US labour watchdog halts Apple cases after group’s lawyer picked for top job

> Seriously, what does one really expect from an unethical convicted criminal?

I expected a repeat of his first term. Which honestly was quite uneventful. This is not.

Things felt pretty tame by the end of the first term, almost like the structure of the existing system kept things at bay. It feels very much so like influence from abroad is heavily affecting the current course.

> I expected a repeat of his first term

Even when the candidate speaks of people not having to vote again in the future, if they just vote for him this last time?

I mean, I'm not even in the US and probably missed a lot of stuff that happened during the election. But no one around here is surprised about what's happening now, surely most of the US population was that aware too?

This was not a fair assumption that many commentators had warned against. It was clear from Project 2025 that he was going to remove career public servants who resisted his worst impulses in the first term, replacing them instead with loyalists.

>I expected a repeat of his first term. Which honestly was quite uneventful. This is not.

They were quite candid with their intent. Aside from him casually/flippantly brushing off Project 2025 during his campaign (when it was clear that his campaign was deeply connected to it), it was tremendously obvious to anybody paying attention that things would be much different during round two, and in a more aggressive manner.

You had your head in the sand. If you voted for him, this is your fault. Damn you.

Downvotes be damned.

Yes, there was even a John Oliver episode about it

> Downvotes be damned.

What's the point of phrasing this as though you're off to the gallows for your beliefs? It's an internet forum.

Just a simple acknowledgement that I am aware that my comment is unconstructive and goes against the desire/rules of this space. If I'm going to be an asshole, I usually try and acknowledge that I'm aware of it.

Is that a new feeling?

I figure the people who want the US to withdraw from the global stage have been working on Trump ever since 1987 when he paid for that full page pro-tariff ad in the New York Times. Power hungry maniacs are a dime a dozen, but ones that are also hell bent on committing economic suicide are a scarce resource and need to be nurtured with care if you want them to actually do it.

It's what I'd do if the US was bullying me around. It's a well tested play (refined during the US interventions in South America in the 70's and 80's).

The lack of repercussions from the first term all added together to give a sense of could do no wrong. Impeached twice, no convictions. Proposed the concept that a president cannot be held accountable except via conviction after impeachment. Pretty much proven true by SCOTUS.

Now, they've taken that cue and just turned the dial to an 11. There's currently very little resistance, and in the places where there is, they've just flat out ignored it. Of course the snowball is going to pick up speed

Isn't this term just an extension of the end of his last term?

He spent the majority of his term being blocked from doing completely problematic stuff by his staff who he increasingly fired or resigned.

He finally got the end of his term with many more yes-men and started doing things like impounding funds for Ukraine.

The first thing he does at the start of term 2 is more impoundment. Like sure, Day 1 Year 1 Trump doesn't bleed into Day 1 year 5 but Day 364 Year 4 bleeds into Day 1 Year 5 pretty well.

Define most. Less than 50% of voters voted for him. Less than 100% of the population voted.

One of the first things he did upon taking office in 2017 was to block a bunch of legal residents from entering the country. One of the last things he did was try to illegally hang on to power after being voted out. He did plenty of bad stuff. He tried plenty more, and got blocked or talked out of it by some of his cabinet who were vaguely reasonable. It was clear that he was not going to appoint any vaguely reasonable people to his cabinet this time around, and so he'd be basically unchecked. How was this not obvious to you?

People are oblivious in this country. Totally clueless. A big part of that is the 'information ecosystem' where even the supposedly left-leaning outlets sanewashed everything that's happened and both-sidesed it, even if their reporting was factual. Then you move towards the outright propaganda like Fox and worse. And then there's social media...

The first term was just as dishonest but not as bold.

I still can't believe we had an "alternative facts" moment and that somehow that pales compared to the rest.

I kind of feel like if you didn't vote for Kamala, you kind of signaled you're OK with Trump, since that's how the American two-party system forces people to act.

So all those that didn't vote, obviously didn't hate what Trump proposed enough to vote against him.

"ever since 1987 when he paid for that full page pro-tariff ad in the New York Times."

