Atrios quoted this from Hamilton Nolan, and I think it’s the right attitude about the current moment:
Until they political opposition in America grasps all of this, they will continue to wake up and find that they themselves are the Greater Fools. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, mysterious about Donald Trump, his allies, or what they are going to do. They are going to try to loot this country for as much as they can grab. Those who are with them will get a pass and those who are against them will be their enemies. After they leave, we will find that our institutions are weaker, our government is half broken, our crises have compounded, our most vulnerable citizens have suffered the greatest harms. Even now, I see many people who should know better falling into the trap of telling themselves that they will be able to get on Trump’s good side, to gently cajole him into the right place on their particular issue of concern. They believe that they can take advantage of his aggressive disinterest in most things by flattering him and then steering him the right way. So the Democratic governor of New Jersey gently proclaims that he wants to work with Trump to defeat congestion pricing and the Teamsters proclaim that they want to work with Trump on a pro-worker agenda and the UAW proclaims that they want to work with Trump on good trade policy and liberal columnists proclaim that Trump has a chance to do good things in the Middle East. And on, and on, and on. The con man maintains just enough unpredictability to fill his marks with hope that this time, they will be the ones to find the ball lurking under the shell.
The problem with this impulse is that inherent in the hope of working with this guy is the accompanying understanding that you must not try as hard as you can to smash the guy at the same time. You can’t say “Donald Trump is a loathsome fascist” and then say in the next breath “We look forward to crafting a worker-friendly trade policy with you, sir.” Yet, hey, guess who the people are who, collectively, are nurturing all of these disparate hopes of winning on their pet issues? They are the opposition. We are entering an age of gangster style fascism. We are going to need all of the opposition that we can get. If most of the opposition is busy flattering itself that they can soften Trump on this or that, they are not doing their most important work: Trying to destroy his entire political project. That political project is, I remind you, one of destroying the rest of us. An opposition that can’t dedicate itself to being the opposition is a weak opposition, indeed. And Trump has always enjoyed a weak opposition.
If you think that you are a savvy politician because you got Trump on your side regarding congestion pricing and meanwhile he is stripping thousands of your citizens of their birthright citizenship, you are wrong. If you think that you are a savvy union leader because you got Trump to a little better place on trade and meanwhile he is stripping every woman in your union of her right to abortion, you are wrong. If you think that you are a savvy liberal writer because you cajoled Trump into a little better place on foreign policy and meanwhile he is telling your trans friends that the government will no longer legally recognize their identity, you are wrong. You have made a miscalculation. You have not taken in the full picture of what you are dealing with here. You have been sold a worthless little bauble in exchange for something real. You have not done the math. You are the Greater Fool.
The bad guys are in charge right now. You can’t triangulate your way out of this. All you can do is fight.
Evan Hurst at Wonkette puts a finer point on it, but gets it right, too, in his piece Elected Democrats, are You Collaborator or Are You Opposition, Make Your Choice.
I’ll call out JB Pritzker as someone who’s doing notably well in opposition. I’ll call out the 48 Democrats in the House and 12 Democrats in the Senate who voted for the Laken Riley Act as the ones who aren’t doing as well.
sab
That is all well and good to sound the alarm, but I think we sounded the alarm like a klaxon horn before the election, and 51% weren’t buying it.
ETA Our sheeple often come back into the fold when all hell breaks loose (2008 economic meltdown) but one of these election cycles they will grow some temporary sense a tad too late.
Nettoyeur
If you are a Dem governor, you have to protect your state, and so have to walk a line on dealing with the Feds. Not easy. I grew up in Massachusetts and was at university there during Nixon’s presidency. INterestingly, Mass. did well economically under both Nixon and Reagan despite its populace being utterly opposed to both of them. Turns out the country needed Mass. brains and industry more than Mass. needed the particular guy in the WH. Might be the right example to follow.
Mark
@sab: I believe you are correct.
We have to hit rock bottom before we can begin to work our way back up. Germany was an excellent example.
sab
@Nettoyeur: I think DeWine, much as I dislike him, has being pretty good at balancing common sense good government with Trump’s tender ego.
hrprogressive
There’s a reason why today’s Democratic Party is called the “Controlled Opposition”.
