Who's doing anything about it? Nobody is marching on their representative's homes and offices. No letter-campaigns, we can't even be bothered to vote as a country without it turning into the apathy-olympics.
Yep that's what I'm talking about, having a "movement" behind you is the strongest form of political currency. The right has wanted someone like Trump for a VERY long time because he's wealthy and not with cash. And he's dumb enough to be led around.
Vance is largely a nobody. You can accurately deduce he's a pile of shit, but he's always going to be largely ineffectual on the political stage because his ass is broke.
We're still talking about different things. It's okay, we can agree that we don't want any of these people in power but I'm saying Vance doesn't have the political currency to have as strong of an impact as even Trump, nothing to do with "the will of the people."
I love how almost every societal complaint or struggle can be traced back to the idea that there are a small number of people trying to take the money from a large number of other people for as unfair of an exchange as physically possible.
BONMO~'s Kickstarter campaign turned out to be a scam, no refunds for existing investors, sowwy.
Anyway, now that the only alternative to BONTO! is dead, BONTO! merged with [weirdly popular social media company that you never paid attention to] and BONTO! is offering new subscription plans that give great deals if you pay for three years ahead of time for the low, low price of $450. Also, where will BONTO! be in 3 years? ¯_(ツ)/¯
While I do believe America is spiraling towards autocracy and dictatorship, it won't be Vance's face on the armbands. It will be someone but the way America falls into that hole will be a different path than Venezuela took, mostly because our government is so much larger and more complicated with far more international interests at play, requiring more long-term political capital to be spent to bend the system until it breaks.
Yes, I said he's worse. First line, first paragraph.
Do you understand political power though? It's a deep game but even at the highest levels, you can see that just being "bad" or "good" isn't enough to shape policy and leadership. A president has a job to do, and that job is almost entirely negotiating political favors between various groups and committees and lobbyists. To be able to do this, you have to have both a shrewd understanding of political law and precedent, AND you need political capital.
Donald Trump has very little understanding of political law and precedent, but he has MASSIVE political capital.
Vance has none. Just like Stephen Miller, someone who is also literally a sack of insects in human skin, someone like him even being as close to the president as he is, he has no political capital. He would never get elevated to an electoral position so he had to worm his way to an advisor status.
They could do some harm, but all their attempts at passing policy without political capital will get shot down in the other branches of government. There are a lot of examples of this in history, even recently with presidents who had waning capital like Biden. If you aren't actively gaming the game, you're getting left behind.
A few pundits have claimed that it's so they can both cancel a bill neither of them want to pass after all, but that's almost as delusional as the thing you described.
I wouldn't even hold announcements in stone, he has been flopping back and forth on massive, world-altering policy decisions for months. A spat with his rival narcissist isn't going to be more or less scatterbrained.
Most likely they're going to patch it up, roll-back their rhetoric and continue milking the federal piggy-bank for as long as they can, and their supporters won't give a shit because they're not supporting either of these clowns because they want sound fiscal leadership, these guys gained a following because they "hurt the right people" and that's all anyone cares about now.
I'm sorry to be the bucket of cold water, but we gotta remember we're not in a functional democracy anymore. This is more like some "last days of Rome" acts.
I seriously don't know anyone didn't see this coming or how anyone is remotely surprised. I'm just surprised it took this long, I thought they would keep it together for at least half the term to meet their own goals.
They hated each other from the beginning, they always were about to shred out the throat of the other one. Smarter people in roles of power are good at keeping their shit under their hat, but neither of these men are smart.
If we're dreaming of fantasies that will never happen, I also want nationwide ranked-choice voting, and maybe we can overturn Citizens United Vs Federal Elections and stop allowing corporations to literally run our country.
He is much worse, but he's also far less of a threat, as he doesn't have ANY public mandate, in the form of any kind of following or cultish fandom.
Trump's power is almost ENTIRELY a product of how he tapped into the country's stupid fucking redneck hogs and narcissists and delusional conspiracy nuts. JD has exactly ZERO flat-earthers driving around with his face painted on the side of their van. Having a following of millions of people, even if they are mentally-deficient to a degree that is literally breathtaking, is still power, a great deal of power too because he has them under such tight control.
Vance might be dangerous in short-term policy decisions, but he doesn't have electoral power, he doesn't have chips in the game, he won't make a dent in senate/house bill votes, he won't have influence on local and state elections. He's pre-neutered. The only ones who should be worried about Vance are the white-house sofas.
Money and fools.
(We're the fools, they get the money.)