I think Jamelle Bouie is one of the most reasonable commenters on our current predicament. Here he is (TikTok video) on the American system:
I have nothing but contempt for the assumption that the game is over now […] If you were black in Mississippi in 1955, the entire system was against you. Your mayor was against you, your city council was against you, your state representative was against you, your state senator was against you, your House representative was against you, your Senator was against you, your Governor was against you. Every single level of the institutions of the state in which you lived were against you. And somehow they figured out how to do political opposition. No one in the United States is living in a situation analogous to a black person in Mississippi in 1955 where there was a goddam secret police harassing opponents of the regime. So if they can figure it out, so can we.
There’s also “are you gonna bark all day little doggie or are you going to bite” aspect of some of the pronouncements from people like Elon Musk, who’s shitposting and shittalking as much as possible, even though his stupid DOGE appointment gives him the same massive power as Bowles/Simpson or any other pointless blue-ribbon commission.
Even things Trump is purported to want on day 1, such as his apparent desire to throw transgender people out of the military, may well happen, but they aren’t a foregone conclusion. Institutional inertia is a hell of a drug. Just look at this page detailing the massive bureaucratic effort to behind the DoD’s current transgender policy, which has been in place since 2016. And, as far as I can tell, Trump has never explicitly said that he wanted to throw out members of the military who are transgender. The reporting I’ve seen on the topic comes from one rumor-filled piece by the Times of London. There’s also some pushback from his inner circle.
To be clear, I’m not saying, “he would never do that,” just “there’s still an opposition, it’s us, and we will be able to fight this.” Institutional inertia works both ways. We’re the opposition party now, and we can oppose.
Baud
Nihilism = obeying in advance
Misterpuff
“The path from intent to execution if full of friction” – Agreed.
Sand in the gears, the remaining institutions, the deep state and public opinion… we can be the sand in the gears.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
I get that, but voters just elected a corrupt liar who tried to overthrow the government. The entire political media world is kowtowing to him.
Which of the remaining barriers to fascism are we supposed to have faith in?
...now I try to be amused
Just another reminder that Black people are the most politically pragmatic people in America and we’d fucking well better listen to them.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
Balloon Juice.
Mart
DOD should hire conservative Caitlyn Marie Jenner to enlist the transgender folks to help fill the recruitment shortage.
KatKapCC
I don’t wholly disagree, but I’m also not gonna tell trans people in the military to stop worrying and that they’re being silly dodos who don’t realize we don’t live in Hungary. They know where they live — a country that, despite what liberals want to believe, is getting more virulently and violently transphobic on the daily. A country where bigots have somewhat realized that attacking gay people doesn’t work as well anymore and so now trans people have become target #1 in that regard, and where a lot of normie centrist voters who have no problem with same-sex marriage will turn around and wring their hands over girls’ sports and public bathrooms.
Just because the country isn’t Hungary doesn’t mean the country is San Francisco.
scav
@Melancholy Jaques: If there are things those three entities you brought up, the Felon in Chief, his voting base and his media crave almost more than power, it’s applause, attention and acceptance as moral and factual arbitrators. We can certainly deny them those. And it will drive them nuts. We still got the cultural and social fields of play for resistance even if the political / legal one might be bumpy for a while.
Steve LaBonne
@Misterpuff: Not one Democratic vote for any attempt to alleviate the pain inflicted on Trump constituencies by their idiotic policies, eg. handouts to farmers to prevent trade wars from bankrupting them.
Kay
@Melancholy Jaques:
Democratic electeds aren’t even opposing any of it. I’m supposed to? Who is leading the opposition?
Scout211
☹️
New Deal democrat
And here is the first reply to Jamelle’s post:
And Jamelle’s analogy to 1955 isn’t the best fit. I believe it was historian Jack Rakove who wrote that this election was most analogous to 1876, a disruption that took nearly a century to overcome. My contempt is for the opinion that this election was civic business as usual.
Kay
@Steve LaBonne:
I agree but it’ll never happen. The Mommy Party will rush in to cushion the blow.
Suzanne
@Scout211: Ughhhhhhh.
I will admit that I have been one of the doomers on this topic, who always thought that some shenanigans of some sort would ensure that he would never see justice. It is depressing as fuck to be right about that, though.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
The whole process of looking for analogies is nuts to begin with. People aren’t being thoughtful. They looking to justify whatever they feel in their gut.
I don’t care if people want to not fight. I’m limiting my own actions. People who want to discourage fighters are MAGA allies, however.
Omnes Omnibus
@Melancholy Jaques: Yourself.
Soprano2
@Kay: I’m afraid you’re right. Much of the worst stuff he tried to do in the first term got tied up in the courts, so most people have no idea he even tried to do it. People didn’t believe Project 2025 was something they’d really try to do. The only way for people to be convinced is for it to happen.
KatKapCC
@New Deal democrat: People saying that things won’t be as bad as we think because of our institutions and checks and balances sound like they fell asleep the night before election day in 2016 and only just woke up today. This is exactly what we were condescendingly told back then, and the fact that people are trying the same thing now is mind-boggling to me.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Winning a presidential election is not some shenanigans of some sort. The voting public decided he shouldn’t be held accountable.
Kay
Its just over and over we’ve been told some institutional barrier will hold and they’ve failed one by one. If its up to citizens to shelter other citizens then just say that. I’ll do that. That’s something.
MazeDancer
On a lighter Open Thread note:
Black Friday streaming deals have started.
First up: Peacock $19.95 for the year. Booked it.
Hoping for good Hulu/Disney and Paramount+ deals. 2023 deals were great.
Also, have to note Macys.com has comforters and sheet sets for, basically 80% off. Got a $135 comforter for $25. And two sets of high count, equally discounted sheets. Free delivery. (Thanks Twitter user for heads up.)
Kay
@Soprano2:
Accountability is a good thing. It’s time for them to get what they voted for, or we’ll be right back here the next time they pitch a fit over a 19% rise in Doritos.
Without some kind of reckoning all we’re doing was treading water anyway. If Harris had won she’d lose in 2028.
“Democrats win every election, forever” was not a rational plan.
Obama was wrong – the fever never broke. They need to feel some pain – there needs to be moral hazard attached to the decisions of spoiled, coddled Americans. Let them fail.
Steve LaBonne
The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.
Suzanne
@Baud: You’re right.
I just have been working under the assumption that something would fail.
Mike in DC
If you want analogies, what we should be doing is fighting a delaying action, increasing the enemy’s political attrition until their momentum is exhausted and the public has soured on their policy agenda. If we can slow, delay or stop most of the worst stuff in the first six months, I think political gravity will reassert itself, the GOP will get pasted in the midterms, and MAGA can be run out on a rail in 2028.
