people in the other branches of government—Congress (legislative) and Courts (judicial)—to stand up for their branches and fight against the executive.
The challenge is that people are more loyal to their political parties than their political branches, and the Constitution is built to check and balance branches, not parties.
rob74
Well, the supreme representatives of the judicial branch have just last year given the executive (=Trump) a blank check to largely do anything it pleases (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States_(2024)). So yes, the US is in big trouble...
TrackerFF
Resist, resist, resist.
If they want to go through with a coup like this, let them do it in the courtrooms.
They're simply relying on a blitzkrieg of (often illegal) firing/purges, assuming that no-one will challenge them, or that any challenge will take so long that they're ineffective.
hoseja
[flagged]
bboygravity
How is this different from any previous president?
Isn't the very reason that the puppets "need replacing" (according to the president) tell you that they are of the wrong (previous president's) political flavor?
Honest question, I'm not from US, but on the surface it just looks like more of the same thing that has always been happening? Except with way more media attention?
qqqwerty
These organizations consist of political appointees and civil servants. It is customary to replace all of the political appointees. Civil servants however have a lot of job protections and can only be fired for a limited set of reasons. Typically, a new administration would appoint new political appointees to the various departments (many of whom need to be confirmed by the Senate) and those appointees would then exert their influence on the department by shifting priorities around and they could even alter the hiring process to target more "aligned" individuals for the open civil servant roles. But they cannot just do a wholesale house cleaning. The high level purpose and the budget/size of the organization is determined by Congress and the political appointees are constrained by that.
So this is in fact very different from how things normally work.
jackjeff
I think it’s unprecedented for every FBI agent to fill up a questionnaire to admit whether they worked on a case where the president himself was an active participant.
jimkleiber
I think it's the emotional flavor of it. Things in the US government tend to move more slowly and filled with less apparent vitriol and vengeance. This seems like a slash and burn and to hell with people if they don't more outrightly pledge loyalty.
To me, at least.
frodo8sam
Depends on your perspective. Many people would consider someone like Fauci non-partisan and more of a competent career expert, but Trumps people think he is very political and purge people like that. At the FBI they purge people who are probably quite competent and not particularly partisan but happened to work on Trumps case, which is mostly about sending a message I think not do much about finding the right employees to work at the FBI. This is very un American in my view.
rightbyte
They are supposed to be manouvered out with slowpaced schemes and retire for family reason not be fired in the open.
But ye it usually happens to some extent: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-trump-burrowin...
bozhark
It won’t be.
maeil
You're right, it won't be. This is the only positive thing I can currently see. They could've easily pulled it off without resistance (i.e. bloodshed) in most of Europe, but in the US the indoctrination of US exceptionalism regarding "freedom" and "democracy" from an early age results in a non-negligible number of people who would actually put their lives on the line for this and willing to take part in active resistance.
Purely anecdotally from seeing a small part of military-adjacent tech, while most definitely voted for Trump and some of them will be MAGA-converts, most of them actually belived in that mission and won't be aligned with a proper dictatorship. They'll have to play it very carefully, keep elections but rig them just enough to make the outcome inevitable, to keep these people able to convince themselves it's still a democracy, boiling the frog very slowly. It might be preferable for them to actually accelerate things and go full Putin, there'll be a lot more active resistance that way.
stavros
> They could've easily pulled it off without resistance (i.e. bloodshed) in most of Europe, but in the US the indoctrination of US exceptionalism regarding "freedom" and "democracy" from an early age results in a non-negligible number of people who would actually put their lives on the line for this and willing to take part in active resistance.
All the Europeans who have died revolting against totalitarian governments are rolling in their graves.
TrackerFF
Have you even watched international news for the past few years?
null
throwawaythekey
What makes it a coup? Trump was elected on a platform of government reform and that's what he is doing.
reshlo
A leader who is democratically elected, and then violates or exploits loopholes in the law to give themselves powers that they are not supposed to have, is engaging in a self-coup.
The US Constitution grants Congress, not the executive branch, the power to determine how the federal government’s money is spent.