They, by and large, but you can find some outliers, aren’t actually opposed to most of what the GOP wants.
They’d really like it if the GOP would, you know, let people live and stop making every policy choice about hating Brown or Gay or Trans People, pretty please.
But in terms of economics, they are just as bought and paid for by our Corprofascist Shareholder Overlords as the GOP.
They want wealth, and power, and privilege. They would prefer it if the citizens of this country weren’t harassed in the meantime.
The GOP wants to, on their best day, give all the power wealth and privilege to the white men who are mad they weren’t born in the 1600’s, and on their worst day, want to annihilate everyone who isn’t just like them.
If the Democrats really opposed the GOP, wouldn’t you expect to see, you know, actual “Opposition”?
That you don’t tells you everything you need to know.
SpaceUnit
I’m looking forward to about nine billion articles by liberals over the next four years explaining how other liberals don’t understand how bad trump is.
NotMax
Put in mind of Lucy, Charlie Brown and the football.
Matt McIrvin
@Nettoyeur: Most of the techbro CEOs lined up with Trump yesterday operate out of states that are overwhelmingly opposed to Trump, leading employees who, themselves, are likely more than not opposed to Trump. So there are class divisions operating here and there might be a temptation to appease these guys.
Matt McIrvin
@Mark: Nobody’s going to invade us.
sab
@hrprogressive: I don’t mean to be argumentative, but I am in Ohio and I called BS about a third of the way into your comment.
We Democrats do not like at all what they do, but there are as many of them as there are of us and this still is democracy so they get a lot of input.
They cheat so they get more of their share, but even playing fair they get half. Sucks, but that’s democracy. The key is to somehow defend the guardrails in the Constitution.
hitchhiker
That sack of shit Mitch McConnell understood this in 2008. During a massive fiscal crisis that was destroying the scant personal wealth most Americans could claim. After Obama had won big majorities in both houses and arrived with a 70% approval rating.
What was Mitch’s attitude again?
That the overriding goal would be to regain power. No policy goal could intervene, no matter what it was or what it cost to regular people. Regain power. Refuse to let Obama accomplish anything at all. Hog tie him and then call him incompetent.
NotMax
@sab
The framers could not have anticipated the first word of “checks and balances” becoming so twisted out of shape.
Josie
Two of the senators who voted for the law represent states on the border. Is it just possible that their constituents actually want undocumented persons who commit crimes to be removed? It is easy to sit in judgement when you are not the ones on the front line.
John S.
Never heard of Hamilton Nolan, but that’s a terrific piece. Thanks for sharing!
Baud
Reposting from below.
Blue states will be where a lot of the action is, and liberals have a historical tendency not to pay as much attention to states.
WaterGirl
I guess it isn’t midnight in Washington anymore. Maybe more like the 3 am phone call, and Adam Schiff didn’t pick up the phone.
John S.
@Baud:
Washington also filed suit with Arizona, Illinois and Colorado.
Shalimar
Read this at a financial website:
What the fuck are they doing? It has no value. There is no product. You don’t get to magically create a meme based on nothing, say it’s worth $50 billion, and then claim it is still worth 60% of that when idiots pay way too much for something that is intrinsically worthless.
Baud
@John S.:
Thanks. I wasn’t aware of the second suit.
Scout211
@John S.: Currently 22 states.
laura
@Josie: all it takes for removal is an accusation, not an investigation, not a charge, not a conviction. Not that anyone would jump to a false conclusion, or misuse this proposed law for personal gain or enmity. Most likely scenario is that it will be equally applied, and not at all like the paper bag test.
I wish those representatives would have actually analyzed the Bill and explained why it is so very contrary to the Right of Due Process, but the vibes and protecting women and girls greased the skids.
John S.
@Baud:
No worries! Here’s a link.
Minor correction: The lawsuit includes Oregon, not Colorado.
sab
@NotMax: I personally think our framers could imagine anything, including Abigail Adams wanting Thomas Jefferson to send 15 year old Sally Hemmings back to Virginia alone on a ship with randy sailors for the sake of Jefferson’s soul, and Thomas Jefferson educating his own sons in lucrative trades but still enslaving them, and a general distrust of government.
