Steven Erickson-Charles
Janel ComeauI love US politics because they have a detailed plan for "what if most of the government is vaporized by aliens and the Secretary of Agriculture has to rule the country from an underground bunker" and no plan at all for "what if the guy running for Speaker is kind of a chud"
Obsolete@VeryBadLlama we also have a plan to replace Presidents if they become mentally unfit, but we don’t use it
Susan Potter@SNerd @VeryBadLlama yes, the Reagan administration was embarrassing as fuck.
Karen Strickholm@VeryBadLlama That is so. True! To paraphrase Churchill, "In The end, The Americans always do The right thing." Before that, it's everything but! I keep imagining what the rest of the world is thinking of our turbulent politics tonight. To paraphrase someone else, "The inmates have taken over the asylum."
Kathryn Ashby@KarenStrickholm @VeryBadLlama Canada here. We haven’t really been thinking good things about you since you elected the orange monster. This clown show is simply another example of that. I’m not speaking for the nation, but pretty much everyone I know feels this way and I know a LOT of people. My Aussie and UK friends too. So…
@Kat @KarenStrickholm @VeryBadLlama Here in the UK, after the past six months or so, we’re not commenting on how badly anyone else runs their legislature…
Amanda Lillywhite@MATruman @Kat @KarenStrickholm @VeryBadLlama also in the UK and came here to say that! It's great that for once the craziness is not in Westminster.
Claire
Peter Kisner ≈@Kat @KarenStrickholm @VeryBadLlama
I think by now everyone here in the U.S. who even vaguely cares about the opinion of people from other countries already knows this, and is duely ashamed and horrified at what our country has become.
And anyone who doesn't already know what other countries think of us has decided they wouldn't care anyway what others think, and probably thinks we haven't gone far enough down the path of dysfunction.
GAC 
@VeryBadLlama @Kat @KarenStrickholm @PTR_K US citizen here and yeah we are an embarrassment. Believe me, I’m from Colorado and would love to extradite Boebert back to Florida. Wish we had #jonathanpie here in the US.
Phil Thane ✅@KarenStrickholm @VeryBadLlama Over here on Brexit Island no-one is running anything. We have a prime minister and government ministers being paid a tonne of money to watch shit happen. #UK #government
Ryan The Red 🖥️🚲🍺🏳️🌈@VeryBadLlama All jokes aside, it's been a very real and increasing problem that we seem to have contingencies for disasters but effectively none for people clearly acting in bad faith with disastrous effect
Denny Kozlov (they/them)@redrummy @VeryBadLlama Sadly, recent US performance on handling disasters (especially those worsened by climate change) has also left something to be desired.
@dkozlov @VeryBadLlama Fair point, but how the last "president" even finished a term and/or isn't in jail now is just shameful, considering how much easier that _should_ be.
@redrummy @VeryBadLlama Yeah, it's toothless "gentlemen's agreements" all the way down, all our vaunted checks and balances disintegrating like so much wet Kleenex. 😪
Bob Thomson@dkozlov @redrummy @VeryBadLlama seems the way of western democracy that the higher up you ascend the greasy pole, the fewer the real world consequences of any wrong doing. Coming from the U.K., it’s refreshing here in France to see former Presidents sentenced in court for corruption.
Andy Lowry@redrummy @VeryBadLlama
Having the public elect their representation was supposed to take care of that, but it doesn't seem to have worked out very well.
Having the public elect their representation was supposed to take care of that, but it doesn't seem to have worked out very well.
MDK@redrummy @VeryBadLlama only imaginary disasters— if a hurricane devastates an area it’s like they have no clue what to do
Faye Loves Godzilla@VeryBadLlama ... Hey! this is rude! ... To the C.H.U.D.s.🤣
hammancheez@VeryBadLlama turns out a Jenga system of 'checks and balances' that were designed around a bunch of dudes used to archaic English codes of landed gentry behavior about what is 'good manners' might not work in practice
Florian Sever@VeryBadLlama ... you are too kind ...
@VeryBadLlama
Oh, there is a plan all right. You're seeing it right now.
Oh, there is a plan all right. You're seeing it right now.
Steady#286
Coty Rosenblath
TransitBiker
mhamiltonj@VeryBadLlama it is kind of amazing to me that they have no mechanism to trigger fresh elections even when important parts of the government are completely deadlocked. Like most parlimentary systems have some kind of ticking clock that will eventually result in new elections if important things like budgets don't get agreed. Or at the very least a way for the head of state to call elections as a last resort.
Donald Zeigler 🤷♂️
βɛth@VeryBadLlama Kind of? You're being far nicer to McCarthy than he deserves. 😂 😂
sparseMatrix ✅✅✅ 📻"what if the guy running for speaker is a chud"
Kind of grossly understated the case, dontcha think?
John Kellden@VeryBadLlama priorities! ;)
Jason A. Bock@VeryBadLlama
Yes, to my mind, the significant issue seems to be that the government is set up in a way that assumes those running it actually WANT the government to exist, when 40-50% really don't. 🤪🤪
@rasterweb
Yes, to my mind, the significant issue seems to be that the government is set up in a way that assumes those running it actually WANT the government to exist, when 40-50% really don't. 🤪🤪
@rasterweb
illcode@VeryBadLlama ...aaaaaaand followed lol
@VeryBadLlama oddly, i know several folks who could corroborate that.
Charles22a203@VeryBadLlama Honestly, that Reagan was apparently so deeply concerned about the possibility of alien invasion that he actually broached the subject with Gorbachev and had an informal assistance agreement is about the only thing I like about him
Soozcat@VeryBadLlama *sigh* Yeah, the Feds have a strong tendency to assume the calls are coming from outside the house.
Angie is drawing@VeryBadLlama it’s because they have soldiers sitting around writing essays and coming up with protocols for asinine topics when they have nothing else to do. Nothing that would ever threaten their owners’ power tho.
Aintaer@VeryBadLlama apologies; this is our equivalent of smacking the TV until it works again, fifteen times' the charm
En Buen Ora 🆗@VeryBadLlama also we were not able to answer 'what if the guy in charge of all the security forces make sure they don't do anything when his allies get ready to try and seize power by force'
Mick Muffin@VeryBadLlama kind of?
Janice Selbie@VeryBadLlama I saw the movie C.H.U.D. in the ‘80s. It stands for “cannibalistic humanoid underground dweller.”
toxtethogrady@VeryBadLlama The reason for that is that alien vaporization is a non-nil possibility and there is always a majority that has stood up and said, "The Speaker is a chud, but he's my kind of chud" (and if not, the chud will be removed from power and replaced by a different chud)...
Carly Sagan@VeryBadLlama lol! It’s not “vaporized by aliens” tho - it’s vaporized by extreme space weather and indeed there is actually no plan there either. The plan is that hopefully the country reads ready.gov before it happens.
JohnW@VeryBadLlama I can go to bed with a chuckle after reading this. Thanks! Always a nice way to end the day.
VladTheImplier@VeryBadLlama also apparently no plan for “what if a bunch of nutters with sticks try to climb the capitol and take it over.”
GREENHORSE@VeryBadLlama "kind of"?
KriPfeifer@VeryBadLlama Somebody needs to do movies about such things, maybe then there will be a concept.