The supreme court upheld the existence of the constitution (barely)

[Dark Jaguar]

One vote.  We kept the supremacy of the constitution over the three individual branches by the skin of our teeth.

One... vote...

Don't consider this a victory.  That it was so close is a sign that the old status quo really is dead.  The three branches realize they can just IGNORE the written laws as it suits them, so long as they all work together to ignore them.

[Geno]

More and more, it seems our laws are as thin as the parchment on which they are written. They mean nothing if our courts don't enforce them.

I keep hoping for Nuremburg Trials 2.0. Someday, maybe...

[Dark Jaguar]

The more I find out about Nuremberg, the more I realize they were more of a show than anything.  Obviously, those in charge of the nazi party needed to pay for their crimes, but the problem was defining what a "crime" in war even amounts to.  The fact remains that numerous governments around the world have committed similar offenses, though the magnitude fell far shorter... and also the U.S. prosecution "allowed" far too much to slide from those being charged, all in the name of giving the impression of civility.

So, we haven't had a single Nuremberg trial since then.  Why is this?  More and more, the answer I keep coming back to is... Germany lost utterly and completely, and those on trial were captured alive.  Without those conditions, no such trial can take place.  I'm not sure we'll ever see such a unique moment in history ever again.  Not only do those in power currently not want much attention drawn to their OWN violations of human rights, but simply put, that kind of utter domination and capture simply is far harder to actually accomplish while leaving those in power still alive in the first place.  Yes, there's an arrest warrant out for Benjamin Netanyahu, but he's never going to bother leaving the country to any place that would actually enforce that warrant.

Likewise, Trump will never be in a position to actually get arrested, much less sent out of the country.

But, ultimately does it matter?  What the nazis did can't be undone.  It's impossible to give a fair and impartial trial, when the victors were the ones holding it.  The courts of Germany wouldn't have found him guilty, since the nazis controlled it.  A court of public opinion is hard to say, depending on just what public opinion was of Hitler at that exact time, and if they may or may not have been afraid to cast a vote considering the allies were in control of Germany at the time.  The allies likewise would have been foolish to allow for even the possibility that those being tried were let off.  What a clown show that would have been!

In all, frankly had they just decided to summarily execute them all without bothering with a trial...  I can't see that it would have functionally been any different.  I suppose... ultimately the show was important.  They did the very best they could considering the circumstances.  There was no way to do it fairly, but there was at least a way to show an attempt was made to at least demonstrate what fairness looked like.  But, we're left with this idea that this is ultimately where all tyrants end up... too bad it only happened once, and it's clear that's not at all where all or even most of them end up.  It was a one time show, and frankly tyrants in general end up dead at the hands of those who overthrew them.

[Geno]

Honestly, I don't anticipate accountability for Trump, either. Our legal system had its chance in 2024 (really, for the entirety of the Biden Administration), and they blew it. A civil jury unanimously found him guilty on 34 felony counts, and his sentence was... absolutely nothing. Instead, he got to be the president again. And that wasn't even his worst offense (paying hush money to a porn star and writing it off on his taxes as a business expense while running for president).

In the end, the downfall of Trump will be nothing more than nature taking its course. He'll likely finish his current term, unlike Nixon (and much like Reagan). And then, he'll probably just go home to live out the rest of his natural life (as both Nixon and Reagan did). I imagine the end of the Trump Administration will be completely unceremonious. I wish I felt optimistic that life after Trump might be better than right now (I don't think I'm completely naive in saying that life was better before Trump, imperfect and flawed though it was). Maybe there will be a period of relative calm at some point in our national anxiety. Or maybe collective amnesia will have a number of Americans thinking Trump wasn't so bad; presidents are almost always viewed more fondly in hindsight than they are while in office, but it remains to be seen whether or not that holds true for Trump as he is... atypical, as far as presidents go.

[Dark Jaguar]

You're not naive at all.  Sometimes, the nostalgia is objectively correct and not rose tinted.  While the 80's weren't this utopia we remember, the year 2015 was objectively better than every year since then.  In some ways, we don't even know what was it will be worse.  You know the latest lettuce infection?  It's so hard to trace because Wilbur Cobb, or whoever that decaying Ren & Stimpy character Trump put in charge of... of MEDICINE is, requested that Trump & co add in a provision to defund and gut the entire department that actually tracks illnesses and examines our food.

[Geno]

I also can't help but view 2015 as idyllic, at least in comparison to what came thereafter. I watched the SCOTUS legalize same-sex marriage across the country, and for a moment I believed that social progress was possible. And it still is. But progress often comes with pushback (it did even back then, but Kim Davis could only do so much without any real political power).

Nostalgia can be dangerous (80s pop culture certainly has its appeals, but the AIDS epidemic was a very real problem), but if we don't look at the positive moments from the past and think "it could happen again," we might feel demotivated and not try to fight for positive change anymore. It's good to be thorough in our recollection of history, recalling both the positive and the negative. You take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both, and there you have... the facts of life.

And hey, what problems did cynicism ever solve, right?

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, I'd say "it could happen again" is absolutely a lesson that we need to remember for both the good and the bad.  Not only that, "expect the unexpected", as Plucky Duck's gigantic head let us know.

[alien space marine]

Yeah, I'd say "it could happen again" is absolutely a lesson that we need to remember for both the good and the bad.  Not only that, "expect the unexpected", as Plucky Duck's gigantic head let us know.

Ive been wondering for over year how you guys were dealing with this insanity, this is worse than 2001.

these Internet forums are a breath of fresh air, their not crawling with troll farm chatbots programmed to provoke and antagonize.

[Geno]

It's kind of nice, actually. Forums like this remind me of what the internet used to look like before social media became the default online experience. Or as a somewhat recent Homestar Runner short put it, "when the whole internet wasn't just on four websites on people's phones."

[Dark Jaguar]

The consolidation of the internet is something a lot of people are becoming aware of.  I'd recommend Bluesky, but they keep delaying their promise to release the SDK already so people can actually make federated instances of it.  Until that happens, Bluesky is just another Twitter.  X...  Twix!

So, there's Mastadon.  Completely decentralized, though the onboarding is a bit obtuse.  That's what's prevented adoption, ease of use and fully explaining just what "federation" means to a lay userbase.

Forums are great as they are, but I do worry what all these new privacy laws are going to do to that.  Speaking of, Discord is seeing a slow decline.  Nothing that threatens them as a platform, but their compliance with these laws has meant a lot of people have left for self hosted options.  I'm even seeing people spinning up self hosted AIM servers.  Remember AIM?  We all used to chat on that quite a bit!  IRC would be nice for chat, but ICQ got bought by the Chinese and is highly suspected of basically being malware at this point.

But, so far at least, we're too small to notice, yet.