They didn’t hate government. They knew we needed government. They just wanted to control it because they knew that they themselves were so flawed.
John S.
@Scout211:
It would be more than 22! That article didn’t include the states in the Washington lawsuit, so that’s 26 in total.
ETA: Never mind. I just saw your update.
Danielx
Per Evan Hurst/Wonkette…
Matt McIrvin
@Shalimar:
On the contrary, you DO get to! It’s because sometimes, you found the Greater Fool.
Scout211
@John S.: I added a paragraph for those states, but it was taken from a different news article.
Math is hard. I’ll accept your math.
ETA: I just read you have retracted your math. I guess it’s still 22 states plus two cities.
Phylllis
@Baud: One wonders what, to name two off the top of my head, Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal think about this.
Josie
@laura:
I am not familiar with the senator from New Mexico, but Gallego from Arizona has dealt with immigration issues extensively during his time in the House. I am pretty sure he studied the bill and thought it was the best he could do for his constituents. I don’t think it is fair for him to be labeled a pushover for Trump.
John S.
@Scout211:
Thats plenty! It shouldn’t be too difficult for the courts to rule that an EO cannot overturn the Constitution, but who knows these days if/when it lands in the court of the Sinister Six.
FDRLincoln
Horseshoe theory in action…today I saw a Lexus SUV with a Trump bumper sticker and an International Workers of the World black cat worker power sticker
sab
@Shalimar: I am naive on this stuff. Was there even any actual money involved, or just promises of investment?
sab
@FDRLincoln: Like “Save the Whales” on a 1980s Toyota.
TBone
@sab: for starters, the meme coins are purchased with paper money. But the “value” is truly only what the next mark will pay you in paper money when you offload. It’s all imaginary, but it costs real money to play. If you can’t find a mark dumber than you, you’re stuck holding the imaginary bag.
Geminid
@sab: My understanding is that Thomas Jefferson sent his sons to the Northwest Territories when they turned 21. He gave them a modest stake and had them listed on Monticello’s books as “Escaped.”
I could say for sure if I hadn’t lent out my copy of Annette Gordon-Reed’s The Hemingses of Monticello (2010). Gordon-Reed meticulously researched the lives of the Hemings familiy members, devoting something like 70 pages just to the years Sally Hemings and her brother George spent in Paris with Thomas Jefferson.
It’s a well-written book that won the Gordon-Reed a Pulitzer Prize for History. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about Sally Hemings and her family including her children.
TBone
@TBone: of course, lots of people create their own “coins” out of thin air because the supply of marks dumb enough to chase after the next big thing (buy the air) is endless and they might hit it big.
This is what happens when there is too much real money sloshing around and not enough real places for yacht owners to invest it for their desired rate of return.
laura
@Josie: you may be right regarding Ruben Gallego’s political calculus. My Senior Senator released a public statement regarding his opposition. Padilla’s statement is here if you might want to see it: https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/padilla-statement-on-senate-passage-of-laken-riley-act/
A Ghost to Most
@FDRLincoln:
“Don’t look back, you can never look back …”
Suzanne
Anne Appelbaum has a piece in the Atlantic today regarding Republican complicity. Not a gift link, so you’ll have to archive.ph it.
It interested me because it dives into a mindset that I used to think about a lot. I mentioned yesterday, when I was a kid, I did the thought experiment of being an ordinary German citizen, maybe supporting Hitler but maybe not, maybe just being fairly checked out (Ariana Grande voter of the era)… And I wondered what it was that got people to “snap out of it”. Like, was it a moment or an event? Was it a creeping realization? Was it documentary evidence?
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I really grasped that, for many people, there simply wasn’t anything that would get them out of it. They stayed in that mindset forever.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: They basically had to be defeated in war, and even then, a lot of the survivors didn’t buy it, they just kept quiet because they knew the tables had turned.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: Few of them “snapped out of it” until Germany’s total defeat, and very often not even then. Milton Mayer’s They Thought They Were Free is very illuminating on this.
sab
@Geminid: Gordon Reed or Gordan Reid? Sorry. I typo multiple time every day.
