Source
r/GoldandBlack•
MayCaesar

Executive orders and tribalism

Something strange is happening in the US politics: it seems that people are completely giving up standing for something, and instead increasingly often choose to stand for someone. They select a "tribe" to belong to, and then tweak their views based on the actions of and changes within that tribe.

Here is the most recent example. When Trump's term as president began and he started issuing large numbers of executive orders, a lot of people in the Democratic party were accusing him of abusing his powers and introducing authoritarianism into the executive branch - and they were absolutely right. Now, however, on the very first day of his presidency Biden, a Democrat, introduces 17 executive orders, some incredibly powerful, such as reentering the Paris climate accords which will have a serious impact on the US economy. And what I see is a lot of the same people on my friend list who used to accuse Trump of abuses of power, now cheering on Biden doing even more of that. One even wrote that "normalcy has returned to the US politics" after listing all the executive orders in the same post - unbelievably hypocrisy and inconsistency.

Few people actually take a stance on something irrespective of who does that something. Few people say that issuing large numbers of executive orders obviously violates the principle of separation of powers and makes the presidential institution quite authoritarian, calling out both Trump and Biden on doing so at the same time.

This is quite an alarming development. When nobody stands for anything and people just mindlessly follow power groups and charismatic leaders, then there is absolutely no counterweight to abuses of power by politicians: every politician belonging to some tribe can do essentially whatever they please, and their "tribe" will swallow it, while their opponents' "tribe" will criticize it. The feedback system becomes corrupted and self-reinforcing, as random actions of politicians get praised or criticized by the same group of people, regardless of what those actions are. There is no constructive feedback that would suggest to a politician that they are doing something unacceptable, or even illegal. This is how most dictatorships begin, where the leaders surround themselves with people who adore them and only receive feedback from them, while marginalizing and, later, persecuting all opposition - and while I do not think that the US is going to become a dictatorship any time soon, the slow drift in that direction is apparent.

I believe this issue needs to be talked about a lot more than it is. Everyone talks about division and tribalism, but few people think about the implications of them on how a democratic government functions. Democracy is absolutely dependent on constructive feedback from private citizens; in fact, its entire purpose is to give those citizens a voice that allows them to keep corrupt and unhinged politicians in check. When this feedback is missing, then the government runs amok, and people become helpless victims of whims of random political groups and politicians. This seems to be what is happening in the US currently, and in many other places as well (France, the UK, Canada, etc.), and it does not bode well for the future of these political systems.

Posted Jan 22, 2021, 3:53 AM UTC

6727
ImaginaryFly1•

You’re absolutely right. People don’t have foundational principles on which to base their decisions and beliefs.

33
[deleted]•

[deleted]

5
uh0bagels•

Damn that really is it. The result of decades of corrupting societal values

2
JobDestroyer•

Wanna here something scary?

Standing for someone instead of something is what monarchy is all about

21
Dr_DavyJones•

Well at least we will get cool weddings

5
HaganahNothingWrong•

...and explosions

3
Raul-Pilla•

Hey, don't you talk bad about monarchy. It is much better than the shitcracy we currently have most places.

-3
JobDestroyer•

I will talk bad about monarchy because monarchy is just as stupid, if not worse, than democracy. I don't care what hoppe says because hoppe doesn't know what he's talking about.

8
Raul-Pilla•

Monarchy is 50/50 chance you have a good leader. Democracy the chance you have a bad leader is 100%. Hoppe is based and knows his stuff.

0†
JobDestroyer•

In a monarchy, the bad leader has 100 percent control to make and enforce policy, in democracy they have to argue with a hundred or so jerkoffs before they can.

Hoppe is not based, he is by far the worst famous libertarian. He's a net negative to the cause of liberty and if he decided to be a farmer instead of an author we'd all be better off now.

5
_boneappleteeth_•

No doubt in my mind that everything going on is wrong. I have been seeing red flags and connecting dots all through the year 2020. The politicians for a fact are intentionally causing all the division. And the news networks help push this. These laws are only as strong as it's people. It's as weak and detrimental as religious laws.

