It’s funny to see these tech moguls bend the knee for the new king. All their values, their so called care for the community, everything they say, everything, … is just all a big play in an effort to make as much money as they can. It sickens me to watch this stuff unfold.
It’s not just a new king, it was the fact that the other party won the popular vote resoundingly after all these years meant that the 2016 elections weren’t just a fluke.
Repubs have all 3 branches for at least a few years now, and there will be enormous changes in tax policy in legislation that will be passed this year, due to many popular provisions of the 2017 TCJA expiring at the end of 2025. And Dems will basically be left out of the conversation as their votes are not needed.
Filibuster is for legislation that needs 60 Senate votes, tax changes only need 50.
There are also quite a few Democrats in swing districts who I bet will vote for tax cuts. They are basically only in office instead of their Republican opponents because their opponent opposed women’s rights.
That's not quite right. Nothing (or almost nothing?) needs 60 Senate votes to pass. The difference is that they've agreed not to filibuster tax laws, and you need 60 votes to break a filibuster.
So you're right on the practical effect, but the details are slightly off.
They won on the backs of decades of efforts to prove that the culture wars were unhealthy for America. That worrying about climate change was a hoax. That evolution itself is controversial. That universities and authority figures are not to be trusted. That somehow, Fox News, the biggest media corp in America, is not the main stream media.
They got here, by destroying our ability to fight disinformation. They beat climate science in the 90s, by giving air time to cranks, and then senators used those specious arguments to stall climate bills. When scientists came onto Fox to try and reach the audience, they were thrown to the lions for the entertain of the audience. Derided and mocked with gotchas and rhetorical arguments designed to win the perception game.
This is a continuation of that game. Because it works. The idea that free speech is at risk because of moderation is amazing, because it is being revived after being tested by everyone online. We started the internet without moderation, we believed that the best ideas win.
We have moderation everywhere now, because we know that this fact is empirically untrue. The most viral ideas propagate. The ones most fit to survive their medium - humans.
I agree that they won, because they played the game to win. But we should not miss how they worked hard, to set up the conditions for this type of a win.
Of the total national popular vote, Trump won by about 1%. That's not "resoundingly". That's a very thin margin. (I mean, it's better than he got in 2016 and 2020. But it's not resounding.)
It’s resounding because the expectations were that the nation’s voters were trending away from Republican politicians (or at least the popular vote), and the country was just waiting for old voters to die.
But that was shown to be completely wrong, even after women lost rights in quite a few states. The message was clear that Republicans are here to stay, and businesses better learn how to do business with them, or else face the consequences.
Popular vote doesn't win President, electoral college does, and that was 312 to 226, not barely, and Dems didn't win a single one of the 7 states that were supposedly in play (GA/NC/PA/MI/WI/NV/AZ).
In the legislature, it is almost impossible for Dems to regain control before 2028, as the majority of states electing senators in 2026 are very unlikely to elect a Dem. And I am not optimistic on Dems' chances in the 2026 House:
As far as I can tell, Repubs have the executive for at least 4 years, the judiciary for who knows how long, the Senate for at least 4 years, and the House for at least 2, if not 4 years.
Knowing this, it makes sense why businesses would want to cozy up to Republicans.