Steve LaBonne
@Kay: Yup. The only real hope for sustainable progress was for the fever to break, and so much for that. This cycle of Republicans shitting on everything and Democrats being temporarily tolerated to do cleanup was very destructive and was never going to be sustained forever. I would never voluntarily heighten the contradictions because of all the resulting suffering, but now we can’t prevent it and we must not waste the crisis that’s coming.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Kay: Oliver Willis:
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Steve LaBonne:
We discussed that piece yesterday. Crossing my fingers that Jeffries learned from watching Nancy Smash show how opposing is done. Master class in it which helped set the stage for the midterms which became a referendum on the fuckeduppedness of Dubya.
Yeah, we lost this round but it ain’t over yet. Now, we lose the next round, 06 mid-terms, we are royally and truly screwed.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/18/2287041/-Trump-voters-f-cked-around-now-they-re-about-to-find-out
Hang everything around their necks 24/7 over the next two years.
rikyrah
60 Minutes (@60Minutes) posted at 6:29 PM on Sun, Nov 24, 2024:
Documents obtained by 60 Minutes show OpenAI agreed to pay Sama, an American outsourcing firm, $12.50 an hour per Kenyan worker – far higher than the $2 an hour workers say they got. Sama says it pays a fair wage for the region.
60 Minutes (@60Minutes) posted at 6:29 PM on Sun, Nov 24, 2024:
Workers we spoke with say they were pressured to complete tasks faster than required – an allegation Sama denies – and that they were rewarded only with a soda and KFC chicken when a project finished before its deadline. https://t.co/ah5GXVKZmg
(https://x.com/60Minutes/status/1860843200006480273?t=PI1mg6zB6WyIwuW6ErfXvg&s=03)
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: thank you, that’s 🎯
Steve LaBonne
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: If all we get in the end is yet another two years of a weak trifecta in 2029-30, we are still headed for national catastrophe.
Shakti
What was the point of Jack Smith again or that entire investigation?
I do not understand the point of Jack Smith filing that motion to dismiss these charges, at this time. Why not just let Trump and his stupid fucking lawyers do it once he’s actually taken the oath of office again? If his position is that he committed those actions as a sitting President, it’s not like that ridiculous SCOTUS decision applies retroactively — does it?
Maybe he has a book coming out that will mean absolutely nothing.
Here:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/jack-smith-files-drop-jan-6-charges-donald-trump-rcna181667
I just don’t believe there’s any kind of 11th dimensional chess going on.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: DOJ policy that presidents can’t be indicted is actually a shenanigan. There is no part of the Constitution that remotely hints at this. There is no legislation that states that it’s the law of the land. There’s just some back of the envelope scribblings from a handful of DOJ wonks from a long, long time ago. And if you toss in the recent SCOTUS ruling, that’s even more shenanigans – no legislation supports it. It’s made up from navel gazing a prattlings of six political shills.
So, yes, I call shenanigans.
Understood that that stance and $4.00 will get me a cup of coffee.
Kay
I’m glad you’re back, mm. I know you take shit for some of your posts but BJ always had provocative posts – hell JOHN used to write most of them. I’m relieved this place didn’t turn into an echo chamber.
I completely disagree with this post but it’s thought-provoking and interesting IF also.upsetting. Thanks for treating us like adults.
Sure Lurkalot
Transgender humans in a public bathroom are minus infinity on the scale of things to consider when doing your business while out and about. Many restrooms are glaring health department violations…unflushed filthy or clogged toilets, dirty floors, overflowing trash bins, scummy sinks. The “employee must wash hands before returning to work” signs are ludicrous when your restaurant’s restroom looks like a petri dish for communicable disease
It’s way too easy to make people fear and hate things that will never harm or affect them.
TBone
@Chief Oshkosh: it’s malarkey, shenanigans and Calvinball!
jowriter
@Omnes Omnibus: Right there with you. I’ve already had a good long life. If only half the people in this world are good, the work of the rest of my life is to improve that ratio.
Raven
@Shakti: The (Justice) Department’s position is that the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated,” Smith wrote in a six-page filing with the US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, DC, regarding the election subversion case. “This outcome is not based on the merits or strength of the case against the defendant.”
KatKapCC
@Sure Lurkalot: (Since this was responding to my comment) Sure, you know that and I know that, but bigoted dipshits refuse to believe it. To them, a trans woman in the women’s room is a scarier prospect than — to borrow a phrase from George Carlin — a wolverine who’s high on angel dust.
New Deal democrat
@Baud:
As you yourself said, you are limiting your own actions. By all means those who sought and received election should fight. That’s what they signed up for. Those of us who are forming our own plan as to what our actions will be, should not be recipients of a straw man contempt.
Omnes Omnibus
@Shakti: The purpose of dismissing without prejudice is that charges can be refilled. At this point, I am not sure it was the right call, but there is a legitimate tactical reason to do it.
Kay
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
Exactly! Democrats have become like over indulgent parents with voters. If you don’t care enough about your grandparents to recognize an immigrant woman is changing their diapers then you should have to do that work yourself.
They can’t have full employment,high wages and low prices. If they don’t want to pay payroll taxes then they can’t have Social Security and Medicare. Time for reality.
Steve LaBonne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Stop throwing a wet blanket on our need to be outraged by our own side.Soprano2
@KatKapCC: Evidently Nancy Mace thinks the penis in the next stall can attack her or something. I wonder what she does in her own house when there’s a penis in the room next to where she is.
prostratedragon
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you. I think that was Mr. Bouie’s and mistermix’s point. And looking to act somehow with the other “yourselves.”
schrodingers_cat
Ah I see that the people most eager to to blame Joe Biden for Trump’s election were the most eager to push him out. They now want Biden to use one weird trick to undo the election.
I love the smell of cognitive dissonance in the afternoon.
Soprano2
@Kay: As I said on the other thread, it’s hilarious and predictable that now all these industries are asking for exceptions from what they voted for. “Please, please, save us from ourselves, we didn’t mean our hard-working undocumented immigrants should be deported, only all those criminals TCFG was always talking about. Please leave ours alone”. Nope, no exceptions, TCFG said there were going to be mass deportations pretty much every time he talked about the issue, so mass deportations is what they should get. This is the problem with him characterizing the “vast majority” of undocumented people as “criminals, the worst of the worst, insane crazy people”.
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud:
That’s the bullshit that every right winger says. Along with, apparently, that Biden should pardon Trump to bring our fractured nation together. Frankly that idea is less puke worthy because it at least admits that the fucker did anything at all wrong by inciting an insurrection and stealing government documents.
