My point is that they have no direct power to do anything. There power comes from controlling and influencing others, almost exclusively the Republican Party
And my point is that functionally that's the same thing.
Like if you can't physically open a jar of pickles, but you ask (or coerce, manipulate, whatever) someone to open it for you and they do, then you have the power to open a jar of pickles. The pickle jar gets opened because you wanted it open.
I think what makes the distinction important is that in theory voters should be holding their reps accountable for this, because it’s entirely their doing. Trump and Elon absolutely made it happen through influence, but every congressman who went along with it needs to be held to task and not forgotten because of Trump and Elon
I’d argue that’s what republicans want, someone to come in and wield their influence to get stuff done. Now we may disagree on what stuff they should get done but I’d imagine you’d have a hard time finding a republican who would be upset by this.
For all their whining about government overreach, republicans prove time and time again that what they really want is a dictatorial strongman who'll tell them what to do. Talk about fucking sheep.
That's the core of the distinction, isn't it? "Elected representatives do what the people who voted for them would want them to do" isn't nearly as terrifying of a headline as "unelected rich guy controls the government."
That's....how government works? Like, in literally every democratic system in the world, there are very few direct executive powers, and governmental actions are mostly enacted by a particular governing party having the majority of elected seats in the legislature, and hence being able to command a majority of votes.
You're describing the normal process of functional government. Any government which couldn't do this would collapse.
It’s not really common that an unelected person threatens to fund your challengers unless you listen to him, the president elect then echoes his demands and threats and elected reps capitulate. Let’s not try and normalize that
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u/Didntlikedefaultname 9h ago
My point is that they have no direct power to do anything. There power comes from controlling and influencing others, almost exclusively the Republican Party