Elon Musk’s team within the Executive Office of the President have reportedly gained full admin access to the payment system of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service at the Department of the Treasury, which is responsible for the majority of the federal government’s payments, and are using that access to prevent certain payments from being made. Among other things, they are also attempting to close down the US Agency for International Development, which was established and funded as an independent agency by an act of Congress.
throwawaythekey
> The US Constitution grants Congress, not the executive branch, the power to determine how the federal government’s money is spent.
With regards to the constitution specifically the power of the purse seems a little vague. In 1974 the Impoundment Control Act was passed as a response to, and to prevent, presidents from unilaterally impounding.
https://protectdemocracy.org/work/impoundment-threat-explain...
whatthesmack
> exploits loopholes in the law
This is a very interesting way of saying "following the law."
navane
Many dictators, including the famous great, started out by being elected into government.
throwawaythekey
In my mind democratically elected and coup are antonyms. If you are against trumps style of cleanup then I would probably stick to illegal, although that is TBD, radical or destructive.
guelo
The pardoning of the J6 rioters that broke into the capitol, and now trying to fire all law enforcement that were involved in their prosecution feels like the end of the rule of law. Law will now be whatever Trump says. It's a coup.
whatthesmack
> the J6 rioters that broke into the capital
I would encourage you to learn more about that day. Most people that were charged did not go into the building. And the few that did were literally waved in by police, including many being escorted around inside by police.
babyshake
If you are elected on a platform of a coup (illegal reform), it doesn't make what you do any more legal. Some of what Trump is doing is not illegal, but some of it appears to be illegal.
throwawaythekey
[flagged]
DiogenesKynikos
What makes it a coup is that Trump is acting completely illegally. He was elected president, not dictator. He does not have the legal authority to create a new government department, DOGE, to appoint Musk as its head without Senate advice and consent, and to give it full power over all other agencies.
lIl-IIIl
That doesn't make it a coup. "Coup" has a definition, which is to unseat a government through illegal means, or to stay in power through illegal means. For example, January 6th could be considered an attempted coup. But just acting illegally a coup does not make.
rapsey
[flagged]
Hatchback7599
[dead]
rapsey
[flagged]
arunabha
It's wild to think I'd ever say this, but the next four years will be the stress test of the strength of US institutions against an authoritarian president. If they survive the next four years, they will likely survive pretty much anything.
kragen
I don't think it's anywhere near that simple.
Organizations are ongoing processes, constantly in flux, not structures erected in the past. Like a river, you can never step in the same organization twice. Like ghosts and money, they only exist in people's minds; they consist of belief in them, hyperstitiously.
The democracy the FBI is sworn to protect has turned on it. What is left for it to protect? The laws handed down from an older, wiser time? Perhaps the time of Senator McCarthy? Or Jim Crow? What if today's president pardons common criminals and today's Congress legalizes their crimes—will the FBI continue to enforce yesterday's laws?
You can count on the FBI to protect itself, but never believe that what it is protecting is democracy.
TeMPOraL
> You can count on the FBI to protect itself, but never believe that what it is protecting is democracy.
Except the only thing that what makes them different from organized crime is also the shared belief in laws that form and direct them.
> will the FBI continue to enforce yesterday's laws?
If they don't, i.e. if they start to openly pick and choose which laws are valid and which are not, the whole thing will unravel. Laws won't mean anything anymore, and then suddenly the president is just a random dude, the FBI is just a bunch of thugs with guns and suits, and USA is just words on a map.
You don't want to go there.
kragen
I think you misinterpreted something in my note. Continuing to enforce yesterday's laws after Congress repeals them would not seem to me to be the opposite of "openly picking and choosing which laws are valid"; rather, it would be an even more extreme form of it, because you're no longer even just picking from the laws currently on the books!
nyc_data_geek1
>>openly pick and choose which laws are valid and which are not
ah yes, the same way every major police department in the US has been functioning for most of living memory
msravi
> if they start to openly pick and choose which laws are valid and which are not
They already did that under Biden.
kennysoona
> but the next four years will be the stress test of the strength of US institutions against an authoritarian president.
As well as a stress test against half the voting population that thinks an authoritarian president is peachy and somehow patriotic.
whatever1
Half of the voting population were so fed up with the economy that they went with the nuclear option.
