This. And I think too many people who live in comfortably blue states or swing states underestimate how that toxic sentiment has spread to areas within their state.
First, you are mixing their capacity to cause some bloodshed with the capacity to actually prop up a MAGA dictatorship in Washington. That is much harder. There is a reason why, in history, urban revolts succeeded much more often than peasant uprisings. In a modern country, the cities have always been the centers of political gravity. It is much easier for the people of New York, Chicago or Washington to take to the streets than for rural folk from Iowa, South Dakota or Texas to assemble together in sufficient numbers, travel across the country and take concerted action to defend a MAGA dictatorship. Once you have lost control of the major cities, you are going down. Again, if a serious revolt occurs, Trump or whoever will be in charge will have to rely on the National Guard and the Army, not on some idiots from rural Midwest. And I would not bet on the dictator in such a circumstance. Second, public opinion is not static. Right now, Trump has a chance to be elected because a lot of American have the attention span of a goldfish. However, once the consequences of a MAGA government and their Project 2025 will hit America like a train, Trump will start leaking support like a sieve. Sure, there will always a core group of ideological fans, but how many of the fair-weather Trump supporters will still support Trump when the price of groceries will double and unemployment will be rampant thanks to Trump making a mess of US economy and America's international position? Add to this the indignation against the MAGA abuses which could have caused such a revolt in the first place and it would be extremely difficult for a government to retain sufficient support to keep itself in power.
Jon Sopel has a great new book about the Tories democratic slide in the UK, and the end of the so called "good chaps" theory of governance. In this theory, good constitutional governance relies on people in power understanding the system and committing to the standards ("doing the right thing") - if they stop doing that, and behave in the worst ways, no amount of written rules really help. I think this is similar to what has happened in the US. And I don't see how you really fix it via legal means. Fascism has to be soundly defeated, including rooting in out of government. T https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/...illed-off-the-good-chaps-theory-of-government
Total tangent about Romaian Revolution. As a rugby guy, thr Romanian rugby team no longer being made up of cops and military took a huge tumble in quality for years. Captain and we'll respected Romanian player Florian Murariu was an officer in the Romanian Army and was shot dead at a roadblock during the 1989 Revolution. They say the soldiers shot him accidentally as he went into crowd to calm them.
It has more to do with the history of, more or less, federalism or not. I forget the specifics, but it is filled with government corruption and incompetence mixed in with the social conservatism that is Catholicism.
I think we need to say that the leadership of the largest police union endorsed Trump. As we saw with the teamsters, local divisions might not be in such full throated agreement, and I would think that there would be a lot of turmoil over supporting a charged and a convicted felon. I'm sure this was covered, but this is not a conspiracy. This is something that McConnell stated was his goal, and one of the more conservative groups (Federalist Society?) has stated was their long term goal back in the 1980s. I'm sure it has morphed into a more authoritarian idea, but IIRC, it was initially based on conservative (evangelical?) Christianity with the main goal of overturning Roe.
The original goal was a reaction to school desegregation and separation of church and state taking prayer and scripture out of school. They stumbled into the abortion thing. It played well, and they ran with it, and that became a main tenet.
One thing that constantly comes to my mind is when the insurrection was occurring, the moment Babbitt was shot, they backed off. Even though many were armed, there was an immediate withdrawal of people. And I mean immediate, even before the reinforcements arrived. Not so sure about this part. We, here, all clearly remember the cluster******** that was Trump's covid response. And how he was in denial of the facts and science and promoted charlatans to positions of influence and responsibility they should not have. But how many people remember the problem he caused by his lack of response? You would think the people in those red zones that lost many people would, but they blame others for it. Or just think about it being a time when prices were cheaper, not when people were dying in numbers that were beyond the preventable. Currently we have a roaring economy, and have had for the past 4 years really. Sure, there was relatively high inflation for the US, but there was wage growth and high employment/low unemployment, etc. But all people remember is cheaper prices of eggs (and not even the culling of chickens which led, in part to higher prices of eggs). So, if Trump is elected and Project 2025 is implemented, the people who will need to change their views will be the same who complain about high prices without thinking about why the prices went up.