The rug we are going to bury his criming under is going to get extremely difficult to walk over.
Spanky
@Omnes Omnibus: We’re all Tom Joad now. And that’s no snark. It’ll take a certain amount of guts that I don’t know if I have to stand up to what I think is coming
ETA – IOW, it’s we the people who are the last “institution” that needs to fail before totalitarianism.
Old School
@Soprano2:
She’s late for the prayer breakfast.
Shakti
@Raven:
I know the real reason is that it would probably be dismissed when Trump made the appeal or went to office
— but even saying that it’s not about the merits or the strength explicitly
means nothing
Because every asshole will just think Trump was right and exonerated
I’m sure there are finer political points to doing it this way that better minds can parse
And I’m sure there’s an enormous press release crowing about it right now in the terms “Trump was right and exonerated”
Spanky
@Omnes Omnibus: Is there a statute of limitations?
(Or a statute of lamentations?)
hells littlest angel
It involved being willing to suffer and die in opposition. White pAmericans aren’t so good at that.
Jeffro
@Soprano2: I think she thinks it’s trying to make her late for a prayer breakfast, if past events are any indication
ETA of course someone (Old School) beat me to it
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: While I share your frustration at Trump voters, I cannot accept throwing everyone else to the wolves to punish them.
TBone
@Old School: 😆
prostratedragon
This?
I suppose this would keep certain tiny hands off the matter.
Lyrebird
Hey MisterMix!
Thanks for this column. I am gonna stay out of any fray here and focus on picking my ways to oppose. I wholeheartedly agree with everything you and JB said.
Chris
@Sure Lurkalot:
Honestly, I don’t for a moment believe that anyone actually cares about, or is frightened of, the prospect of transgender people using restrooms.
Right wingers talk about it because they hate trans people on general principle and this is what they’ve come up with to stick it to them while pretending there’s some deeper principle at stake.
The brain-damaged cretins we dignify with words like “moderate,” as usual, have no idea what’s going on, they just know that conservatives are talking about it and liberals are talking about it therefore there must be good points on both sides and we should take those clearly good-faith conservative talking points very seriously. Because that’s their approach to every new problem.
Liberals, of course, aren’t worried about it because it’s a stupid fucking non-issue that isn’t even being broached in good faith.
We’ve been through this dance enough time and with enough minorities at this point to know the parts everybody plays. It’s just reflex at this point.
Lobo
@Steve LaBonne:
Jyn Urso: It’s a rebellion, isn’t it. I rebel.
TBone
@prostratedragon: now I’m looking at federal statutes of limitations. Not sure which apply.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
If you’re not discouraging fighters, you don’t have my contempt. If you are, you do.
KatKapCC
@Soprano2:
Only if it belongs to John Dillermand.
Omnes Omnibus
@Spanky: The statute would be tolled during the time that Trump is in office. This, of course, assumed the system continues to function. Then again, if it doesn’t, none of this really matters.
KatKapCC
@Chris:
So the endless bills and proposed laws about it are all fever dreams? Nancy Mace is just pretending? Mike Johnson? Trans people who have been assaulted in public bathrooms are all imagining it or making it up?
Chris
@Soprano2:
I had a former friend whose dad was some kind of HMO tycoon who spent most of the Obama presidency trying to lecture me on how Obamacare was a terrible idea and free markets and Soshulism Doesn’t Work and blah blah. Literally a couple months after Trump’s inauguration:
“Oh, my dad’s in town next week.”
“Really? What for?”
“Well, he’s lobbying Congress to explain that abolishing the ACA is a bad idea…”
Steve LaBonne
@Shakti: We have to stop caring what assholes think. They can’t pwn us if we ignore them. Let them feel the pain of incompetent government based on idiotic ideas.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Lyrebird: Appreciate it.
@Kay:
I’m especially interested in seeing what happens in plains farm country if/when immigrants are deported or (more likely) are too scared to come and do seasonal work. Those fuckers know that they couldn’t do shit without immigrant labor. The best restaurant in my home town is a Mexican restaurant and it’s packed with Mexicans at meal times. Hearing Spanish spoken when I was a kid growing up there was a rarity, now its commonplace.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
That has become the unofficial blue sky motto.
Chris
@KatKapCC:
Yes, that’s exactly it. Well done.
Another Scott
Thanks MM; and thanks for the Bouie pointer.
It’s understandable to be angry and concerned and upset and worried. But the federal government is a huge institution with lots of friction points. We have to keep our wits about us for the slog ahead.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Chris
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
Sarah Taber’s theory was that once reality sank in, they’d replace immigrant labor with prison labor.
Last time they tried something like that in Georgia, it turned out quickly that the prisoners wouldn’t do it. Way too hard for way too ridiculous a wage. But I suppose they can always crank up the coercion.
Jeffro
I’m
horrified in advance ‘interested’ to see what happens when suburbia loses much of its lawn/groundskeeping workforce, housekeeping workforce, health aide workforce, restaurant workforce, and so on. But I guess all those unemployed MAGA men sitting around playing video games and watching pron will jump right up to fill the need. NOTTo say nothing of trumpov acolytes bitching about how all the ‘PAPERS PLEASE’ checkpoints are snarling traffic at inconvenient times.
Same with tariff-driven inflation.
Speak up, Big Business…we can’t quite hear you over the suburbanites’ whining.
Omnes Omnibus
@KatKapCC: I think you guys might be talking past one another. It seems to me that Chris is saying that the people who are stirring trans hate, etc., don’t really believe their bullshit and are acting cynically. The hate and resulting crimes are real.
KatKapCC
@Omnes Omnibus: I think anyone who is not the target of these laws is not in a position to decide what motivation is behind them. Explain to me why Nancy Mace isn’t actually transphobic.
New Deal democrat
@Baud:
Me: “Those of us who are forming our own plan as to what our actions will be….”
Bold added in aid of understanding. Hope that is helpful.
hrprogressive
There is a gulf of difference between
“Believe them when they say they want to install a totalitarian Fascist regime”
And
“They have already, or absolutely will, succeed, in doing the same, by virtue of them having won the election”.
I don’t have a lot of faith in much these days, and even though “the institutions” are full of rot, they are also massive, chock full of tons of points of friction, failure, inertia, etc.
Even in “the best of times”, the “government” is a byzantine labyrinth that often moves at a sloth’s pace.
Everyone should believe, and prepare for, the people saying they want to do bad things for bad things to be attempted and done.
Complying In Advance empowers them and gives them strength, when we need to be doing the opposite.
