alt Hacker NewsEvery so often the Trump administration seems like they might actually care about getting my vote. A recent executive order making it easier to do research on psychedelic therapy is another example [0]. A policy shift to reform IRB review for social and behavioral science [1] would be really targeted at me.
I know politics is hard to talk about, but I generally think that we underappreciate the importance of being agentic in politics. Obviously I prefer that our government follow the law and uphold the constitution. But the many ways in which the current administration got things done by being quick, by "flooding the zone" [2], and by using tactics that apparently no one noticed before [3-4] are worthy of study and emulation.
I know the obvious response to this is to note that a lot of what they're doing is illegal, and again, I think that's bad. But they really make the current Democratic leadership seem out of touch and old [5] by comparison. Combined with policy positions that are far from the median voter's [6], it doesn't make for a winning look/platform.
[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/04/acce...
[1] https://www.cspicenter.com/p/its-time-to-review-the-institut...
[2] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/02/tr...
[3] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/10/27/russell-vought...
[4] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/03/16/the-unmaking-o...
[5] https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-democrat...
[6] https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-median-voter-is-a-50-someth...
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See also: not having to take your shoes off at airports, killing the penny.
While I agree that Dems have a long history of being dithering and feckless, and I like the cannabis and psychedelic changes, those wins just seem so incredibly small compared to the insane amount of corruption, incompetence, and maliciousness from this administration.
The spiteful killing of so much research funding alone dwarfs all of their minor wins. Wrecking clean energy projects are total self sabotage for the country. The utter lack of pollution enforcement will cause untold cases of cancer and other disease in Americans. Trump's family has stolen billions for themselves while destroying hundreds of billions of dollars in value with this idiotic Iran war they can't even articulate a plan or theory of victory for.
This is far from an exhaustive list. Trump is good at making minor high profile moves seem like a big deal, but it can really distract from the orders of magnitude worse decisions he's making elsewhere.
I agree as a political science grad. In hindsight, the only surprising thing about Trump's rise to power was that WE were surprised. Trump was doing the #1 thing politicians are supposed to do; tell the people what they want to hear. Our establishment is just so out-of-touch with reality and in love with the status quo that they can't change.