OYEZ OYEZ OYEZ! It's the 1st Monday in October and we already have an anti female health decision. Con justices must've had a restful summer to get their radical batteries charged. BREAKING: The Supreme Court lets stand a decision barring emergency abortions that violate Texas ban https://t.co/ZrKDWGTfDM— The Associated Press (@AP) October 7, 2024
And Musk gets rejected https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/07/politics/elon-musk-trump-twitter-records/index.html The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from Elon Musk’s X Corp. claiming special counsel Jack Smith violated the First Amendment when he obtained a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s messages on Twitter and then barred the company from disclosing it.
The notion that a social media operator would claim 1st Amendment protection in this case is comical. These are publicly available postings he later deleted. What was posted, when and when was it deleted. At least they got something right.
Didn't they just rule that hospitals have to follow federal law and provide emergency services (the case was Iowa or some such)?
A nice snapshot of public opinion of the federal judiciary and SCOTUS: https://news.gallup.com/poll/651527/party-divisions-views-supreme-court-keep-ratings-low.aspx highlights: 48% still have a great deal/fair amount of the federal judicial branch as a whole 44% still approve of the SCOTUS. Not surpassingly, this varies a lot on partisan grounds. 51% disapprove. 13% think SCOTUS is too liberal. 41% about right. 41% too conservative. The court/judiciary is not where it needs to be to do something as dramatic as SCOTUS expansion in what would be perceived as a heavy handed partisan move. Federal judicial branch confidence is on the low end of where wealthy liberal democracies stand. 60 was the average in the latest world values survey data for that subset of countries. Lowest in order: Slovakia (36), Italy (40), Czech (46), Spain (47), Lithuania (48), Cyprus+Portugal (49), Latvia (56), Estonia+Taiwan+USA (57), Canada+France (58). That was for the court system overall. I suspect the US has slipped here but is still higher than when we focus only on the federal level at 48. JMO, but confidence/faith needs to be at the very bottom of that list and the median respondent shouldn’t think the partisanship of SCOTUS is “about right” in its decision making. If elected, priority one of the Harris comms team should be to highlight the inconsistencies of SCOTUS decisions, the impact those decisions have on everyday people, and how those decisions privilege those of extreme wealth and corporations. There are a couple coequal top priorities but this must be one of them. Future fed and SCOTUS appointments and elections must be tied to the court through this lens with zero subtlety. Faith in the courts must be lower, the majority of the public needs to view the court as too conservative and the court must be viewed as a tool through a populist anti 95%+ of the country lens.
Dems are always slow on the uptake. Start a Federalist Society for liberalism. Hell, we'll even take centrism at this point. Get it back to the court of the 50s thru 70s
50-70 was the most liberal court in our history. That'd be nice but I doubt anyone here will be alive when that happens again.
Idaho this summer. They didn’t rule but instead punted it back to the lower courts, effectively providing a temporary stay. IIRC, they focused on a few very limited issues related specifically to Idaho and asked the lower court to clarify.
Coincided with the end of Jim Crow and growth of civil rights, rise of the post-war middle class and unions and CEOs not making 250X the salary of the average employee. Ahh, the good ol' pre-Reagan days (wipes tear)
Vote accordingly The Supreme Court has ruled that women must continue to die. The only way out from under this court is to vote for Harris/Walz. Make your voting plan now. https://t.co/stHblvmL8G— Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) October 7, 2024
It only applies to TX. For now. But it is now guidance for every conservative state in the country on what they can and can not put into similar laws.
And it was a total chickenshit way of doing this, by providing no decision or explanation, just refusing to hear it. Nice life you had there, a good chunk of pregnant women and their spouses.