Shakti
@Omnes Omnibus: Refiled when?
There’s a statute of limitations and there’s a political statute of limitations. :/ So it goes
@Omnes Omnibus, @Kay: TBH, I don’t think the Democrats have the political juice or the desire to stop this underbussing. Look I don’t have the power to stop myself from being “thrown under a bus”, so stopping Trump voters from experiencing the consequences of their actions is not a thing. I mean, any Trump voters that are saved from under-bussing are just collateral to saving myself. Because that’s how it works with this kind of wide shit.
This stuff about punishing people not punishing people — look that’s on the median voters, the Crystal Mintons of the electorate.
I hate this line of thought, because once again, let’s center Trump voters. I’m just collateral to this horrible garbage. I need to be part of a political party that needs to over function to save myself, gotv, whatever, but let’s focus on saving absolute garbage middens in small town diner thinkpieces and their sensibilities.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
It’s not helpful. Do whatever you want. I’ll judge who I judge as I see fit. As I’m sure others will judge me.
Omnes Omnibus
@KatKapCC: It doesn’t matter if she is or isn’t transphobic. It matters that she is stirring up transphobia.
Peale
@KatKapCC: Yep. In the small Wisconsin town where I grew up, they’re now having another round of Moms of Liberty school board meetings to take care of this bathroom and sports issue, even though there’s no students to speak of. And now they are going to have a mayoral candidate who is collecting signatures to rid the town of transexuals once and for all. So solution they have in mind appears to be that no trans-kids can attend public schools and adults can’t live there.
But they’re really going to be upset when the cost of sugar after the tariff means no more specials on dunkers at the Kwik Trip.
If they didn’t care about this issue, they certainly are hiding it after the election is over.
Shakti
@Steve LaBonne: Feeling the pain of incompetent government is one thing. I don’t value their opinion.
But there’s no chance of justice, and that’s what’s upsetting. Tant pis.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Chris:
Yeah, the kind of “farm work” that was portrayed in Cool Hand Luke or some other chain gang movie is precisely not what 2024 farm work is like. More than likely you’re running a piece of complex machinery, and working somewhat independently. What will they do, assign an overseer with mirrored sunglasses and a shotgun to every farm? It’s not the 50’s anymore.
KatKapCC
@Omnes Omnibus: Okay. I mean…sure. If she weren’t doing anything to actively harm trans people, then I guess her own private bigotry wouldn’t matter much. But Chris said:
which is patently untrue and a dangerous delusion for any liberals to be laboring under.
bluefoot
@hrprogressive: This. The administration and its hangers on are going to do their best to wreck and loot everything and turn the US into an autocracy. The bureaucracy is huge and slow – and people within it can make implementing changes even slower. In those instances, we need to do what we can to add our weight to resisting those changes.
New Deal democrat
@Baud: That’s a shame that it wasn’t helpful.
Steve LaBonne
@Peale: Every fascist movement needs scapegoats, and the oppressors are always a mix of fanatics and cynics. Which is which makes precious little difference to the victims.
Chris
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
I have no idea. I’d be fully unsurprised to see them try.
Fascists aren’t exactly known for thinking things through.
Kayla Rudbek
@MazeDancer: thanks for the link. Let me check the sheets out (although I may go with Lands’ End flannel sheets instead; I keep on going back and forth between them and Kohl’s Cuddl Duds but Real Simple gives the nod to Lands’ End flannels)
gene108
@New Deal democrat:
We’ve been heading towards an illiberal democracy ever since the SCOTUS gutted the VRA and campaign finance laws in 2009.
The subsequent gerrymandering by Republican state governments, voter ID laws, purging of voter rolls, etc. are all steps to create a on party Republican run country.
The issue is will Republicans do what authoritarian governments do to cement power by jailing opposition leaders, prominent critics, etc.? Trump may try but outside of the Fifth Circuit Texas crazy Trump judges and Aileen Cannon, I’m not sure how much of the federal judiciary will go along with prosecuting media for stating an opinion or officials doing their jobs.
There are still a few brakes to prevent a true authoritarian government, but we will not have a leveled playing field between the parties for many many years. Republican will more aggressively tilt the system to their advantage.
I just can’t picture a situation where they successfully freeze out all opposition. Gains against Republicans at the state and local level will take longer than before.
The Weimar Republic allowed the Chancellor to declare a state of emergency that consolidated power in the Chancellor’s hands. Hitler used this after the Reichstag fire to swiftly dismantle government, and jail all the opposition leaders within six months.
I don’t see how Republicans can throw all the Democratic leaders in jail, without bail, and being denied a chance at a trial, like Hitler did.
Martin
So, part of my thinking is to what degree politics is a magic circle. For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to treatises on the nature of play and describes how structured play works. The moment you step on a sports field, you enter a magic circle where the rules are different. In the real world if the ball goes over a line, it doesn’t mean anything but inside the circle it means offsides or a goal and everyone respects that meaning and behave accordingly. Step outside the circle and the rules go back to normal. It’s a kind of willful suspension of disbelief. It’s not the same as a 4th wall, but it works the same way.
Magic circles function due to mutual consent. There is some degree of authority there – a referee is a limited form of cop, but again by mutual consent – but if one player starts violently assaulting another, the circle breaks. The referee is no longer the cop, just some dude, and a real cop gets involved and real laws get enforced using real violence. Laws are also magic circles, but ones enforced by violence so that the players don’t get to unsuspend their disbelief. You can sovereign citizen all you want, you will get your ass dragged to jail the same as the rest of us.
There are two ways in which I am thinking of magic circles and politics – one where the politicians view it as a magic circle and one where the voters do. AOC tells a little story after 1/6 when she confronted Nancy Mace after Mace blasted AOC for hiding in her office when a bunch of concerned citizens visited the Capitol being very earnestly concerned. AOC pointed out that Mace was hiding in her office in exactly the same way, and asked why she would do something so damaging and Mace’s response was ‘it’s just points on the board’. Mace doesn’t see the actions she takes inside the circle as being connected to the world outside of it. It’s just a game. AOC was horrified by this reaction. AOC doesn’t see it as a game. George Santos saw it as a game. Gaetz mostly sees it as a game. I think everyone does to some degree. There’s always a degree of theatrics there, some performative outrage. I would put John Lewis as very low on that scale and Lauren Bobert very high. In general, I don’t think we have any Dems too high on that scale. But I would also consider MOST republicans to be low on that scale. I think most Republicans think that their actions inside the circle have real impact outside of it. It’s the difference between being an actor (loosely coupled effects to the world outside) and a role model (tightly coupled effects to the world outside).