Also too I trust your reading. Jefferson did try to take care of his kids within the confines of slavery and unacknowledged or meaningless parenthood.
As twentieth or twenty-first century I cannot even fathom this, but it was a real constraint back then. Acknowledge them but not really. And then what about all the other humans you own you cannot acknowledge as even human because they are not kin.
Weird world they lived in and we need to realize how weird it was.
Renie
@Shalimar: My simple understanding is they take the value of the token times it by the number of possible tokens to be sold and come up with these ridiculous figures. Perhaps someone with way more knowledge than me can chime in.
Renie
@hitchhiker: I’ve always believed McConnell has been the absolute worst person who has and is destroying our country. Yet it appears trump may top him.
Suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: Funny you mention that book. Someone else recommended it to me just today. I obvs need to order it, maybe I can get to it this summer.
Sister Golden Bear
No executive order needed…. key federal websites were just purged of LGBTQ+ and HIV content, info and resources. Expect to see the erasure continue in coming days.
Plus social media are already doing similar things, e.g. only two weeks ago Instagram was caught “accidentally” blocking teen users from viewing the results for numerous LGBTQ+ terms.
Remember, the Project 2025 plan is to legally declare anything having to do with LGBTQ+ people and issues to be inherently pornographic, and then ban all porn.
As I’ve said before, their goal is to eradicate LGBTQ+ people from public view (including being in public while LGBTQ+).
Villago Delenda Est
If you’ve attempted to follow the link to Wonkette, Substack’s hamsters seem to be on strike right now.
Villago Delenda Est
@Sister Golden Bear: The Ellen Ripley treatment is needed for the Heritage Foundation.
zhena gogolia
@Sister Golden Bear: This is the Putin playbook.
Elizabelle
@Steve LaBonne: Thank you. Had not heard of that book. Amazingly, my county library has it, but it’s checked out.
I suspect books like that will be of great interest in coming months.
zhena gogolia
Everyone keeps talking about the Nazis, but I think Russia is a closer parallel for where we’re headed.
Geminid
@laura: Both of Georgia Democratic Senators voted yes on the bill. That would be Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Ossoff is looking st a tough reelection next year.
Warnock’s not up again until 2028, but he might have been giving Ossoff “cover.” I thought I saw Catherine Cortez-Masto do that for Jackie Rozen last year. Of course, no Senator’s gonna come out and say that.
Or, Warnock may have believed the vote was justified. I noticed that another Georgia Democrat, Rep. Lucy McBath, voted “Yea” and her west Atlanta seat is fairly safe. So did Alabama’s two Democratic House members, Terry Sewell and Shomari Figures.
Ohio’s Democratic House members voted 2 against and 3 for the bill. Two Reps in safe seats, Joyce Beatty and Shontelle Brown, were the two voting Nay. Marcy Kaptur, Greg Landsman and Emilia Sykes voted Yea.
Out West, all three Nevada House Democrats voted Yea, while at least six California Democrats voted Yea including four– Reps. Whitesides, Tran, Min and Gray– who just flipped Republican seats by narrow margins.
Some other House Yeas came from Sharice Davids (KS), Nikki Budzinski (IL), Oregon Reps. Val Hoyle and Janelle Bynum, and New York Reps. Morelle and Mannion. Bynum, Morelle and Mannion are freshman who flipped seats last November.
Ksmiami
@Shalimar: Bitcoin etc is a fraud. Nothing there.
Geminid
@sab: I think it’s Annette Gordon-Reed.
Gordon-Reed has had an interesting life. She grew up in a small Texas town with a population of around 800, and was one a very few Black kids in her school system.. Now she’s a Professor of Legal History at Harvard.
Sister Golden Bear
@zhena gogolia: Yes, quite literally, as I’m sure you know.
Elizabelle
@Suzanne: Buy it from Thriftbooks! It’s on backorder (small delay), but you save $6.50 or so and IT’S NOT AMAZON.
