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Ground stop at JFK due to staffing

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202 points akersten | 7 comments | 31 Oct 25 01:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.794s | source | bottom
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ipython ◴[31 Oct 25 03:05 UTC] No.45767903[source]▶
My concern is that we will end up in a state of perpetual government "shutdown". The republicans, instead of reopening the entire government, will simply choose agencies to fund in order to keep the pain felt by the American people just low enough so they don't get fired (ala office space).

Once that happens, Congress has basically iced itself out. Oversight from unfriendly government agencies? No worries, they're shut down because they're unpaid. And clearly this demonstrates the executive needs more power, since Congress is completely frozen. Finally, the Supreme Court is no longer an issue either, since that's not funded either.

Someone tell me why this couldn't happen.

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1. colechristensen ◴[31 Oct 25 03:27 UTC] No.45768067[source]▶
>Someone tell me why this couldn't happen.

Beware the ides of march.

During a constitutional crisis that doesn't seem to have an immediate resolution political violence should be expected from the inside as an attempt to reach a resolution. The last line of defense is that military leadership actually do have a pretty solid loyalty to the constitution and soldiers are pretty well trained to follow the chain of command.

nobody can gain loyalty anywhere near trump nor does anyone have close to the unhinged charisma

but the government is shut down there should be no expectation that there will be any agreement to half fund it and absent that there's not really any foreseeable mechanism for the treasury to start operating on a large scale entirely outside of the law

so i guess the other last line of defense is the bond market and foreign exchange markets which wouldn't respond well to dictatorial control of the treasury and the fed

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2. thephyber ◴[31 Oct 25 03:45 UTC] No.45768195[source]▶
It’s hard to foresee how close to accurate your forecast is.

But we are in a de facto junta if the military refuses to take orders from a president, at least for the duration of the presidency. It’s pretty hard to run a free and fair election under those conditions (we dealt with that in The South in the early Reconstruction years).

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3. yks ◴[31 Oct 25 04:01 UTC] No.45768289[source]▶
> military leadership actually do have a pretty solid loyalty to the constitution

Even if so, the tricky part of course is the SCOTUS that declares anything that Trump wants "constitutional".

4. LexiMax ◴[31 Oct 25 05:08 UTC] No.45768620[source]▶
> The last line of defense is that military leadership actually do have a pretty solid loyalty to the constitution and soldiers are pretty well trained to follow the chain of command.

Trump has done a number of monumentally stupid things over the past 10 months, but publicly threatening his generals takes the cake.

Donald. Sweetie. Pumpkin. What were you thinking? These men are career military men who are not impressed or intimidated by you or your bone spurs.

5. 0xbadcafebee ◴[31 Oct 25 06:14 UTC] No.45768917[source]▶
> soldiers are pretty well trained to follow the chain of command

Actually, soldiers mostly follow the money. In Rome the the Praetorian Guard realized their power and started installing leaders. In developing nations with military coups, the soldiers back whoever will pay them. Yes, ideologically soldiers will follow a chain of command and conservative-anything; but practically speaking, they will follow whoever lets them rape and pillage and retire to a villa.

6. jgil ◴[31 Oct 25 06:56 UTC] No.45769085[source]▶
The First Reconstruction was a very different civ-mil scenario. The military protected freedmen from the various insurgent and paramilitary groups that sought to deprive freedmen of rights.
7. colechristensen ◴[31 Oct 25 14:14 UTC] No.45772217[source]▶
To be more clear than my vague references, 60 to 70 senators cornered Caesar and stabbed him to death to protect the republic. They killed him but didn't succeed in protecting the republic.

An extended shutdown, an actually refusing-to-function House of Representatives, and a president with not even the slightest respect for the Constitution... the comparisons to first century BCE Rome exaggerated or metaphorical.

Trump got someone to donate $130 million as an obvious symbol to try to buy military loyalty by paying salaries (nevermind it's about enough to cover a single nice lunch)