But what happens when the politicians inside the circle believe they are tightly coupled, but voters don’t. Imagine you’re at home anxious about the state of inflation in this country and a little girl knocks on your door, nicely dressed and asks you to support her because she’s got a plan to lower inflation and increase wages. I’m guessing you would send her on her way, that you don’t think she can help you. You don’t disagree with her ideas, you just don’t believe that a 9 year old can solve your problems. The little girl is firmly operating inside of her magic circle, a place where she can do those things, and you are outside of it seeing it for what it is – play. The little girl may think she’s tightly coupled to your reality, but you don’t think that.
We’re familiar with the voters that are disengaged with the excuse ‘the parties are both the same, they pretend to care but do nothing’. Isn’t that mostly the same thing? They see politics as a magic circle where the players inside struggle for power, or put points on the board as Mace would say, and the voters refuse to engage with children that are unserious about solving real problems – at least as the voter sees them. One narrative out of this election is that the electorate turned right because Trump won. But every abortion ballot initiative at least won a plurality of voters. Minimum wage increases got passed – a TON of liberal policies were created, by my eye much more than conservative ones were. That doesn’t indicate to me an electorate turning right. In order to fill in the gaps, people are suggesting various bigotry, and sure, that’s in there as well. But what if the problem is more that voters just don’t see politics as tightly coupled to their lives. Now the problem to solve isn’t one of left vs right, but one of impact. Billionaires are generally disengaged from the consequence of politics because they’re billionaires. To them, it’s just a sandbox to play in. Wasn’t that MLKs critique of white moderates? They didn’t have real skin in the game, didn’t want justice, they just wanted to be able to change the channel to something that didn’t upset them.
I often note that when the GOP break the norms and break the rules, Democrats often wave their finger or call them hypocrites, but don’t punish them for breaking the rules – often constraining their options by what the rules (now broken) permit. I think this is a terrible dynamic because it results in constantly rewarding the GOP for their bad behavior. In the NHL there’s usually a player on the team (do they still do this, it’s been a while since I watched hockey) called the enforcer. This player is an escape from the magic circle. Penalties in hockey tend to be pretty light so bad behavior isn’t strongly punished. That’s the enforcers job – when 2 minutes in the box isn’t enough to convince an opposing player to play fair, the enforce convinces him by dropping gloves and punching him in the mouth. (I’ve always been a little confused by this – are hockey fights another magic circle inside the other – a show within a show, a bit of fan service, or is it a way of enforcing the imaginary rules within the game by breaking the imaginary rules in specific way – my sense was always the latter given that teeth are sometimes lost.)
But the same may apply in the other direction. If we want voters to treat politics seriously, then politics needs to have real consequence. One tendency of institutionalists is to insulate the system and the citizenry from harm, like a mom bundling their kid in so many layers before sending them out to play in winter that they don’t have enough freedom of movement to play. If institutionalists are really good at their job, then politics becomes less important. It’s fine to vote for Trump because the institutions will keep him from breaking shit, so there’s no consequence. The institutions turn politics into a magic circle to the voters – just a game. Maybe the solution to better voter engagement is to make politics dangerous again? Make it matter. Isn’t that kind of the knee jerk reaction that some of us are having – let the red states have Trumps policies good and hard?
Anyway, I’m just thinking out loud here. I have a bias against simplistic answers to complex problems because nothing ever works that way, IMO. There’s a YouTube comment that sticks with me: problems are worse than people complain about but in a way that is more complicated than they have the context to understand. Simple explanations for something as big as a national election seem designed to fit the context people understand rather than tackle the true scale and scope of the problem – which I would agree are always bigger than people complain about. So I continue to reject the simple solutions, even when I too lack the context to understand.
Parfigliano
@Scout211: As I always said no way will Trump face consequence. The law is not applied equally.
Omnes Omnibus
Okay, I am not just going to accept that Trump, et al., can just do whatever they want. I am going to say no whenever and wherever I can, and I am going to support anyone else who does the same. I have no idea how effective we will be, but I plan on giving it a shot. Everyone else can do what they want.
different-church-lady
@Scout211: If anyone wants to tell me what I’m supposed to do about the entire system obeying in advance, I’m all fuckin’ ears.
Sister Golden Bear
I guess I won’t worry my pretty little head about then.
After all, it’s not like he banned trans people in the military 2017. Nor that the Project 2025 folks have said they plan to do this.
Yes, there’s definitely little doggie barking going on. No, I doubt Trump personally gives a shit about trans people any more than Nancy “it’s just points on the board” Mace does. But given the years’ long Republican attempts to legislate trans people out of existence, I personally think it’s better to assume that when there are reports they’re planning to do this — and a raft of other anti-trans actions — we’d best be prepared for them to do them.
I get what you’re saying that we’re the opposition party and we should oppose.
But realize trans people have been repeatedly told we’ve been overreacting for close to a decade now, and everything we “panicked” about has been happening. And it sure feels like I’m being told that again.
Steve LaBonne
@Omnes Omnibus: On immigration, there will be sanctuary churches again. My previous church was one last time but has issues that are likely to prevent it happening again, and my current one isn’t big enough in building space and membership. But there will be others.
AWOL
@…now I try to be amused: Black women, secular Jews, and gay people.
Wonder why?
Citizen Alan
@KatKapCC: What amazes me is that that the fear of encountering a trans woman in the bathroom is so intense that they go after cis women who don’t look feminine enough. I think I’ve seen more news reports of some Evil Karen calling the cops on a teenaged girl with a flat chest and a pixie haircut than I have reports of anyone suffering any kind of assault from a trans woman in the ladies’ room.
All this–abortion, transphobia, homophobia, employment discrimination against pregnant women or women in general, “Your Body, My Choice”–is nothing more than white Christian men insisting that everyone conform to the gender roles as outlined in the Bible, gender roles that, by happy coincidence, but white Christian men at the top and everyone else at their feet.
Steve LaBonne
@Sister Golden Bear: I am panicked about our trans friends, so I can’t understand how trans people themselves could not be panicked. Three who we knew in our old church have wisely moved to Michigan- if there are organizations that help trans people get out of red states I would donate.
Soprano2
I don’t think this is true. Evidently there was a dust-up at my bar when I wasn’t there because a transgender woman used the women’s bathroom. Someone started agitating about a man going into the women’s restroom. So even if they are pretending, they’re doing it in a pretty convincing manner. I think some women have been sold on the idea that someone with a penis in the stall next to them is a threat to them personally. They also seem to honestly believe that men need to dress up as women in order to be able to sexually assault women. It’s ridiculous, but I think some people have been convinced of this.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Why are you putting all the responsibility on your shoulders?