It’s just that most of them have not read history and none of them have lived through war or fascism to understand what they are signing up for.
They will all learn their lesson.
phinnaeus
I have strong doubts they will learn anything, if they were capable of that you could expect them to have learned it already.
aredox
So fed up with the economy that they stopped talking about it immediatly after the election, even though no action had been taken.
Because:
A) It was all based on "vibes" and beliefs, not their own actual reality (the gap between "how well off are you personally" and "how do you think others are well off" was wild)
B) Voters lie and the economy was, like in 2016, the fig leaf for the true driver: egoism and cruelty. If Trump's tarriffs destroy their wellbeing, there will be no outcry, because "the cruelty is the point", to the point of self-harm as long as "the others" are harmed even more.
macawfish
It was one third of the voting population.
hnbad
I think the problem is that most people think nothing ever happens, or to put it bluntly "It couldn't happen here". Harris literally offered nothing - when pressed she even said that she wouldn't have done anything different from Biden, which is the last thing you want to hear about a president whose only selling point was not being Trump and giving the country breathing room to come up with something better. Yes, the US recovered faster and stronger from COVID and the recession than the rest of the world but that doesn't change people's lived realities of living paycheck to paycheck with prices only ever going higher.
People don't "learn their lesson". Accelerationism always fails. Suffering, fear and looming threats are what enable the rise of authoritarianism and autocracy, not what helps overcome them. Fascism is rarely overthrown by a popular revolt that establishes direct democracy and egalitarianism. It's usually overthrown by a military junta or gradually coalesces into an oligarchy that reintroduces the trappings of liberal democracy to placate the masses.
As much as the American right loves to call the Democrats "radical leftists" or "socialists", the Democrats have nothing to offer in response to the people's suffering. The Republicans can at least lie through populism: claiming to be opposed to "the swamp" while installing their own loyalists and family members in positions of government, claiming to fight the "coastal elites" while implementing the whims of billionaires, claiming to defend "freedom of speech" while prohibiting government agencies from using progressive terminology, etc etc. But the Democrats can't even do this because at best they can offer half-measures or compromises. They couldn't even pass the Green New Deal and now the Trump government keeps referring to it as if it had actually been implemented.
This isn't a uniquely American problem. The social democrats in Germany have recently come out in opposition to voting on initiating the process to investigate the far-right AfD party (which Elon Musk has been actively supporting btw, which is an unprecedent level of foreign influence) for qualifying for a trial to be banned as unconstitutional (i.e. roughly equivalent to proposing a grand jury with the outcome being a constitutional court trial being launched or not). Why? Because if they would participate in such a vote and support it, "all democratic parties" should support it but there's a good chance the conservative party would vote against or abstain and this would "hurt the democratic parties" by making them no longer unified in their opposition to the AfD - or that if the conservatives were to vote in favor, this might radicalise some of its supporters to vote for the AfD instead. Mind you, the conservative party has already repeatedly cooperated with the AfD and they have supported each others' proposals, although the conservative party is officially ruling out any potential coalition with them while incrementally adopting their rhetoric. The socdems are too concerned with protecting the optics of the system itself and maintaining decorum to directly attack a party that is fundamentally opposed to the principles underlying that system.
woodpanel
Can you point to an exact policy or EO that constitutes fascism?
macawfish
1/3rd of the voting population
kennysoona
I meant voting population as in population of people that voted not population of people eligible and registered to vote.
greatgib
Also, you can't rule out the corruption-like part of the situation.
When you have billions to communicate, and people like Musk have a full global network to brain wash his ideas, obviously a lot of people might be wrongly convinced that they elected the president that defend freedom and efficiency of the institutions to improve their life.
Not realizing that Trump, Musk, are just selfish bastards defending these ideas but only for themselves.
okthrowman283
[dead]
juanani
[dead]
moogly
It's already over. You'll have to rely on Canadians burning down the White House. I'm afraid there's no democratic solution to what you're enduring now.
kragen
The US didn't have nukes when the Canadians did that. They can't win another war with the US. Even the UK only has US nukes and presumably can't fire them at the US. And Putin or Xi turning Washington into glass wouldn't bring it any closer to being the democracy that was finally lost nine years ago.
gerash
US institutions aka. bureaucracy isn't without its own issues. I believe that's why people voted in a rather unusual person like Trump whose main feature is being outside the establishment.
