Marcus Hutchins Apr 10

Just woke up to find out the president has revoked the security clearances of everyone at a cybersecurity company because Chris Krebs went to work there. Krebs was his director for the agency in charge of Cybersecurity & Election Security during his first term and refuted his claim the 2020 election was "stolen".

Revoking the clearance of every employee basically kills the company's ability to do government contracts, which is a major source of revenue for cybersecurity companies. The White House press release also restates the false claim that the 2020 election was "rigged and stolen".

The US is basically a fascist dictatorship at this point. One where the president goes after entire companies because a single person spoke out against his verifiably false claims. You'd have to be completely insane to travel here right now.

Show threadMagnus AhltorpApr 10

@malwaretech There are always many people complaining about the insane election system that elects the US president, but the real problem is that they have too much power. The insane elections wouldn’t be as much of a problem if they had limited power. Sane countries don’t combine prime minister, head of state, commander-in-chief and the personal power to issue executive orders into one person.

Edit with thanks to @Alex_H below: Legislative veto power is also on the list of powers.

Show threadMarcus Hutchins Apr 10
@ahltorp the US president has the least power of any world leader I’m aware of. Just the systems put in place to limit his power have just decided to let him do whatever he wants
Show threadAlexander HeidebrechtApr 10

@malwaretech @ahltorp
weeelll... there's what they have on paper, there's "soft power" (i.e. the ability to influence people through speeches etc), and there is coercive power (forcing people to do stuff, independent of written rules)

Trump is a very competent wielder of coercive power. He knows whose arms to twist. The constitution relies on people obeying it. It has no coercive power because it's just an agreement, and Trump doesn't agree.

Show threadAlexander HeidebrechtApr 10

@malwaretech @ahltorp
2/3
...also: Nope, the US was never not a very good democracy. It is (was?) a presidial republic.

In most European democracies, the head of state has a purely representative role (okus signing laws, wjich gives them an emergency brake role for terrible laws), the prime minister is in charge of the executive (plus initiating laws ...), the parliamentary president of legislation, and the military is run by generals who do what the parliament decides.

Show threadAlexander Heidebrecht

@malwaretech @ahltorp
3/3
...no perfect separation of power, either, because the prime minister also usually heads the biggest party in parliament, but *way* better than if the president, parliamentary president and prime minister were the same person, who could also order the military about without asking parliament first.

I've often read that the governmental institutions in the US were too strong to overpower but it seems it only takes patience and directed willpower... who'd have thought?

Apr 10 at 9:11amWeb
Show threadAlexander HeidebrechtApr 10

@malwaretech @ahltorp

...which is actually a *very* clear example of why all those "checks and balances" in democratic governments are extremely valuable and important. Everyone arguing we don't need them because our government was "good", has not understood why they exist.