Steve LaBonne
@AWOL: This is why white Trump supporters shouldn’t be protected from the pain that’s coming.
Chip Daniels
I’m fond of saying we should “force them to force us”, that is, forcing them to make good on threats, challenging them at every turn, dragging things out, delaying, obstructing always.
Soprano2
@Jeffro: You forgot all the people who do construction. Who’s going to roof their house?
Steve LaBonne
@Chip Daniels: Time to reread The Good Soldier Svejk.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve LaBonne: Part of opposition at the personal level is simply saying no. The people who are vulnerable don’t have an option. People like me, who could fly under the radar if we chose, need to say no. If we see or hear someone abusing someone else, we need to say no. I am not saying that we need to stand alone against a hate crazed mob, but we can push back in small groups or one on one situations. If one person does it, it can give courage and support for others to do it. We just need to refuse to accept a new normal based on hate and fear.
Citizen Alan
The same goes for people who are too dumb to realize that Medicaid is probably what pays for that immigrant woman to do so. I honestly thank God that both my parents passed away before now, so that the months each of them spent in hospices before they passed away didn’t bankrupt our whole family.
oldgold
I blame Garland for this. He was a feckless, dilatory and ineffective AG.
In February of 2021, job one should have been pursuing Trump for Jan 6.
Also, I am critical of Smith for pulling a Mueller, by ceding the public domain almost exclusively to Trump concerning the Jan 6 and Documents cases.
Steve LaBonne
@Omnes Omnibus: I will never accept that kind of “normal”. My religion may not have metaphysical beliefs but it sure as hell has values that I am pledged to uphold.
Soprano2
@Kayla Rudbek: I just got a set of flannel sheets from Land’s End for my daybed. They’re nice!
rikyrah
@MazeDancer:
bought some sheets and two comforters from Macys. Thanks for the tip.
Citizen Alan
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, but what the MAGAts want is for vulnerable people on our side to be thrown to the wolves while they get state-of-the-art wolf protection paid for with our tax dollars. Fuck that noise.
piratedan
had a discussion with someone on BlueSky regarding the tipping point of all of this… I cited the Citizens United decision, they cited the SCOTUS decision on Bush vs. Gore.
All I know is that for a nation that is supposed to be built on a foundation of laws, we need to do a damn sight better at writing them if the ones we’ve been using for the last 200+ years allow an outcome like Trump.
Citizen Alan
@Chris: My fear is that the secret plan is to put 11 million illegal immigrants into internment camps but then offer to let them work as “prison labor” for a nominal fee, no legal protections, and no path either to citizenship or to going back to their birth countries.
Steve LaBonne
@piratedan: No laws can prevent the rise of a fascist or authoritarian movement if it gains sufficient popular support. Apart maybe from Russia, the historical and present-day examples all have had functioning and reasonably well designed constitutions, generally better than ours in significant respects.
Steve LaBonne
@Citizen Alan: I expect that’s the plan; whether they’re capable of executing it on the necessary scale is another matter.
Kathleen
@…now I try to be amused: Bouie said it all beautifully and he’s absolutely right. I also wholeheartedly agree with your comment.
Peale
@Sister Golden Bear: Yep. Its not like he hasn’t tried this before in his first term. The reasons that failed likely don’t exist any longer. But he wasn’t sending some kind of bone to his Christian base that he doesn’t believe in.
narya
My understanding of Smith’s actions are that (1) the case can be brought again (hence the “without prejudice” part), though it’s also possible for TCFG’s DOJ to reopen it and then dismiss WITH prejudice, which would probably end it and (2) Smith is obligated to produce a detailed report, including explanations of decisions to prosecute or not. Some speculate that he will produce the report, which then can be released publicly (though this requires Garland to do that), i.e., the information will come out. If he didn’t end the investigation now, then he wouldn’t be producing that report now, which means after TCFG fires him, Bondi (or whomever) can Bill-Barr the report. Personally, I think this is the better strategy, given that there’s no chance in hell that either federal case would continue after Jan 20.
Citizen Alan
How many does he need to throw in jail without bail or trial to cow them enough to render the Democrats incapable of putting up any meaningful opposition?
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
Not sure how they prevent people from going back home if they want to.
narya
@Citizen Alan: Yeah, this is my suspicion as well. Ag producers and meat packers would love to get their hands on the same labor for cheaper.
eemom
@Chris:
Oh, they’re going to use prison labor all right. The labor of imprisoned migrants.
Kathleen
@schrodingers_cat: And the smell of scapegoats in the morning!
Percysowner
@narya:
I do think the without prejudice part is important. If he didn’t dismiss it this way, Trump could take it to appeal and eventually have the courts dismiss WITH prejudice, meaning it could never be brought again. It’s not the best case scenario, but we are where we are.
Citizen Alan
@Steve LaBonne: Let’s not be racist. Black, Hispanic, Asian and Muslim Trump voters deserve whatever they get as well.
Citizen Alan
@piratedan: For me it was Bush v. Gore, followed by the voters rewarded Bush, who stole the 2000 election and was an utter fuck-up for 4 years, with another term and a chance to appoint 2 Justices including the Chief. Once SCOTUS proved itself to be completely partisan in favor of the GOP, Citizens United was inevitable.
eemom
@Citizen Alan:
Your fear is spot on as documented by the link I just posted.
This is not about “deportation”. It’s about bringing back slavery.
Martin
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I’ll note, CA has relied on prison labor to fight fires, and this likely contributed to our failed ballot initiative to end prison slavery. Nevada passed theirs.
But farm work in 2024 does look a lot like that in California. I’ve been trying to make this point for a while – CA has 50% of the nations farm workers. Other states have largely abandoned crop diversity and stick to large scale mechanized farming around row crops. CA is where almost all of the displaced farm work goes that can’t be mechanized.
I’ve also argued that we have culturally held on that kind of work is slave work, and inappropriate for white people to do, which I think is why McCain made his statement that we could pay Americans $50/hr to pick lettuce and they wouldn’t do it. We’ve tried that experiment many times over the last 60 years and it’s failed every time.
Harrison Wesley
@Steve LaBonne: Just saw your comment. Required reading for these times!
Gretchen
Remember in 2005 when Republicans had Bush and both houses of Congress and were determined to privatize Social Security? The press kept pestering Pelosi about when she was going to release her own plan to cut Social Security. She said “Never. Is never good enough for you?” She held her caucus together while they fought among themselves, and they never got it done.
Harrison Wesley
@Citizen Alan: I agree. That sounds very likely.
