Elections have consequences. The US Presidency is "winner take all". It's also important that the House and Senate are both controlled by the GOP as well. It shouldn't be a surprise that national governance is moving in a more conservative direction. That part is normal politics.
I was a little disappointed in the article, though, because it seems to confuse the scary and dangerous things that Trump does (lying, oaths of loyalty, pardoning political friends, corruption), with left/right politics (tax reform, health care, derivatives), and then also with simple cheap propaganda (reality television star, lost the popular vote by millions).
Those are three very different kinds of things. Including the cheap shots, and whining that the other side gets to enact their vision when you lost the election, really dilutes the much more sinister message of the corruption and personal loyalty demands and lying. It becomes much easier to just dismiss the whole article as the mere rantings of a loon.
> Are you afraid that a conservative court will do to liberals what the liberal court has been doing to conservatives for the past 65 years?
Yes, though I would not characterize it as "doing to liberals" or "doing to conservatives." I think that Roe v. Wade is dead, possibly Obergefell v. Hodges, possibly Lawrence v. Texas (which was the basis for Obergefell), possibly even Griswold v. Connecticut. The net effect of rolling back those decisions will be to disempower women and return to the days when gays were third-class citizens. I think that will be bad.
I worry that the Court will not do its job of protecting the rights of minorities to vote and be fairly represented (i.e. not be gerrymandered into irrelevance). I worry that workers will continue to have their legal leverage eroded, and will increasingly face a choice between destitution and submitting to unreasonable constraints on their personal lives imposed by their employers. I don't think anyone should have to make that choice.
I worry that the President will have a free hand to persecute Muslims and dark-skinned people as long as he cloaks under a facade of national security and "protecting the border." I don't see how the end-game of the President's current strategy can be anything other than a country where an inability or unwillingness to show your papers to the police on demand is an imprisonable offense. ICE has regularly harasses and even arrests citizens and legal residents. This was already a problem *before* Trump took office. It certainly won't get any better.
Of course, this burden will fall only on people with dark skin. No need for yellow stars this time around.
Maybe I should write my own post about this after all.
But yes, damn right I'm afraid. My grandparents fled Hitler. They told me what it was like in the early days, and their description is all but indistinguishable from the current state of affairs: a charismatic leader who cultivates a passionate following by overtly targeting an unpopular ethnic group, and who cements his power to the point where, when his actions become so egregious that it shocks the conscience of any reasonable person, it is much too late to stop him.
I genuinely want to know: what exactly is that you think that liberals have "done to conservatives"? Are you not free to choose not to have abortions? To worship as you see fit? To marry whom you wish? What exactly is it that you want that you don't have, other than the power to control how *other* people live *their* lives?
I just don't get the hopelessness or lack of words when the byline of your blog is "Preaching the gospel of evidence, experiment and reason since 2003." Surely EE&R can:
(1) help us understand how we got here (2) help us understand what reinforces the status quo (3) help us understand where we can go from here (4) provide models which predict narrow enough consequences such that they can be falsified
Now, I can see a few possibilities:
(A) EE&R cannot do these things (B) EE&R cannot yet do these things (C) EE&R is doing these things
If (A), I think that should be forthrightly admitted; the alternative to EE&R appears to be raw power, with at most some sort of façade. If (B), I think reasons why ought to be prevented, and openness should exist about what the intermediate state is. (Still raw power? Something like "common sense"?) If (C), then where is the EE&R?
ReplyDeleteAre you afraid that a conservative court will do to liberals what the liberal court has been doing to conservatives for the past 65 years?
If you’re not, you should be.
Elections have consequences. The US Presidency is "winner take all". It's also important that the House and Senate are both controlled by the GOP as well. It shouldn't be a surprise that national governance is moving in a more conservative direction. That part is normal politics.
ReplyDeleteI was a little disappointed in the article, though, because it seems to confuse the scary and dangerous things that Trump does (lying, oaths of loyalty, pardoning political friends, corruption), with left/right politics (tax reform, health care, derivatives), and then also with simple cheap propaganda (reality television star, lost the popular vote by millions).
Those are three very different kinds of things. Including the cheap shots, and whining that the other side gets to enact their vision when you lost the election, really dilutes the much more sinister message of the corruption and personal loyalty demands and lying. It becomes much easier to just dismiss the whole article as the mere rantings of a loon.
> Are you afraid that a conservative court will do to liberals what the liberal court has been doing to conservatives for the past 65 years?
ReplyDeleteYes, though I would not characterize it as "doing to liberals" or "doing to conservatives." I think that Roe v. Wade is dead, possibly Obergefell v. Hodges, possibly Lawrence v. Texas (which was the basis for Obergefell), possibly even Griswold v. Connecticut. The net effect of rolling back those decisions will be to disempower women and return to the days when gays were third-class citizens. I think that will be bad.
I worry that the Court will not do its job of protecting the rights of minorities to vote and be fairly represented (i.e. not be gerrymandered into irrelevance). I worry that workers will continue to have their legal leverage eroded, and will increasingly face a choice between destitution and submitting to unreasonable constraints on their personal lives imposed by their employers. I don't think anyone should have to make that choice.
I worry that the President will have a free hand to persecute Muslims and dark-skinned people as long as he cloaks under a facade of national security and "protecting the border." I don't see how the end-game of the President's current strategy can be anything other than a country where an inability or unwillingness to show your papers to the police on demand is an imprisonable offense. ICE has regularly harasses and even arrests citizens and legal residents. This was already a problem *before* Trump took office. It certainly won't get any better.
Of course, this burden will fall only on people with dark skin. No need for yellow stars this time around.
Maybe I should write my own post about this after all.
But yes, damn right I'm afraid. My grandparents fled Hitler. They told me what it was like in the early days, and their description is all but indistinguishable from the current state of affairs: a charismatic leader who cultivates a passionate following by overtly targeting an unpopular ethnic group, and who cements his power to the point where, when his actions become so egregious that it shocks the conscience of any reasonable person, it is much too late to stop him.
Yeah, it scares the hell out of me.
@Publius:
ReplyDeleteI genuinely want to know: what exactly is that you think that liberals have "done to conservatives"? Are you not free to choose not to have abortions? To worship as you see fit? To marry whom you wish? What exactly is it that you want that you don't have, other than the power to control how *other* people live *their* lives?
I just don't get the hopelessness or lack of words when the byline of your blog is "Preaching the gospel of evidence, experiment and reason since 2003." Surely EE&R can:
ReplyDelete(1) help us understand how we got here
(2) help us understand what reinforces the status quo
(3) help us understand where we can go from here
(4) provide models which predict narrow enough consequences such that they can be falsified
Now, I can see a few possibilities:
(A) EE&R cannot do these things
(B) EE&R cannot yet do these things
(C) EE&R is doing these things
If (A), I think that should be forthrightly admitted; the alternative to EE&R appears to be raw power, with at most some sort of façade. If (B), I think reasons why ought to be prevented, and openness should exist about what the intermediate state is. (Still raw power? Something like "common sense"?) If (C), then where is the EE&R?