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A normie made a video about the Trump administration declaring the necessary quantity of pennies minted to be zero. (proxy frontend for youtube)
Not just any normie; Hank Green, OG vlogger, educational youtuber, serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, and novelist, with 4 million subscribers to the channel he shares with his brother (where this video was posted) and 2.8 million subscribers to his "personal" channel, plus however many followers on however many other platforms. He's been fairly transparent about his politics, in the past, but only in generic "good mainstream liberal" ways, so far as I know; I don't know of him showing deep curiosity about the "nuts and bolts" functioning of government, before 2025. Him making a video contrasting Obama saying he couldn't discontinue penny production, without Congress, and the Trump administration doing it through executive policy processes, titled "The End of The Penny (and of Congress??)" suggests the topic has legs with smart people and this particular smart person has a big, very engaged audience (the Green brothers run an annual philanthropy event based on viewer participation).
Is this good or bad? Green raises the point towards the end of his video that Congress refusing to legislate can legitimize strongman-style claims about the Presidency. As these issues get increasing recognition among progressively less engaged voters, will those voters want to restore the role of Congress or will they accept claims from Presidential candidates that "Only I can fix it?"
Trump is just literally ruling by decree, that's what he's doing. This specific issue is small potatoes but there's a million other examples, and it adds up.
Historically, the common people have reacted to government dysfunction by backing strongmen, regardless of their constitutional authority. Other than Sulla, the men who broke the Roman republic were incredibly popular among the common people; the Greeks wrote extensively about the political cycle of partisan polarization breaking democratic functioning until the government morphed into a tyranny, but not much about the attitude of the demos. I predict that JD Vance or John Fetterman will continue this trend, and be loved by the people for it- even as they're hated by the elites.
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