Citizen Alan
@Martin: TBF, we have never tried the experiment of paying farm workers $50/hour. Mainly because the nation’s food supply depends on labor costs being low enough for staple foods to be affordable.
moonbat
Wow. The swing from giddy optimism to doomer pessimism is quite a ride, isn’t it?
In July, I had serious doubts that this country would elect a black woman president, vibes or no vibes, but I worked my fanny off for her in the hopes that she would win, that we as a people were ready to do that, that women of this nation were prepared to show a little solidarity. But apparently we were not.
Now that we lost that election all those vibe addicts are ready to throw in the towel, but I’m not. This is not a fight that we can afford to sit out. I like a glass of schadenfreude served cold as much as the next person, but throwing up our hands and not opposing every single thing these people want to do out of spite or ennui or hopelessness is to abandon the values that made me a Democrat in the first place. I won’t, I can’t do that.
We must protect the vulnerable and spoil every petty dream of power 45 ever had in his wormy brain.
As Biden says, “You can’t love your country only when you win.”
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Again -where or what is the opposition? I’m one woman sitting in Ohio. What am I supposed to do?
I retire in July. In between spending time with my granddaughters I will probably drive young women out of Florida to get medical care – I did it in Ohio, its a good fit for me and theres a group.of women working on it. But I’m not interested in just saying “I resist!” – I don’t know what that means w/out some kind of resistance leadership.or plan.
I mean it about moral hazard,too. Americans take what they had for granted. They need to pay for poor decisions or we will be on this crazy train forever.
sab
@Shakti: Jack Smith had a legal career before the Trump stuff that he would probably like to get back to. Since the Trump stuff cannot go forward while Trump is president and legal processes do have deadlines that have to be met, motion to dismiss is the only sensible approach. It isn’t his fault that we elected Trump.
Denali5
When I see a Columnist in the Washington Post arguing that President Biden should pardon Trump and Jack Smith dropping the case against him, it appears that a climate of fear has taken over. People are afraid. This will lead to obeying in advance. This has never happened in our Democracy. It is hard to know what our alternatives are.
Baud
@Denali5:
If it’s the one linked to earlier, those columnists were already firmly embedded in the right wing ecosystem. They don’t represent a change of anything. There may be other examples, but they aren’t it.
ETA: Jack Smith’s actions aren’t based on fear either, but reality that Trump can’t be prosecuted by DOJ now.
Ksmiami
@Kay: idgaf about poor white rural Americans. They can all foad for all I care
Gretchen
Last week Nancy Mace thought she was onto a good thing for her main goal, attention-getting, when she introduced her bathroom legislation, tweeted 260 times in the next 24 hours about it. Then reporters got an earful from AOC, who said the legislation was disgusting, how is it going to be enforced, are you going to do genital checks on everyone going into a bathroom, who will do the checking, Nancy Mace wants girls to drop trou, and threw in a couple more furious “disgustings”. Mace went entirely silent for several days, and finally went on Fox News yesterday and said AOC is lying, nobody has said girls should have to drop trou, and it’s AOC who is disgusting. She didn’t go on any of the other networks she usually loves, because she knows that they would ask, how would this be enforced then? That’s how to do it, and our younger members know that.
different-church-lady
@Denali5: Thiessen is the token GOP idiot of the WaPo. Pay that particular turd no mind, he’s a professional troll.
Old School
@Baud:
I would think it is difficult to leave the country without a passport.
Ksmiami
@Kay: completely agree. They were adults who voted. There’s no saving anyone from themselves
Baud
@Old School:
They would leave the way they came. Or they could decline to contest deportment.
zhena gogolia
@moonbat: Good comment. I’m exhausted, but I know you’re right.
Pretty disappointed in Democrats and white women right now and sorry I’m locked in an alliance with them.
Ksmiami
@oldgold: me too. Garlands only priority was to prosecute for insurrection and he fucking whiffed
different-church-lady
@Baud: Reason 1)
Reason 2)
The system has decided it can’t touch him. It’s up to “us”.
Sure. Okay. Ummm… let me write a letter or something.
Kay
@sab:
I don’t blame Smith. He made a heroic effort. IMO the culture in the DOJ is broken – it rewards inaction and cowardice. They don’t seem to be effective at their core role. I think its been broken for at least 20 years.
moonbat
@zhena gogolia: I can completely understand why. But hang in there.
KatKapCC
@Gretchen: Yeah, I really would like someone to ask Mace, preferably on live TV, what would happen if some rando stopped a woman from entering the bathroom on suspicion of her being trans. If the woman says “No I’m not” is that enough? Does she need to show ID? What if she doesn’t have any? We’re gonna start requiring ID to use a bathroom? So if she doesn’t, what would happen then? How is that woman supposed to prove her identity?
Kay
@Ksmiami:
Our plan was “never lose another election”
That had to fail eventually.
I didn’t bring about hard times but this is what they wanted. They should get it.
Gretchen
@KatKapCC: Yes, Mace and Johnson are absolutely just pretending, in order to gain political advantage. After Jan 6 Mace said AOC was lying about being scared and in danger. AOC confronted her and said you were right near me, you were just as scared as I was, why are you publicly lying about me? Mace said it’s just points on the board, you say whatever gives you the advantage. She admitted it’s just a game to her.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Us doesn’t mean you alone.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Great. You can co-sign the letter.
different-church-lady
@Kay:
That wasn’t the plan. That was reality.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
I’ll be happy to co-sign anything you write.
Sally
@Shakti: Probably been answered by now by lawyers (who know what they are talking about), but dismissing means SC Smith (must) writes a report. A thorough report that will be made public. That is worth a lot. Not dismissing means it all gets blown away. And he dismissed without prejudice, so trump can, in theory, still be impeached on those charges.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
JoeyB owes this country nothing else.
He needs to enjoy his retirement and spoil those grandbabies and Dr. Jill
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2: And I am here for it if the new President of Mexico follows through on her threat to deport 2 million US ex-pats back to the US. Let *them* demand to Speak to the Manager in the WH over Trump’s “mass deportation” schtick.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I don’t have the answers you are asking for. At this point, no one probably does. As far as leadership goes, it will emerge. Maybe from someplace no one expects. In the meantime, like I said above, refusing to accept the fearmongering and hatred as normal is a first step. Will it do any good? I think it is necessary but not sufficient.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Democrats and liberals need their own shake up. This move toward anti democratic actions started with Bush v Gore. We needed a better response than “vote harder!” – they were eventually going to come into power again. We were just sandbagging a rising river rather than building levees.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Okay.
moonbat
What I have been doing in my neighborhood is building networks of likeminded women, those of us who were in grieving shock after the election. We exchanged numbers, email addresses, etc. to create a rapid response circle in case anyone was in physical or emotional distress or duress. Those who feel empowered by 45’s win may not wait for him to take office to take it out on those they perceive as vulnerable.