Harrison Wesley
@sab: Lots of rationalization, too, considering that Pastorius and the Germantown Quakers signed an anti-slavery petition in 1688.
zhena gogolia
@Sister Golden Bear: I spent the 1990s thinking we were going to influence Russia for the better. It has gone drastically the other way.
Quinerly
@Geminid: great book
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
IIRC, the polling showed that most Germans who were old enough to remember the Third Reich went to their graves convinced that the Nazi years were the best of their lives, that Hitler was mostly right and just went a little off the rails at the end, and that the Allies were just trying to make them feel bad with all those horrid videos from the camps.
Germany probably took the process of atoning for the past more seriously than any nation ever has, but pretty much all the credit for that goes to their Boomer or even younger generations.
Darkrose
@sab: Or you know, he could have stopped having sex with the enslaved teenager. But that would have been a bridge to far for the “great man”.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Steve LaBonne:
I’ve flogged Goodbye to the Mermaids, a riveting book by a woman born in 1933, grew up under Hitler, survived the bombings by the Allies and mass rape by the Russians to provide not only an account of how “everyday Germans” felt during the time frame, but also the postwar years as she didn’t leave Germany until 1950.
Germans didn’t have a proverbial “come to Jesus moment”, post-war they collectively acknowledged what they did and worked to make amends. Collectively because plenty of them never repented, all one has to do is read accounts of post-war families of hardcore Nazis to see that.
Peale
@Geminid: The Georgia Senators’ vote can be explained that the bill is named after a murder victim from Georgia. If you read about that case, its difficult to walk away from the fact that she would not have been murdered if this law was enacted. The murderer had only been in the country for 1 year and had already been arrested 3 or 4 times before the murder. So yeah, the right was going to run with that…because its actually effective. There were no extenuating circumstances in this case that would have made it appear that the murderer should have stayed in the country and if even if he were in the country legally on a tourist visa, I wouldn’t have been bothered one bit if CBP had told him to leave the country after his first offense. Even if there was a path to citizenship for the undocumented, this guy wasn’t lining up to be on it.
That’s the feeling you’re going up against in cases like this and its probably best to acknowledge that.
The Senators who opposed this bill are taking rather large risks that I hope is worth it. The downsides of the bill are hypothetical at this point.
Ohio Mom
@zhena gogolia: I agree, Putin and his oligarchs are the role models for the Trump administration.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
This isn’t about winning a majority of the electorate. This is about getting the people who are on our side already, either officially (e.g. elected Dems) or theoretically (e.g. union leaders) to oppose rather than to find common ground with Trump.
Josh Marshall’s been repeatedly saying the same thing: the function of an opposition is to oppose.
Geminid
@Peale: Yes, Laken Riley wss murdered in Georgia. But I thought much of Ossoff’s and Warnock’s calculus was similar to that of the other six Senate Democrats and the 48 House Democrats so I left that aspect out of my analysis.
For instance, Jahana Hayes’ Connecticut district is 800 miles away from Georgia and she voted for the bill. Sen. Shaheen’s state of New Hampshire is even further, and the three Nevada Democrats, the two Oregan Democrats and the four California Representatives I named are a couple thousand miles away. The common element among these thirteen Democrats is they all face tough reelections.
lowtechcyclist
@FDRLincoln:
Fixed. They aren’t a subsidiary of the Department of Redundancy Department.
lowtechcyclist
@A Ghost to Most:
Well played, sir. :-)
lowtechcyclist
@zhena gogolia:
Or what we used to call ‘banana republics.’ Ruled by an authoritarian strongman/grifter.
TBone
Let us remember, just two days ago, Elno threw Heil Hitler salutes in a very public forum. Yes, we’re looking at looking like Russia under Putin, but there exists more than one “role model” for these ignorant fucks.
Lest we forget.
Manyakitty
@WaterGirl: ahem. Fuck Adam Schiff today and forever. He talks big, but yeah, his phone is on silent.
Manyakitty
@sab: ope. Deep cut.
YY_Sima Qian
So, Marco Rubio’s nomination sailed through the Senate 99-0. I guess Senate Dems are grading on a curve.
Manyakitty
@YY_Sima Qian: probably to grab what is likely to be the least bad of the parade of horribles.
