Given how badly things have deteriorated in the first month, I highly doubt the Republicans will even pretend to have elections by the mid terms. My guess is that trump will start bleating about things being rigged, and even if he doesn't order an entirely compliant military to harass/intimidate/kill voters Republicans will just ignore any losses they have and just refuse to leave office. All they'd have to do to get any loss reversed is ask the supreme Court after all.
Edited to add: "Thomas and Alito will certainly do whatever Trump wants, but Barrett and Roberts, and to some extent Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, do seem to have some interest in maintaining a veneer of judicial independence"
They don't need to keep up the facade anymore, though. They're set. It's not like Republicans would ever allow one of them to be removed from the court, or another liberal to be added to it.
Bluntly, I don't see anything getting better until a lot of Republicans shuffle off this mortal coil.
But by giving in to him, they’re giving up their own power. They would be showing that the judiciary is meaningless. I hold out hope that they aren’t that soulless.
They're still set for life. The judicial power doesn't matter anymore. They're just living rubber stamps, and before long they won't even need to put in that much effort.
They had an incentive to do that though. They DID have a vested interest in maintaining a (paper thin) veneer of legitimacy, but they don't need that anymore. Voting against him is a pointless risk for them now.
A shoggoth is probably the most apt description of this year in US politics that I've seen thus far. I shall now be referring to Team Trump as Team Shoggoth at least internally. My concern is that I'm not sure what eats shoggoths? Seems like...nothing?
This is the bonus to having imaginary creatures as the embodiment of enemies. I can foresee exhausting arguments between “canon” Lovecraft fans (read as racists) and the superior continuation done with the mythos by writers of diversity like Caitlin R Kieran and Victor LaValle.
I want to believe this so much; it’s literally one of two threads my hopes are hanging on.
The only reason I can’t quite buy all the way in (and thus I’m continuing involvement with the protest movements) is that these two have continually failed upward their entire lives — Phony Stark has been a smidge luckier than Drumpf in the business world, but make no mistake it’s all been luck, and he’s still the richest dingus on earth after tanking Twitter.
Neither of them has ever actually had anything like a novel or good idea — but somehow, here we are.
So yes, I believe that they could absolutely destroy themselves with ineptitude, sure.
But that ineptitude hasn’t stopped them from getting where they are right now, so I’m not holding my breath for that.
The thread I’m holding on to for dear life is the power of people. It’s an uphill battle in the red states and they may never really understand how this fight is actually for them, but I’m continuing to fight.
If they implode under the weight of their own hubris, fantastic. But I’m not gonna sit around waiting for that to save us. There’s work to be done.
(All that said, the tiny glimmer of hope you’re highlighting got you a subscription from me. Keep inspiring others that hope is possible and they will join the fight.)
Ah, this is where it pays to look at things with a vague 19th Century outlook. They are not things one can prove—though I simply don’t know how, with a proper non-determinist reading, one could come up with a better explanation that there are productive forces that can’t be fettered. There is so much dynamism in the use of human potential that requires an accurate scientific outlook. This outlook can’t sustain the world view of the fascists. Maybe you could close off a country in the Carpathian Mountains but the USA could not successfully be so closed.
To see how hard it is, only has to travel through the USA hitting only cities. Fear will dampen the general trends, and violence and poverty will injure them severely isn’t any mechanism to kill them. Societies drifted away (only partially) from colonialism, segregation, apartheid, and the enslavement of people not only because people saw the moral wrongs but also because these social relations put a burdensome weight on the economic and material sides of life.
That’s not to say the arc of history bends towards justice. More that to get the world the fasccist wants will be like putting millions of genies back into their bottles. I don’t see how they could do it.
I do see how we could have fascism either on for 20 years or off and on for 40 though because it’s always been there, and it provides a tremendous advantage to some, and frames the worldview of far too many people for us to shake it off.
We could get feudalism, apartheid, whatever back if all technology were destroyed, and people’s memories erased. And societies decline as easily as they progress. Climate crisis might do something to derail the process but it’s got an energy of its own that isn’t simply coming out of our minds but is essential to the continual operation of everything modern life is based on.
Maybe it’s cold comfort to take a broader but this is a weird way I comfort myself.
Given how badly things have deteriorated in the first month, I highly doubt the Republicans will even pretend to have elections by the mid terms. My guess is that trump will start bleating about things being rigged, and even if he doesn't order an entirely compliant military to harass/intimidate/kill voters Republicans will just ignore any losses they have and just refuse to leave office. All they'd have to do to get any loss reversed is ask the supreme Court after all.