I didn't know this. So New York Times had no issue publishing lies for money. Everything is rotten these days

I'm not sure what your definition of "tame" is, but mine definitely does not include "A pandemic raging through the population with leadership calling it a hoax and proposing to fight it with bleach and horse dewormer, and encouraging the population to defy public health efforts to stop it." 2017 to 2020 was a steady increase in chaos and incompetence, coming to a crescendo with COVID. And after 4 years, voters said "Yea, we want that chaos again!"

Calling the longest government shutdown in US history, the Muller report, sympathetic comments towards white nationalists, deploying unmarked federal troops to arrest peaceful protestors, ethics lawsuits, family separation policy, all the Federalist society judge appointments, overturning Roe v Wade, multiple impeachments, etc., uneventful is anything but honest.

This doesn't even count the global pandemic.

Setting all that aside, everything he's done is something he campaigned on.

> comment is unconstructive

I understand. It's hard to be constructive when it was so blatantly clear a second term was going to be a disaster of epic proportions and here we are.

I think the bigger shift isn't that he wasn't this "bold" the first time, it's that there hadn't been 8 years of his form of politics not only winning but becoming the only viable form of conservatism across the government and electorate in the US.

He didn't have "his" people in place to help him the first time because much of the establishment at the time was still Romney/Bush/McCain/McConnell types and they kept a firm hand on the reigns of power and often undercut his ability to do things because they felt like he was an aberration.

This time around, there is no "primary opposition" (intraparty conflict) in any meaningful way. He wants, they do, it is truly Trump's party.

It's not just the sense of "could do no wrong" but "DID no wrong". Is he a Criminal who committed Crimes if he never went to jail or was he a "criminal" the same way "we all are" (this is to say, we all speed or disobey minor laws on a daily basis but that could have major repercussions if they were prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law, and doesn't it seem like The Deep State just weaponized edge cases and technicalities to entrap him?)

I don't personally buy into this framing, but it sure seems like millions of people do since points at results

It's "uneventful" because I wasn't personally affected by it. /s

Trump sought to illegally install himself as president in 2021 by having fake electors deny the actual results of their state's presidential elections and just decide that Trump should win anyway. He was only prevented from doing this by a combination of organizational incompetence from his team and Mike Pence refusing to go along with the plan.

This was among the greatest threats to democratic self governance in well over a century.

I'd say that Trump 2.0 is more eventful than Trump 1.0, but I absolutely would not call Trump 1.0 uneventful.

I agree, I meant "tame" as in comparison to where we are now. The first term felt incompetent and maybe a bit malicious, but the current term feels outwardly malicious and extraordinarily corrupt.

I could put on a mask and stay at home for COVID, but I can't do much about shunning our allies, disrupting the world economy, disappearing people, electing a cabinet of highly unqualifed individuals, putting the SCOTUS in pocket, etc. I can advocate, stay informed, support my community, etc., but this feels on another level than the first term and that's what I meant by my comment.

There is not much conservative about this reactionism. And the old guard did not have firm control in Trump's first term. But you're right almost all Republican opposition was eliminated. I would add Trump and his people were unprepared in 2016.

Yeah, here it is: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-foreign-policy-ad/

A headline from the times during that same year: TRUMP GIVES A VAGUE HINT OF CANDIDACY (https://archive.is/xF2pW)

As much as I dislike advertising in general, and specifically the opinions in that ad, I think that whether the New York Times was willing to publish it is not the important detail here.

This was at a time when the US and China were working together to keep the USSR in check while at the same time the US was sending weapons to Taiwan so that they could be used to keep China in check. So imagine being China in 1991. The USSR has just fallen, so they're no longer a threat, but US-sold weapons are still being pointed at you from Taiwan. You'd want the US to leave you alone and stop arming your enemies. And here's this candidate who wants the US to step off the world stage and focus instead on what it can build alone at home.

It seems pretty likely that they'd be in favor of getting Trump elected. Whether they ultimately did is an open question, but if so then it's not shame on the New York Times, but shame on us for not better protecting ourselves against foreign interference.

For an example, look at the Fox News home page today

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:42jq5uvg6p2shi5gqifor22e/po...

Barely mentions the stock market crash.

I don’t live in the states, so I gotta say, Trump term 1, was pretty uneventful for us except for some silly handshakes.

I wasn’t looking forward to his inauguration, but I did expect him to not care about the rest of the world for another 4 years.

In a sense most advertising boils down to publishing lies for money, to some degree or another.