With all the purges etc now...aren't there going to be even more the next time democrats win the presidential election?

I mean there would have to be some kind of huge purge right?

8/8/2025 12:43:41 AM

we are merely touching upon the tip of the purge glacier.

8/8/2025 11:12:45 AM

I’m just hoping for a sane candidate who rolls back all of the stupid stuff, keeps anything worthwhile, and just generally tries to get the US back to 2020 America with a better economic structure.

8/8/2025 11:49:08 AM

^^geez, how many more ppl can they remove!?!?

8/8/2025 4:07:06 PM

^^covid america? bruh....

8/12/2025 8:19:07 PM

^^^you make it sound simple but "rolling back all the stupid stuff" will take massive political capital and likely require massive changes to our system. I don't know how you can do forward without removing scotus justices and putting lots of people in jail. There needs to be consequences to help avoid something like this happening again. Cannot repeat the bipartisan hand holding of a merrick garland, say.

8/12/2025 10:26:20 PM

A helpful start would be Congress actually playing their role as an independent legislative body.

8/12/2025 10:44:55 PM

Congress will also need major reforms, no clue what. Reducing the power of the senate and/or making both the house and senate more representative would be a start.

8/12/2025 10:47:50 PM

I was actually thinking about this today. There will be an immense amount of work to do to fix the things that have been and will be broken. I don't think it will be done in years. I think it will be decades.

I also think that there will need to be structural reforms to guard against a future President being able to do this sort of damage. What things specifically, I'm not sure.

...which leads to the main conclusion I came to--I don't know if you can really effectively, thoroughly guard against this other than by not electing people like this to begin with. It's ultimately primarily a problem with us, our society--not simply a problem with our politicians or governmental structures and regulations.

8/13/2025 12:44:27 AM

Eliminating a first-past-the-post system at all levels of government and including in primaries, and requiring that the eventual winner receive a true majority of votes cast (50% + 1 vote) would seemingly be helpful in tamping down the possibility for extreme outcomes.

8/13/2025 6:39:29 AM

^^ yep, it's a societal problem across the board. The masses across both political parties have lost critical thinking skills and fundamentally cannot evaluate information presented to them. It's a problem within the education system.

Electorally, the two-party, first-past-the-post system must be reformed. We also must criminalize gerrymandering at all levels of government.

I fear we are too far gone for any of this to matter now. We probably need a Germany, WW2-style ass kicking to force any form of change.

8/13/2025 9:43:38 AM

I'm afraid there no was to come back from this. I'm afraid things are just keep getting bad... and get really, really bad.

8/13/2025 9:57:02 AM

Well, I hope not.

8/13/2025 10:37:29 AM

Is anybody on the left working on a Project 2029? We got 3.5 years.

8/13/2025 6:22:26 PM

Privately too busy knitting new pussy hats

8/13/2025 7:08:57 PM

Somehow I don't think that's going to cut it.

8/13/2025 7:33:31 PM

Assuming a normal or semi-normal transition of power to a post-Trumpist government, I don't think the purges will be all that large, but they will have to be forceful and immediate.

The regime is purging lots of people, sometimes in a targeted fashion, sometimes not; sometimes replacing them with cronies, but often not replacing them at all. Quantitatively, there's going to be a lot more need to hire competent people than there is to fire incompetent ones. But qualitatively, whatever the number of hacks is, they all have to go. Ideally to prison or the lethal injection table, as appropriate, but at an absolute minimum out of government, and every effort should be made to make them unemployable at respectable institutions.

As for structural changes, there's plenty. Some of them might even be plausible.

Ending the senate filibuster is probably the sine qua non, since it effectively kneecaps the legislative branch while preventing any substantial reform. This is something the Democrats can and should do with even a simple majority, if they get one.

Giving statehood to Puerto Rico and DC would at least slightly dilute the power of individual senators and have the added benefit of giving meaningful votes to many Americans who currently don't have them. DC in particular makes things a bit more fair by reducing the rural advantage inherent in the senate.

The house could be massively expanded. I tend to favor the Wyoming rule - no district can have more people than the least populous state.

I'm not clear on how the gerrymander can be abolished at the Federal level. Maybe Congress could refuse to seat any representative from a district not drawn by an independent commission? The legal mechanics of this one are hazy to me, but it's an essential step towards creating competitive districts and tamping down on the incentive to move towards partisan extremes.

One idea I feel strongly about, though I may be the only person in the country, is making the budget process work on Papal conclave rules. At the start of every budget cycle, you have to make the budget. You are not allowed to do other things until you make the budget. You do not get to go on recess until you make the budget. If, after some period of time - let's say a month - you still don't have a budget, you don't get to leave Capitol Hill until you get it done. The Capitol Police deliver bread, water, and essential medications as needed.

Moving on to the court system, we need a shitload more judges at pretty much every level. There's a half dozen ideas for supreme court reform that are better than just "pack the court," although that would be acceptable if nothing else is possible. Increasing the number of justices and setting term limits are the keys here.

As for the executive, many of the powers ceded to it by congress need to be taken back. Here you may run into a chicken vs. egg situation, where other reforms aren't possible until this happens; part of the reason congress was so willing to hand over authority to the President was that it absolved them of having to make tough decisions. Force them to make them. The ideal President would, after railroading through the essential reforms, immediately call on Congress to greatly diminish his or her power.

8/16/2025 1:34:27 PM