r/centrist

Neutral summary: Just saw the results of the election. Massie was voted out for not kissing the ring. He is a principled dude and it cost him.

Personal commentary: I respect Massie just like I respect Fetterman for not being afraid to go against the status quo for what's right. I was keen on voting for Rubio in 2028 if he ran but as time goes on it's becoming quite apparent that the Republican party will not get a reset after Trump. It will just be more of the same. I'm going to start heavily considering the Democratic ticket after seeing these results as long as the left doesn't primary a horrible candidate like Newsom. Beshear, Shapiro, or Kelly are on my radar.

Do you think the right will reset after Trump?

I was always of the opinion that the state of Israel was a necessary presence in the Middle East, kind of a counterweight to theocracies like Iran. It was never rooted in any weird Christian prophetic belief or anything like that, so evangelical injunctions to “support Israel” for religious reasons were lost on me. Nevertheless I look at past Israeli leaders like Yitzhak Rabin as good examples of Israel providing a moderate, respectable, evenhanded influence in the region, exhibiting as they did the gifts of compromise and working together.

Yet I look and see what’s essentially a foreign agent (AIPAC) spending untold heaps of money to sway/influence US elections. Massie lost his primary tonight. I agreed with the man on very, very little, but he still stood as a needed example of a conservative American politician who actually had balls and didn’t just rubber-stamp everything Trump says or does, like the rest of his cadre of gutless yes-men and yes-women and drooling army of MAGA sycophants.

Basically, it appears to me that Israel couldn’t care less that America is falling apart, and visibly declining, as long as they can continue to ride the gravy train and eat our money.

I wish I could say Israel’s atrocities in Gaza were the turning point for me, but like most Americans, I was able to detach myself from any emotional investment in those horrific developments and simply look at a geopolitical “bigger picture.” My ability to do that is coming to an end.

In a move that is sure to be challenged in court, Trump and his sons have been granted immunity from being audited for tax fraud from this day forward as part of a “settlement” the Trump government initiated and resolved with itself.

The fund is create as reparations for the “victims” of anti Trump discrimination.

Quick recap: Trump, while President, sued his own IRS for 10 billion dollars for the "leak" of his tax return by a government contractor some years back. The DOJ made quite clear in their "settlement" with the President he is not entitled to any damages from this, however they made the truly strange decision to pay out other people not part of the litigation at any point 1.776 billion dollars to compensate them for "lawfare" and "government weaponization."

First note is that everyone reading this can probably think of a reason to file a claim. The links to reality were so weak with Trump's original case that pretty much anything goes if you yourself wanted to file a claim for a slice of this 1.776-billion-dollar pie. Of course, the Trump administration says that the fund can be "audited" but one has to ask, when they hand-select the five people running disbursements, what would actually be the motivation to say anything negative about those disbursements? I suspect any claim that looks like it was paid out to a person who is (at least rhetorically) an enemy of Biden-era policies will earn that group of 5 another gold star.

Next, we get to the actual concept at play here. Trump is pointing to some kind of "precedent" established under Obama for this. It is true (famously) that Obama employed the "sue and settle" method to affect certain environmental and other even more nebulous ends. However, this was not the going precedent. Trump himself along with every person who he has ever aligned with have spent a decade criticizing that conduct, and Republicans in Congress have said every possible negative thing there is to say about that conduct. That's not even to mention the criticisms of this conduct Obama received from those in his own party who were not comfortable with it. Not that this is a "consistency" attack on Trump. He is inconsistent as a baseline character trait. It is just interesting though to hear the actual plain-language attacks on the Obama conduct of the past make the full arc to now become the defense of the "present thing." I'm not sure I've ever seen any serious person try and do that.

In conclusion, I don't really know any American who has anything to lose by filing a claim and trying to get a slice of the pie they've sat up in the window here. The settlement's "stated aims" in theory open it up to claims for any (literally any) single thing, pair of things, group of things the government ever did under Biden which you could argue affected you in an adverse way. That would be emotionally, ideologically, politically, financially, etc. And the great news is, when they run out of funds from the obvious "run on the bank" they are about to have for any and every claim ever conceived of, they can start issuing "apologies" in place of a check.

Also, somehow, evidently Trump and his associates (still trying to get details on exact scope of this) are forever, for all of their remaining lives, indemnified from any type of IRS audit or investigation. This may not seem as strange to some of you as it does to me, so to make this clear, basically NO contract or settlement ever covers FUTURE unknowable conduct as immune. Past stuff, sure, but not ongoing, future coverage.

