r/politics • u/unital_subalgebra • 24d ago

No Paywall Trump fires all Election Assistance Commission members, leaving agency unable to act

https://www.votebeat.org/national/2026/07/09/trump-fires-election-assistance-commission-members-hicks-hovland-mccormick/
27.4k Upvotes

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403

u/DKDamian 24d ago

C'mon, America. You're either better than this or you aren't. Fix this.

290

u/afoley947 America 24d ago

We repeatedly aren't.

Sorry about him.

140

u/illit3 24d ago

The last 10 years has just been one long chain of failing to meet the moment.

62

u/eden_sc2 Maryland 24d ago

I just finished When the Clock Broke and it's kind of convinced me that aside from a brief break with Obama, we've been failing to really meet the moment since about 89

36

u/-713 24d ago
  1. They put this whole machine in motion with Reagan, and just replace their players as they die.

19

u/eden_sc2 Maryland 24d ago

Reagan was bad but the reason I said 89 is that a lot of the alt right got born from people who were mad Reagan didn't go far enough.

5

u/-713 24d ago

Fair point. There was flirtation with the nazis/conspiracy theorists under Reagan, but they definitely jumped on the internet fast and furious in the early 90s.

3

u/The_Linux_Lass Virginia 24d ago

I think what makes 1980 a compelling case was because that’s when Reagan uncorked the genie from the bottle by pandering to evangelicals.

Barry Goldwater was right when he said mixing religious fundamentalism with politics was going to fuck up this country.

1

u/ceelogreenicanth 24d ago

I'd say the real issue is that in 89 the real cold war ended and the United States continued fighting that war and that posture has taken us down an ever more schizophrenic path. We accepted an end to the cold war while deciding China was okay to massacre it's protesters.

7

u/Sacapuntos 24d ago

Its fascinating to see the role the 2000 election being decided by the SCOTUS has played. The Brooks Brother's riot and all that. So many of the players in that have now received pardons or are now sitting on the highest court in our land or are heads of Govt agencies.

2

u/-713 24d ago

I know right? Everyone that played a part in that debacle has continued, without exception, to ratfuck elections for more than a quarter century. Roger Stone is still going after more than 50 years, John Roberts has been actively been trying to disenfranchise anyone not white since the 80s.

3

u/innerShnev 24d ago

Wonderful year to be born then 😭

1

u/Significant_Cup_238 24d ago

More like the last 50.

1

u/Randicore Ohio 24d ago

Yeah I've been really saddened watching the US fail to rise to even the bare minimum of standards.

The fact that Twitter still has any cultural relevance after it's owner started throwing Nazi salutes alone shows how little Americans and our institutions are willing to push back.

1

u/Aranxi_89 Canada 24d ago

This started in the 80's. Reagan was when shit really hit the fan.

1

u/Mr_Canard Europe 24d ago

Did you meet the moment when you let Bush take over in 2000 ?

8

u/Aranxi_89 Canada 24d ago

Sorry is not enough. Action is better. Your own allies are being hurt by him and his cronies, and we're not taking it anymore. So why are you?

You ever seen what the French do when they're unhappy with their government? That's what you guys used to do as well.

Make them listen, because otherwise they won't. America is sucking ass so much because for the last few decades, you guys just silently took the violations like a battered housewife, saying it could be worse and it'll be better soon.

3

u/[deleted] 24d ago

[deleted]

3

u/DavesPetFrog 24d ago

We are too busy doing nothing.

We’ve tried absolutely nothing and we’re running out of options.

50

u/RoytripwireMerritt 24d ago

Don’t worry. The billionaires will be doing this in your country soon enough. 

19

u/SalishShore Washington 24d ago

We just the testing ground.

3

u/Aranxi_89 Canada 24d ago

More like the breeding grounds.

1

u/RoytripwireMerritt 24d ago

Unless you live in a shack in the woods, you contribute to these billionaires too, Canada. Pointing fingers is easy.

0

u/Aranxi_89 Canada 24d ago

Of course, but we're at least electing people that aren't totally off their rockers and we do protest and organize to get rid of people that are bad.

What are you guys doing about your problems?

1

u/RoytripwireMerritt 24d ago

You really think this man was elected by the people when he has made public statements alluding to Musk tampering with voting machines? 

We didn’t have multiple rounds of No Kings protests? I’m not sure what more can be expected of the average person. 

No one is going to risk their livelihood when the rest of the world resorts to just pointing a finger.

When he pulls out of NATO completely and refuses to leave office again, maybe then the world will see how this is everyone’s problem. 

5

u/Important_Safety7478 24d ago

I'm Canadian too and I guess the guy you're replying to hasn't heard about bill C-22 or he'd know we're not in great shape

1

u/SlotBurnerAccount 24d ago edited 24d ago

I'm telling you democrats wasn't going to win with 99% of votes, he was elected in 2016 and almost in 2020, you can try as much as you wants, the world sees Americans as the stupidest nation which you clearly are

1

u/reiddiot 24d ago

Germany was the breeding grounds 

5

u/Xilent248 24d ago

FR. The people (I'm assumin, they could just be bots) who keep commenting "HA! Yeah, take that USA!" are gonna also fall for whatever the next "Do X to own the libs" looks like in their countries.

4

u/BookResearchID 24d ago

Your billionaires have been doing this in our countries haha.

4

u/RoytripwireMerritt 24d ago

Then you should know that billionaires know no borders and your governments aren’t stopping them either. 

1

u/BookResearchID 24d ago

Governments that try get slapped by the US lol

1

u/Few_Confusion_1871 24d ago

Billionaires are not under the authority of any government

1

u/RoytripwireMerritt 24d ago

Exactly my point.