But from within that circle we can build separate circles from other spheres of our lives outside the geographic neighborhood (think churches, campuses, etc.). So when something comes down the pike like shitty legislation, for instance, we can tap a fair number of people to respond immediately to tell our elected officials that we don’t want that. Because truth to tell, we are going to have to act as the iron in the spines of elected Democrats to resist. If those officials are not made continuously aware that their constituents have their back and expect them to fight, they will be more likely to fold under pressure. Send a message that you expect them to be warriors for us. That’s Step 1.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
No, ideally we would have had a plan to buttress and strengthen democratic institutions and process during periods of power. We already knew the DOJ was weak – they failed after the financial crisis. We knew media were venal and weak – they lied us into a war where half a million Iraqi civilians perished.
Instead we decided to deny our institutions were weak and failing and hope against hope to win every election, in perpetuity.
I didn’t ask for a reckoning but I see the inevitably of it. It had to happen.
Martin
@Citizen Alan: Not $50 exactly, but we’ve tried it a whole bunch of other ways. The federal government has multiple times tried subsidizing domestic farm labor, paying above typical wages, and it’s never lasted more than a few weeks before everyone decided ‘fuck this’. And that was after getting through the social bias that we have regarding the kind of work that we are entitled to do.
Average pay for farm workers in CA is $22/hr. Now, that’s not amazing, but there’s a whole lot of jobs out there paying less. And yet, there’s basically no white farm workers. It’s the most self-segregated industry in the US.
Melancholy Jaques
@Omnes Omnibus:
Right, but I was referring to those institutions and organizations outside our humble selves. We need them, but they have failed when it was most important not to fail.
Miss Bianca
@Gretchen: Meanwhile, at least according to Reddit, misogynistic MAGA chuds are crawling up Nancy’s snatch saying, “hey, you went to the Citadel, which was a MAN’S SPACE, damn it! You got no problem invading MEN’S SPACES, do you?!”
Which is all kinds of wrongthink, but deeply hilarious. Please proceed, leopards…
different-church-lady
@Kay: What I mean is: given what you have outlined in your response, never losing another election wasn’t a plan — it was the only solution possible.
Gvg
@KatKapCC: yes. And even quite a few other issue liberals are frightened of trans people int the bathrooms. Most people are very ignorant and don’t know any and what they do know is over sensationalized. Also a lot of people are just squicked out by bathroom peeping imagery especially women. I think it comes from how we are trained to worry about rape so much and how weird some guys we actually meet have acted. Anyway, conservative or liberal, if you run into someone who is convinced the trans people are just a kind of peeping Tom pervert, you cannot unconvinced them. They don’t know any real people who are trans. I think the statistics are something like .6 or . 06% so not surprising they don’t. I only know a few on the internet. Even the one on my campus I only talked with by email once…But I know some of these people personally. The fear is real and long term and not just a conservative thing. Trans people are very rare and not well known so wrong stories can take hold easier.
Sallycat
@Shakti: The SCOTUS decision applies retroactively. It ruled that the president has immunity, not that immunity will apply to future acts. At least that’s my understanding.
bluefoot
@moonbat:
I am in 100% agreement with everything you said here. Building community is important, finding ways to help each other and to slow or resist what’s coming is vital. It’s already apparent to me that people who feel empowered are already starting to act out. They feel they have permission.
I said in a comment last week that we need to keep working however we can in ways big and small, even if we don’t see an effect. We don’t know the ripple effects of our actions that are out of our line of sight.
different-church-lady
@Sallycat: Yeah, well Trump wasn’t president when he refused to give the documents back. By definition that can’t be an official act. At least in a non-surreal timeline…
Anonymous At Work
On the military, I’ve said that even the neo-nazi curious wannabe crusader would be survivable by the Pentagon because it’s not like the DoD is swarming with enough personnel to fulfill their current missions well. First staffing report listing how badly an “anti-woke, anti-DEI, anti-woman” military would be…that’d be the end of the right-wing nonsense.
Manyakitty
@Citizen Alan: those fuckers are bound and determined to get a slave class back.
Manyakitty
@Miss Bianca: that’s a reality show I’d watch.
apocalipstick
@KatKapCC:
I don’t agree. I live in a town of 4,500 people in one of the reddest areas of one of the reddest states in the Union and most (particularly the younger you go) don’t care much about someone being gay or trans. The ones who do care are vocal and aggressive, but I think a large part of that is the knowledge that they are losing ground. It’s certainly better than when I was growing up here 50 yrs. ago. I realize there are still miles to go, but I don’t know that it’s getting worse.
apocalipstick
@Kay:
Yes, I’m supposed to in any way I can. Elected reps will almost never be ahead of their constituents. It’s my job to let them know that those constituents expect more and to try and create new constituents who expect even more.
As far as leaders, ‘leaderless’ resistance is some of the most effective resistance in existence.
apocalipstick
@Shakti:
Because I believe Smith is filing to dismiss in such a way was to allow the charges to be filed again in the future, whereas if Trump’s DoJ dismisses, it would probably be with prejudice, which means the case is gone forever. Smith himself said that he was dismissing the case because of DoJ policy and that he still stands behind all charges.
apocalipstick
@Soprano2:
She attacks it. I base this on her testimony at the prayer breakfast.
YY_Sima Qian
@New Deal democrat: Yeah, African Americans in the Deep South in 1955 had strong allies at the Federal level, & Federal policy would soon start to shift, which would substantially preempt state policies.
In the here & now, the reactionary counter-revolutionaries will soon have a stranglehold on all levers of power at the Federal level, & will look to entrench that power using whatever means necessary.
That is not a cause for despair, because the Trumpian circle of carnival barkers & circus freaks will soon offer plenty of ammunition to undermine their credibility, but there are better analogies. Such as Hungary:
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: I think your analysis is on the mark. A large number of voters have felt disconnected from national politics for a long time, just at the vote participation rates. & this has been the trend across liberal democracies. The US is not unique here.
This disaffection creates space for either left wing revolutionaries or reactionary counter-revolutionaries to seize levers of power.
Dennis Doubleday
There were exceptional black people in 1955 who were willing to risk their lives to fight for what was right. I don’t consider myself exceptional, and I’m going to be upset if he is saying “you can fix things but you have to be willing to risk your life and livelihood for it”.