Edited to add: "Thomas and Alito will certainly do whatever Trump wants, but Barrett and Roberts, and to some extent Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, do seem to have some interest in maintaining a veneer of judicial independence"
They don't need to keep up the facade anymore, though. They're set. It's not like Republicans would ever allow one of them to be removed from the court, or another liberal to be added to it.
Bluntly, I don't see anything getting better until a lot of Republicans shuffle off this mortal coil.
But by giving in to him, they’re giving up their own power. They would be showing that the judiciary is meaningless. I hold out hope that they aren’t that soulless.
They're still set for life. The judicial power doesn't matter anymore. They're just living rubber stamps, and before long they won't even need to put in that much effort.
Roberts, Barrett, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh have all ruled against trump before. we'll see...but again, I wouldn't give up hope.
They had an incentive to do that though. They DID have a vested interest in maintaining a (paper thin) veneer of legitimacy, but they don't need that anymore. Voting against him is a pointless risk for them now.
Some folks are involved in NotMyPresidentDay on February 17.
Like the 50501 protests.
A shoggoth is probably the most apt description of this year in US politics that I've seen thus far. I shall now be referring to Team Trump as Team Shoggoth at least internally. My concern is that I'm not sure what eats shoggoths? Seems like...nothing?
obviously the answer is a flying purple shoggoth eater...
This is the bonus to having imaginary creatures as the embodiment of enemies. I can foresee exhausting arguments between “canon” Lovecraft fans (read as racists) and the superior continuation done with the mythos by writers of diversity like Caitlin R Kieran and Victor LaValle.
Thanks. I needed that.
I want to believe this so much; it’s literally one of two threads my hopes are hanging on.
The only reason I can’t quite buy all the way in (and thus I’m continuing involvement with the protest movements) is that these two have continually failed upward their entire lives — Phony Stark has been a smidge luckier than Drumpf in the business world, but make no mistake it’s all been luck, and he’s still the richest dingus on earth after tanking Twitter.
Neither of them has ever actually had anything like a novel or good idea — but somehow, here we are.
So yes, I believe that they could absolutely destroy themselves with ineptitude, sure.
But that ineptitude hasn’t stopped them from getting where they are right now, so I’m not holding my breath for that.
The thread I’m holding on to for dear life is the power of people. It’s an uphill battle in the red states and they may never really understand how this fight is actually for them, but I’m continuing to fight.
If they implode under the weight of their own hubris, fantastic. But I’m not gonna sit around waiting for that to save us. There’s work to be done.
(All that said, the tiny glimmer of hope you’re highlighting got you a subscription from me. Keep inspiring others that hope is possible and they will join the fight.)
Trump is old (not as old as me but still)…I’m hoping (futilely undoubtedly) that biology will take him out.
Not giving up! Protesting on 2/17. Thank you for this.
Ah, this is where it pays to look at things with a vague 19th Century outlook. They are not things one can prove—though I simply don’t know how, with a proper non-determinist reading, one could come up with a better explanation that there are productive forces that can’t be fettered. There is so much dynamism in the use of human potential that requires an accurate scientific outlook. This outlook can’t sustain the world view of the fascists. Maybe you could close off a country in the Carpathian Mountains but the USA could not successfully be so closed.
To see how hard it is, only has to travel through the USA hitting only cities. Fear will dampen the general trends, and violence and poverty will injure them severely isn’t any mechanism to kill them. Societies drifted away (only partially) from colonialism, segregation, apartheid, and the enslavement of people not only because people saw the moral wrongs but also because these social relations put a burdensome weight on the economic and material sides of life.
That’s not to say the arc of history bends towards justice. More that to get the world the fasccist wants will be like putting millions of genies back into their bottles. I don’t see how they could do it.
I do see how we could have fascism either on for 20 years or off and on for 40 though because it’s always been there, and it provides a tremendous advantage to some, and frames the worldview of far too many people for us to shake it off.
We could get feudalism, apartheid, whatever back if all technology were destroyed, and people’s memories erased. And societies decline as easily as they progress. Climate crisis might do something to derail the process but it’s got an energy of its own that isn’t simply coming out of our minds but is essential to the continual operation of everything modern life is based on.
Maybe it’s cold comfort to take a broader but this is a weird way I comfort myself.