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Comment by ProfessorLayton | Hacker News Reader

I care?? Much of my family works in trades, have their own small businesses with employees and are very much subject to tariffs for their supplies. They did not vote for any of this.

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If they voted for Republicans, they did in fact vote for this. It doesn’t need to be like this, congress and specifically the Republican majority which controls it can act to reclaim the power of tariffs from the president _at any time_.

All of this chaos is specifically because they have chosen to be complicit instead of opposing the president. If you want the madness to stop, call your representatives. Speak to your family and ask them to do the same.

Also note that they could also impeach Trump at any time. The sort of crimes that justify impeachment are pretty easily demonstrable at this point so all they need are the votes. They'll have just under half in the House and Senate from the Democrats, so they only need a handful of Rs in the House and (the hard part) a bit over 1/3rd of the Rs in the Senate.

So if they can find like 20 R senators who realize that they no longer support a Mad King, they're all set.

> congress and specifically the Republican majority which controls it can act to reclaim the power of tariffs from the president _at any time_.

After overriding a veto, which Trump has already stated he'll use, to block Congress taking back the power of tariffs:

https://bsky.app/profile/sahilkapur.bsky.social/post/3lmak2w...

If it passes under a Republican Congress and it's a simple bill (primarily revoking presidential emergency tariff authority), then it'll probably have enough bipartisan support in the Senate, but maybe not House, to be veto proof.

Democrats need about 4 GOP senators to get the bill passed.

Theyll need 19 or 20 to get the inevitable veto override. I guess we'll see how these events have shaken congress and if thars enough to take trumps toys away.

> They did not vote for any of this.

Me either. I'm afraid you'll have to ask the people who did elect the copper thieves for an explanation.

The US did vote for this.

Well, they voted for Trump but I'm not sure the random tariff generator was mentioned as part of the platform.

He definitely yelled the word tariff a lot and has a reputation for being an rng.

Trump has been spewing financially illiterate nonsense about tariffs for literally 40 years, and was very explicit that he wanted to do this in the election campaign.

I don't think Trump was known for being an exceptionally stable candidate.

I think GP meant, "Who in power cares"

I think the "who cares?" was rhetorical. I suspect the commenter you're responding to is in the same place that am - politically exhausted and, for the time being, apathetic.

We didn't vote for any of this to happen. We voted for the adult. But the reality is that this country held fair elections and the population democratically elected someone that is a somewhat ambiguous melange of amoral, stupid, craven, venal, and selfish.

Many of us knew shit like this was going to happen and that it's going to be a very long 4 years. We are getting exactly what we collectively asked for.

I'll poke my head out for the 2026 elections and see if there's anything worth saving...

I also presumed the elections were fair, but there is evidence that they weren't (beyond the usual tactics of disinformation and voter disenfranchisement). Analysis of voting patterns in swing states looks pretty suspicious, to the extent that a pretty simplistic algorithm could even be deduced[0].

[0] https://electiontruthalliance.org/clark-county%2C-nv

Sounds like the same cope with MAGA claiming 2020 election was stolen

That's thought-terminating. Remember that basically every MAGA accusation has been a confession.

That's funny, MAGA says the same about the "democracts"/"left"

I haven't heard that actually.

It might be time for you and your family to consider moving to a more stable country.

Maybe not all of them as individuals, but them as a public. It's not just a fluke of the last election, over the past two decades the u.s. has given control of all branches of government to Trump.

Beyond that, IMO, the public doesn't really care about tariffs. Right now there is a lot of noise because this kind of capricious threat/application of tariffs is something new, but the tariff chaos will become boring background noise in a few months and people will move on to the next thing.

(2^ that was sarcasm)

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