Summary:

Treasury yields continue to climb as investors became more concerned that inflation may stay elevated longer than markets previously expected. Traders have been watching recent inflation data, Fed commentary, and broader economic conditions, and many are starting to believe the Federal Reserve may not be able to cut interest rates as quickly or as aggressively as earlier forecasts suggested.

As those expectations shift, investors sold off Treasuries, which pushed yields higher on longer term bonds. The rise in yields reflects the market demanding more return to hold government debt because of the risk that inflation remains sticky and keeps eroding purchasing power.

Bond traders are increasingly focused on whether inflation pressures from areas like energy costs, tariffs, consumer spending, and broader economic activity could keep prices elevated. If inflation remains persistent, the Fed may be forced to keep rates higher for longer rather than moving toward cuts.

Why do higher treasury yields matter? Higher Treasury yields matter because they ripple through the entire economy. Mortgage rates, auto loans, business borrowing costs, and government financing become more expensive, while stock markets, particularly growth and tech companies, can come under pressure as investors shift toward higher-yielding fixed-income assets.

The las time we saw this was? It was 2007 as we entered a massive recession.

While there's plenty of criticism both for the administration's stated goals and their execution, as a subreddit devoted to centrists / centrist discussion, there is probably a campaign trail idea that you at least agreed with in theory that nonetheless the current administration mucked up. If that exists, what is that for you?

For me, there were a handful of ideas that could have been good, but I am actually more offended that they completely made it worse to the point that I don't even know if I want the theoretical idea if this is the best we're going to get.

1. DOGE. It was a doomed enterprise to start when Elon and a bunch of teenagers were sent to root around in our critical infrastructure, has cost us more than anything we could have cut... I don't need to belabor how incompetently DOGE was executed. "5 Things You Did Today" emails seemed like something a first year middling performer bachelor in Business student would come up with.

However, I enjoyed the premise of an independent investigating body whose sole mission was to consider administrative bloat and critically evaluate the need to maintain certain staffing requirements. The ideal "DOGE" would have taken a hard look at DOD and defense contracting writ-large. That is one of the single biggest sources of untracked expenditure and tbh, my time in the Fleet made me buy into the rationale that DOD is basically a big money dump for anyone looking to make a buck. No accountability for parts that don't work, no accountability for projects that don't deliver, basically a big "throw money at it system" that seriously needs some kind of audit.

2. Secure borders. I'm less concerned about immigrant families already in the US (the pathway needs to be easier) and more about a border that isn't totally locked down so that actual criminal/terrorist enterprise are able to use these innocents as cover to get into the country unabated. It poses a massive national security risk and law enforcement risk. Of course then you watch ICE conducting a slew of mishandled immigration enforcement operations (mainly in Democratic-majority cities, what do you know) and the civil liberties of actual citizens being actively dismissed and trodden over... so any good faith discussion about professional immigration enforcement goes out the window when you can just watch the news to see how this administration has utterly lost the plot.

Summary:

The Pentagon announced it is pausing its participation in a long standing U.S.-Canada military coordination board, citing concerns that Canada has not made enough progress on defense commitments. The move comes amid growing tensions between the Trump administration and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has been calling for closer cooperation among “middle powers” in response to growing influence from the U.S. and China. The dispute also overlaps with debates over NATO spending targets, Canadian military purchases like the F-35, and the future of North American defense cooperation.

My take:

Its self defeating. The claim made by Colby is also untrue. Canada has increased defense spending (as have all of NATO other than Spain) up to 2% or more.

Context:

You can read more about the board's history here.

Nato defense spending tracker by country.

Carney's speech at Davos WEF (the supposed reason for this change).

My first thought, this gets struck down by a court somehow.

But then I thought, if it is not struck down, it​ allows the next Dem president to use the same power to pay compensation to anti-ICE protesters.

Then I think bigger.

If a court authorizes​ ​Trump's action, it will establish the r-word power for any​ president.

That r-word is reparations.

Trump is asking for limitless, unregulated reparations payment power.

Oh, he wants reparations only for his supporters, but a Dem president can ​essentially use the power to ​pay any group that can argue it has been victimized by the government.

Black Americans, Native Americans, Latino Americans, Gay Americans, maybe the token White American (Hunter Biden).

Neutral summary: A New York judge has provided more clarity on what can, and can’t, be used against Luigi Mangione once the trial starts. Seems like a win lose for both sides, as the prosecution is able to use some things, such as certain statements and the gun, while also not being allowed to use other things. It will be interesting to see what happens when the trial starts.