Ella in New Mexico
@hrprogressive: This is not helpful because it is wrong, and contributes NOTHING to how we’re going to fight this nightmare regime.
Ella in New Mexico
@Josie: let me just say that in Albuquerque, “non-violent crimes” like theft, burgelry and yes, even shoplifting are being committed by either employees of undocumented serial criminal or serial criminals who are undocumented.
And I have to day, as a crime victim, burglery or theft committed by undocumented individuals leads to violent crime in our communities more than anyone wants to talk about.
No, stealing 1 container of Tide to wash your 6 kids clothes seems like something relatively innocuous and shouldn’t rise to a deportable crime.
But that’s not what’s going on. Stealing an entire shipment of stuff off a truck or pallet is an entirely different thing, and all you need to do is cruise Facebook Market to see how easy it is for them to sell stolen goods. Literally entire lots of products from tools to cleaning supplies to clothing are up for grabs. As an example, In Albuquerque’s South Valley, we have illegals who are also leaders of major drug cartels coordinating large-scale shoplifting, vehicle and other major theft for resale that generates revenue for the cartels. They also use the money to buy huge caches of firearms. In addition, they are meshed in with human trafficking, of which the latest example is some asshole a who came here from CA with two 14 yr olds and had them do some “light shoplifing” to please and gain rep with local theft rings along with having sex with like 50 men in 3 days.
So maybe, the Democrats who voted for this law–or other legislation supposedly bad as described by mainstream DEMS– were not just siding with Republicans, maybe sometimes the clock is right twice a day and it was a reasonable victory.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ella in New Mexico:
I’m sure this Laiken Riley law will absolutely be used responsibly and won’t be used to arrest and deport a lot of innocent people. After all, you only have to be accused of a crime, not convicted of one, to face deportation.
And I wonder what will happen if countries don’t want to accept these individuals? I guess the Trump admin will have to build detention camps for them and I’m genuinely frightened to imagine what their fate will be then
Ella in New Mexico
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): In my experience, very few of these types of crimes involve an arrest at all. Some do, but overburdended police don’t show at hearings to testify to support the arrest.
Sorry, but if you are going to steal someone’s car to committ another crime and then flee the cops, or break into someone’s home and take their belongings, or are pulling out of a motel parking lot with someone’s life belongings stored in their U-Haul, or breaking into small businesses and stealing their cash registers and setting their bulding on fire or being an active part of a coordinated shoplifiting ring and you FINALLY get caught you really don’t deserve to be given some kind of pass, get out on bail and go on to continue to do the same stuff.
Of course, if you have never lived in a community where exactly that happens every day and is destroying it’s fabric, maybe you can more easily dream up worst case scenarios for why we shouldn’t refuse to allow crime to be committed by people who are here illegally.
But it sucks, and it shoudn’t happen. And if you come here to do those things and you get sent back, well, maybe you should have thought about this in the first place.
Thing is, the VAST majority of undocumented or temporarily documented people in our state adn country DON’T committ crimes. They follow the rules. Why should people who hurt us be treated equally with them? I’ll fight for their rights, not the criminals.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ella in New Mexico:
Sure, I’m sure the same administration who Elon Musk is apart of, who just threw a literal Nazi salute a day ago, won’t abuse this law. I’m sure police won’t abuse it either.
janesays
Pretty disappointed that Senator Warnock was one of the “aye” votes for the Laken Riley Act, as was Georgia’s other Democratic U.S. Senator, Jon Ossoff. Ossoff is up for re-election in two years, so maybe he thought it was necessary given that purple Georgia is probably still a little more red than blue.
MrPug
@Mark:
I’ve been thinking about the German situation, but the problem with that is who will play the role of the Allies in that scenario and break the back of fascism in this country if it comes to that?
MrPug
@Ella in New Mexico:
What part of “you only have to be accused of a crime” do you not get. So, MrPug could accuse Ella in New Mexico of stealing his dog toy, and in this scenario, MrPug is being an asshole and lying about that accusation, but Ella in New Mexico, an otherwise hardworking person, is deported anyway.
Do yo really think that anyone thinks people who rob other people don’t deserve to be punished?