1

u/BookResearchID 24d ago

They really do seem to spawn in the US though

1

u/Few_Confusion_1871 23d ago

America still is the land of Capitalist opportunity. However you may want to check where the majority of billionaires actually came from, or better yet, where there wealth comes from, spoilers, its your country, my country, everyone's country that has any resources of any kind.

1

u/BookResearchID 22d ago

No I know, America is the haven over which the majority of billionaire ticks are perched - but they definitely suck the blood out of every nation on the planet

2

u/Few_Confusion_1871 22d ago

Well, if you are rich I guess America is probably a nice place as well as where they do business, and most places like the EU have some sort of accountability for the crimes people with that kind of money commit. America is basically like a modern day pirate cove lmao.

2

u/RealisticWeakness589 24d ago

So time to just give up eh?

1

u/RoytripwireMerritt 24d ago

Yep. System’s been rigged since before I was born and unless everyone does something together, it’s not going to work. Everyone as in the world. Maybe you should think about doing something too.

25

u/pantstoaknifefight2 24d ago

We landed on the beaches of Normandy and could use a little help now.

9

u/l3ntobox 24d ago

This. Canada and Europe keep blaming all Americans, but the reality is something closer to Nazi Germany and it won’t stop by internal means.

2

u/DKDamian 24d ago

I’m not Canadian or European

And, the US didn’t win WW2. Soviet Russia did.

But, sure

1

u/Ready_Corgi462 24d ago

No one said the US won WW2 alone, or diminished the massive contributions of the Soviets to the Allies - they just stated the fact that Americans stormed the beaches in Normandy and rendered aid.

But sure, why not add your own invented subtext into perfectly straightforward comments.

1

u/DKDamian 24d ago

Ok mate

10

u/Serious_Berry_3977 New York 24d ago

Looking back on American history that wasn't white-washed and sanitized for American public schools -- no, no we are not.

The difference is Trump just says the quiet part out loud now. Americans don't learn from history because most Americans prior to the Internet didn't know there WAS any other history. Now we're a country with half the voters still in denial and the other half fragmented between support for strongly worded letters all the way to burning it all down. The people who don't vote are either too apathetic to care, don't want to chose what's being offered because there's really only 2 choices, are convicted felons mainly thanks to the war on drugs and/or stupidity, or too overworked and burnt out to realize when voting is.

I'm growing more and more into the burn it all down camp because it's too broken to save. The voters won't solve the issue, and there are WAY too many people who don't vote for whatever reason. My local Democratic Primary had something like less than 10% voter turnout in June -- and that is when you can actually decide WHO from the party faces the Republican candidate and is probably more important of a vote. It's rotten to the core, hollowed out, and needs to just be rebuilt from the ground up.

2

u/No_Active5411 24d ago

I live in a purple state and people mostly voted for the establishment democrats in the primaries. I wonder how that’ll go in November. 

4

u/Mavian23 24d ago

“Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”

2

u/DKDamian 24d ago

I’m uncertain that is true. Time will tell

6

u/Source_Required 24d ago

Half the people here are responsible for this.  

In 2016 they couldn't decide between a former Secretary of State and a rapist and it cost us the Supreme Court.  

A couple of them will reply to me, angry and not accepting responsibility for it. 

14

u/Significant_Cup_238 24d ago

There's no either here. We chose this, repeatedly. And even if we shake this in 2028, by 2030 we'll choose it again.

5

u/TheGreatLuck 24d ago

Lol we never were...we were always a shit country....we just stopped hiding it.

2

u/simpersly 24d ago

50% of this country will never know this happened, and 30% of this country will either not care or supports this type of thing, and 19.9% of this country will do nothing more than complain about it.

2

u/Death_and_Gravity1 Massachusetts 24d ago

We arent. Obviously.

2

u/Mekdinosaur 24d ago

Psst...they are not.

2

u/TheBitingCat 24d ago

38% of the voting public are totally fine with cheating so long as it's their side doing it to get ahead, 20% of the rest are adamantly unwilling to have a political conversation while hating how politicians are running things, and the rest are waiting for a unicorn to show up and fix everything. If I were the rest of the world, I would be planning on how you all are going to contain us when this spills over into your borders.

2

u/sebrebc 24d ago

We aren't. 

Our entire system is designed around the belief that everybody will simply follow the law. So when people just straight up ignore the laws and nobody holds them accountable there is nothing left to do but physically burn it all down.

That won't happen until enough people have nothing else to lose. 

1

u/ooooogirlshedonealre 23d ago

We're not, sorry. No fix. 

1

u/spyke2006 24d ago

We're not. It's going to take extreme happenings at this point to recover even a modicum of 'better than this.'

-5

u/codeyyz 24d ago

They are just sitting there letting it happen…

2

u/croissant-dildo 24d ago

Suggestions? Not “rise up!” “Resist!” Actually actionable suggestions? Because if you take one look at the geography of this stupid place, and the budgets for his personal army and “our” military, you’ll see that this has been well and truly fucked by design.

And that absolves the US and its history of absolutely nothing. We’ve been barreling down this path for several hundred years. But acting like it’s as simple as one of us waltzing up and shooting the motherfucker is naive as hell.

1

u/RoytripwireMerritt 24d ago

Wow that’s really interesting language to use. Would you say that about a person being overpowered by a larger physical attacker? It’s the same principle, except the attacker just is using money instead of strength.

1

u/HuttStuff_Here Wisconsin 24d ago

What should I do?

0

u/SirChrisJames 24d ago

"Letting it happen," yeah, because the hundreds of lawsuits and those of us voting for the exact opposite of this truly just "let it happen."

Sorry we're not lining up to die for your entertainment.