Summary:

The Trump administration agreed to create a $1.76 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” through the Justice Department to settle claims from people who say they were improperly targeted by the federal government. In exchange, Trump dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns by a former contractor who was later convicted and sentenced to prison. The fund will be overseen by a commission largely appointed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, and critics are already raising questions about politics, conflicts of interest, and how claims will be evaluated.

My take:

This feels gross (Notwithstanding Trump paying a laughably low amount or no income taxes from 2000-2015). The president should not be leveraging personal lawsuits against federal agencies he directly controls in exchange for a massive DOJ administered fund tied to vague “weaponization” claims with obvious partisan undertones.

Submission statement - The Israeli government has put into effect a law requiring Palestinians convicted killing in order to "negate the existence of the State of Israel or the authority of the military commander in the area" be executed within 3 months without the opportunity of commute or appeal.

The law specifically only applies to Palestinians in occupied territories who are prosecuted only in military courts in which Palestinians have few legal rights; they may be detained indefinitely without charge and may have their right to legal counsel waived by the court.

Conviction rates are 99.75%.

I’ve been thinking about whether there is room for a temporary reform movement/party built around one narrow mission: fixing the rules of American politics before trying to resolve every ideological fight.

The idea would be called FLAG:

Forward
Libertarian
America First
Green

Obviously, these groups do not agree on everything. But I think they may be reacting to the same underlying crisis from different angles:

- Forward calls it broken institutions.
- Libertarians call it coercion and state overreach.
- America First calls it establishment/globalist betrayal.
- Greens call it corporate capture and ecological exploitation.

They are not exactly the same, but they all point to unaccountable centralized power as the underlying problem with our country today.

Government can become abusive. Corporations can become abusive. Parties can become abusive. Bureaucracies, banks, universities, platforms, lobbying networks, intelligence agencies, nonprofits, and foreign-policy interests can all become abusive when they are insulated from consent, competition, accountability, and consequence.

So the shared doctrine would be something like:

A free republic requires individual rights, clean commons, competitive markets, local self-government, and institutions accountable to the people.

The platform would have a hierarchy:

1. Political reform first
2. End gerrymandering, reform ballot access, allow ranked-choice/approval voting, open primaries, fair debate access, and make elections competitive again.
3. Anti-corruption second
4. Ban congressional stock trading, restrict revolving-door lobbying, expose dark money, publish government contracts, audit spending, and break the donor-lobbyist-bureaucrat pipeline.
5. Civil liberties third
6. Protect speech, privacy, due process, religious liberty, encryption, medical informed consent, warrant requirements, and limits on surveillance/censorship.
7. Local resilience fourth
8. Strengthen local food, water, energy, housing flexibility, small farms, local manufacturing, disaster readiness, community banking, and local media.
9. Anti-monopoly fifth
10. Support right to repair, anti-bailout rules, anti-trust enforcement, small-business competition, and action against corporate-state capture.
11. Constitutional peace sixth
12. No undeclared wars, restore Congress’s war powers, audit defense spending, prioritize veterans over contractors, and stop letting war become a business model.

The internal motto could be:

Principled where we agree. Federalist where we differ. Democratic where we must decide.

That means the movement would not need one national answer for every culture-war issue. It would focus first on fair elections, clean government, civil liberties, local self-government, and anti-capture reforms.

In other words: not “everyone merge ideologies.” More like a temporary reform tent.

The state should not own you. Corporations should not own you. Parties should not own your ballot. Bureaucracies should not own your choices. Monopolies should not own your economy. Polluters should not own your water. Platforms should not own your speech. Foreign wars should not own your children’s future.

The strongest objection, in my view, is that these factions may not simply disagree on policy; they may disagree on what counts as coercion. A Green may see pollution, monopolies, and poverty as coercive. A Libertarian may see taxation, mandates, and regulation as coercive. An America First voter may see open borders, foreign entanglements, and institutional capture as coercive. A Forward voter may see the electoral system itself as coercive because it denies meaningful choice. If FLAG cannot develop a shared way to resolve those conflicts, it becomes a slogan rather than a party.

The only way this works is if FLAG is honest about being a rules-first party: fix representation, corruption, civil liberties, decentralization, and institutional accountability first; then allow unresolved policy fights to be handled through federalism, local experimentation, and democratic competition.

Is there a real coalition here, or does this collapse the moment people have to govern?

What would be the strongest objection?