It is the US institutions who have happily engaged in endless foreign wars over past several decades. They have also enacted low corporate taxation resulting in high stock prices but even larger wealth gap where few winners take all the profits.
soco
Can you please explain how is Trump outside the establishment? Or rather, of which establishment is he outside?
bananapub
I think you're underestimating the damage he's done and will do. semi-permanent changes:
- complete radicalisation of an entire congressional party against functional democracy
- complete politicisation of the entire federal government
- normalisation of just straight up lying to the Senate in confirmation hearings (RFK on everything, Patel on q anon)
- normalisation of just straight up lying during campaigns (no idea what Project 2025 is!)
- making it clear to every single ally of the US that the US cannot be trusted to not be a complete cock
- normalisation of pardoning thousands of criminals who did crimes on TV in your favour
- normalisation of Congress and the top level courts being completely and utterly unwilling to lift a finger to stop autocratic exercise of powers by the president
maybe the next president won't be a sociopath, but the above will still be true and maybe the one after will be.
monkeyfun
The lying is the most incomprehensible to me. I actually had a conversation with a family member about RFK's lies (including lies about Bernie Sanders! Which everyone around seemingly tried to suppress him from defending himself on!).
To give an example of what the process felt like with another case I made the mistake of talking about (makes a better story than just the pure lies of the rfk conversation, where said family member just lied constantly and started making things up about bernie sanders):
- elon musk probably didn't do a nazi salute multiple times - and if he did it was misinterpreted - no i don't want to see the videos - and i don't care anyway
For context btw, this family member literally had their grandparents suffer under nazi occupation in ww2.
It's also wild that this family member has already actively been harmed by trump's policies including the forced RTO, and literally just ignores it. They just ignore painful examples when they're brought up, or claim it's all part of trump's plan and the only way it could possible have been done. Yes, as if it was just an inevitable occurrence like a natural disaster and thus not trump's fault.
moogly
The real mind-virus.
user3939382
> authoritarian president
Basically the analysis of anyone who already hated Trump and didn't vote for him. I see a lot of psuedo intellectual exercises in this thread that basically amount to trying to relitigate the election or sour grapes for having lost.
Animats
Here's the actual letter from the FBI Agents' Association.[1] They're not a union, but they're close, and represent about 90% of FBI agents.
The acting head of the FBI is strongly against this and is resisting.[2]
So labor and management are both against this. It's the first real challenge to Trump's authoritarianism. Plus, most FBI agents have civil service appeals rights. They can fight back against arbitrary dismissal.
Misc. item: the tariff deal between the US and Mexico has something that the Trump administration hasn't mentioned - the US agreed to help clamp down on shipments of guns to Mexico. Mexico does not have easy access to guns in the way that the US does.[3]
[1] https://www.fbiaa.org/joint-letter-to-congress-on-the-fbi/
[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/senior-fb...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Mexico
notepad0x90
I think a lot of people just want to give the current administration a chance. Half the country wanted him, and if it wasn't this, it would be an actual civil war eventually.
However, isn't it a bit naive to presume the current administration would relinquish power and allow for a peaceful transfer of government in the end?
I hope I'm wrong but all the evidence and data is pointing to a decline of America and the American-led world order. What's more concerning is, as the economy and social climate continues to decline, people will be far less tolerant and accepting of each other. I'm concerned a lot of the horrible historical trends of the past will repeat.
A lot of things are happening that you just can't recover from, like at all. And some things, like relations with Canada and the EU may not recover for like a generation.
I suspect, history will look at the past few months as the time when the cold war was really won. I mean, even on HN, the majority were against the tiktok ban, if that isn't defeat, what is? Imagine not banning propaganda radio from Russia and china during the cold war. The most crucial victory America's enemies achieved is convincing American voters they're no longer their enemies. American voters mostly think it's a fight between governments or politicians, they don't get that the hostility includes the day to day people of the nations involved.