The worst part is you and I are seen as "stupid and crazy conspiracy theorists" for talking about how one-sided this is. But last time I checked, theories can be tested to prove or invalidate the theory. It makes me wonder why are we not supposed to test these theories?

Those who question it are silenced. The other side will just scream and yell, literally. So many people are not stopping to think about any of this.

15
OneTonWantonWonton•

speaking of the media, did you see any of them speak about the riots that happened in washington and portland during the inauguration?

9
AusIV•

There were some protests in my state capital, and I only heard about it from people who were there - literally no reporting on it.

6
dbhmilolmgrjk•

“Our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness,” read a slide from a 2018 presentation. “If left unchecked,” it warned, Facebook would feed users “more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention & increase time on the platform.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-division-top-executives-nixed-solutions-11590507499

3
Perleflamme•

Yep, that's exactly the part Akasha is seeing as a major threat and trying to replace. It's sad they're taking their time. And it's sad they don't have better vulgarisation, too. Their news about how their project goes tend to be quite hard to digest.

1
Mangalz•

Also a little scary is one of Obamas executive orders was upheld by the courts after Trump tried to rescind it.

If Biden and his team try to shape their orders like that some of these things might be permanent.

9
MarriedWChildren256•

This was really a WTF moment for me.

4
UnsafestSpace•

Executive Orders can be overturned by Congress, the ability to make them in the first place can be overturned by a simple vote of Congress, what is made in law can be undone by law.

The issue isn’t the President or Supreme Court, it’s a lazy Congress and has been for the past century.

1
Glothr•

If you abandon your principles when they become difficult and/or inconvenient then you don't have principles. A lot of people don't have firm principles which is why tribalism is such a problem.

8
AllSocialistsAreEvil•

This is how politics works by default on many countries, i consider it a default inferior "system" that societies evolve out of as they progress.

The best example i know of this is Argentina, every single leader there has had a political "ideology" attached to them, even if most of them since Peron were somewhere between social democrats and socialists in effect (and left wing demagogues in motivation), with mostly similar purpoted views and methods.

In my own country, Panama, the "political" parties that currently exist do not have set ideologies (Not in practice anyways), and are instead organized as supporting groups to get people elected, once in power they act on three goals: keep power, get rich, protect yourself from future goverment's legal action against your crimes. The base of these parties is exactly how you describe, whatever the party does is good because the party did it. The only exception to this is the socialists.

5
[deleted]•

[deleted]

4
GrizzledLibertarian•

You make many excellent points, and are, in the main, correct about tribalism.

I take exception to this:

a lot of people in the Democratic party were accusing him of ... introducing authoritarianism into the executive branch - and they were absolutely right.

No, they were perfectly wrong. President Trump did not introduce authoritarianism to the executive. That ship sailed a long time ago, (With Washington) and has only ever increased, more or less steadily, ever since.

Blaming it on Trump is pure TDS, and we should all be embarrassed by such a claim.

4
scody15•

You're a little late to the party, friend.

3
Perleflamme•

Indeed, I regularly see people coming here or elsewhere trying to discredit a whole movement simply by saying some random person is claiming to be from such movement and behaving badly. As if the fact of being evil had anything to do with being right or wrong...

I mean, it's easy to claim some tyrans never considered suiciding themselves. Are we going to assume it necessarily means others should consider such act? It's pure lazyness of the thought process.

There's no reason anyone should logically replace the behavior of following ideas by the behavior of following people.

1
dbhmilolmgrjk•

When Trump started doing that, the Democrats warned the Republicans, this is exactly what they were going to when they got power.

1
RocksCanOnlyWait•

I will gladly cheer any executive order which removes government regulation or gets government out of somewhere it doesn't belong.

I disagree with the idea about worshipping a particular politician; they're just the figurehead for the pseudo-religion. The real problem is politics as a religion.

1
Head-Hunt-7572•

Same thing happens with political violence and the deficit. We should be remarkably skeptical of the people we put in office

1