The question really (to me at least) is, is the war already lost and we just need time to process the loss? or can it still be fought? I don't know how, it will be decades of trying to avoid an actual civil war, can America really withstand being torn apart, when even something like banning tiktok is impossible?
I can understand how looking at the greatness of this nation and its might it can be difficult to imagine it's fall and decimation. can congress and the supreme court put aside their own short-term gains to save their country? Will states continue to want to be part of the union, despite disaster aids being withheld and American citizens being deported (yes, this is happening)?
And who would come after trump, now that trump has paved the way? it will take him his entire term fully gutting the government and lining up the military. I suspect his replacement won't need votes.
macawfish
Half the country did not. 1/3 of eligible voters. Which doesn't even count people under 18.
And to say that everyone who voted for him "wanted him" is a stretch.
notepad0x90
i just counted people who voted. for trump voters, it is hard to believe they didn't want him to the most part. many people stayed home because they didn't like kamala or trump. you can vote for anyone you want, including yourself.
reverius42
If the 1/3 of eligible voters who stayed home thought they were opposing Trump, uh, I have some news.
happytoexplain
Active opposition is not the only alternative to "wanting". Further, as the parent points out, even voting for somebody isn't necessarily "wanting" them (I've certainly voted for candidates I explicitly do not want), and staying home is obviously an even lower bar.
These are famous problems with most voting systems, especially the USA's.
I.e. the parent is correct.
derektank
Hypothetically, had FBI agents complied with completing the questionnaire and they had worked on the Jan 6th investigations, would it be legal for the administration to fire them based on that alone? Or would the agents be able to sue? My understanding is that they have limited collective bargaining rights compared to other federal employees, so presumably they'd only have whatever protections Congress provides all federal employees.
lwansbrough
I think the question "is it legal" is only relevant in a state which respects laws. Which is, increasingly, not the United States.
derektank
We have a court system, it's just slower and draws far fewer headlines than the executive branch. The Trump administration EO banning birthright citizenship was put on hold. A U.S. District Court judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the OMB payments freeze for grants and other programs, which actually forced the administration to rescind the order. Don't believe the Trump admin when they claim they have the power to do something, they quite often simply don't.
dakial1
Thats what happened in Brazil, when the local supreme court, one judge in particular, went to war against the Bolsonaro government. Don’t think the SCOTUS has this power no?
rob74
What's most wild about this is that what's happening at the FBI, while plenty scandalous enough on its own, are mostly eclipsed by everything else that's going on - e.g. this editorial https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/03/the-gu... doesn't even mention the FBI. It's like Trump is setting as many fires at once as he can, hoping that at least some of them will burn out of control...
woodpanel
An editorial in the partisan Guardian citing the higly partisan Krugman as well as the highly partisan Nathan Tankus was hopefully not supposed to be representing facts, or was it?
null
from-nibly
The FBI is not your friend, don't worry about them.
AnimalMuppet
The FBI is not my friend, therefore I worry about them.
from-nibly
Dang, I forgot about the other kind of worry.
null
AndyMcConachie
Live by the witch hunt, die by the witch hunt.
guelo
Do you believe the j6 rioters breaking into the capitol were not acting illegally so that there prosecution was a witch hunt? Help me understand.
whatthesmack
Nobody broke in. Most people charged were outside the entire time. The few that went inside were literally waved in by smiling police officers and escorted around the building by police. Please learn more about what happened that day. The people that endured this persecution of a witch hunt deserve sainthood. They were abused in jail in unimaginable ways.
trealira
You literally cannot reason with such people. They will pretend to be mad about lies as their people lie more. They'll pretend to be mad about laws procedure as they break laws and procedure. They'll pretend to be mad about inflation as they cause inflation. Their disingenuous comments are not aimed at you, but at propagandizing to an audience to discredit you. Conservatives silently, collectively agreed long ago that they'd do this, understanding that politics to them is just how to seize power.
I’m not from the US and news like this change my perception of that country - it seems unstable; just like I’m not considering a Wordpress blog, I’d think twice before any long term plans that involve the US.
The comparison to the Wordpress drama works surprisingly well for me, complete with vendettas and an overzealous leader, just on an even larger scale and affecting more people.