US Politics: What will the InJustice League do next?

[Poobah]

I've seen this sentiment a few times in reading the past couple of threads over the past week so I feel I have to ask: Those minimising current events and mocking posters pointing out/worrying about how bad things have gotten for US democracy and the current trajectory, you realise that there are more states than "the end of the world" and "not the literal end of the world so it'll be alright eventually" right? When you say "this too shall pass" you gotta consider the fucking cost of the passing, sure bad times have never lasted forever, sure authoritarian regimes may eventually fall but you do realise that they tend to do all kinds of abhorrent shit in the meantime, kill a lot of fucking people, right?

I have to wonder how many people advising stoicism in the face of "hard times" will actually be facing those hard times? Are you straight? White? Cisgendered? Relatively affluent? How many of you will merely be uncomfortable in for foreseeable future, and while you're uncomfortable how many people will die? How many people of colour? How many women? How many queer people? How many trans people? How may poor people? How many more jailed, harassed, and discriminated against?

[Hereward]

5 minutes ago, Poobah said:

I've seen this sentiment a few times in reading the past couple of threads over the past week so I feel I have to ask: Those minimising current events and mocking posters pointing out/worrying about how bad things have gotten for US democracy and the current trajectory, you realise that there are more states than "the end of the world" and "not the literal end of the world so it'll be alright eventually" right? When you say "this too shall pass" you gotta consider the fucking cost of the passing, sure bad times have never lasted forever, sure authoritarian regimes may eventually fall but you do realise that they tend to do all kinds of abhorrent shit in the meantime, kill a lot of fucking people, right?

I have to wonder how many people advising stoicism in the face of "hard times" will actually be facing those hard times? Are you straight? White? Cisgendered? Relatively affluent? How many of you will merely be uncomfortable in for foreseeable future, and while you're uncomfortable how many people will die? How many people of colour? How many women? How many queer people? How many trans people? How may poor people? How many more jailed, harassed, and discriminated against?

I agree wholeheartedly with the first paragraph, but feel I need to point out that Jewish people in western and Central Europe where also white, straight and relatively affluent. Once we go down that route, there’s no guarantee who is safe. 

[DMC]

20 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And this matters how? Saying there were legitimate fiscal conservatives in 70s is meaningless. Once Reagan took over the party they ceased being fiscal conservatives despite how they branded themselves.

Again I'd go further than this.  The GOP certainly wasn't fiscally responsible when their anti-regulation, laissez-faire economic system ended their period of party dominance with the Great Depression.  Then they proceeded to, in many cases, adamantly resist the New Deal and decry it as the onset of radical socialism or even communism.  And then after continually getting their ass kicked they essentially acquiesced to the New Deal era with Friedman/Nixon exclaiming "we're all Keynesians now."

So, I understand why Wilbur, based on his own experience and age, may identify the GOP as "fiscally responsible."  But considering the ideological overlap and marked lack of polarization during the New Deal era (i.e. pre-Reagan), that in no way suggests Republicans were more fiscally responsible than Democrats at the time.

[Ran]

3 hours ago, Babblebauble said:

When did Judges get to start making demands as to the ideological constitution of their possible replacements? Isn't that like a direct abdication of even the pretense of impartiality? 

We're REWARDING this behavior?

This sort of stuff has been happening for awhile and is due to how the rules for filling judicial vacancies interact with the process by which judges retire. TL;DR: Until the rules are changed, judges can hold up creating vacancies unless they get a preferred successor, and right now rules are unlikely to change. More here. Judges have rescinded going on senior status to prevent someone they don't want taking a seat. Judge Kanne, cited in the Reason/Volokh article, died two weeks ago still in office after having rescinded his retirement four years ago because Trump wasn't going to appoint a former clerk of his.

[JGP]

 

17 minutes ago, Hereward said:

I can only assume Raja’s reaction demonstrates he is a a virulent anti-Semite. I am wholly unsurprised.

The Jewish people have... I don't got the words. Or the required background knowledge. But look past that.

Might be the centering of whiteness despite that, Here buddy lol 

 

Something to consider. Seems like a lot of people look at the subject abstractly. Sure, no one yet can say exactly what's going to happen because the modelling isn't up to snuff, but we're currently locked in around 1.2 or .3 There are legit baked in consequences that need to be dealt with, while somehow Russia and fundamentalist fascism of any creed parks their shit during the biggest power grab I've seen in the time I started paying paying attention.

edit: or make that a question

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Babblebauble said:

When did Judges get to start making demands as to the ideological constitution of their possible replacements? Isn't that like a direct abdication of even the pretense of impartiality? 

We're REWARDING this behavior?

Since the SCOTUS xtian reichlican oligarchy took over the USA.

Those who say 'this too shall pass,' seem to have no idea how long this is likely to last.  I highly suggest for such to read in detail the accounts of Europe in the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries, for almost everyone, not only the vast majority of the truly immiserated in terms of food, clothing, housing, climate crash, disease, constant war, and the rest.  As Poobah says.

How many of us here can truly imagine, have a sense of what it is like, to spend one's entire life without dentistry?

Then there's the reality that most people can't even handle what we've been going through since the pandemic -- even people very comfortable -- or would be comfortable, if people would just stop have sex in ways we don't like, stop talking about covid or even thinking of it, but since people won't, we'll just be total assholes to anybody we feel like, even just random people we've never seen before, but nevertheless we'll just walk up to that elderly woman and punch her in the face.  It's all YOUR fault.  YOU made me do it.

I've read many studies of such times in many places.  Civilization collapses are truly awful, and it takes centuries more often than not to even begin to recover.

 

[Zorral]

But the Democrats currently have the White House and, for the next six months, control over both houses of Congress — slim and fragile as the margin in the Senate might be. That is power. And power can be harnessed to expand the Court, pass legislation to answer the Court’s challenges, impeach seditious and perjurious justices, and more. I don’t have a magic formula for making that happen — especially for counteracting Senators Manchin and Sinema’s reactionary intransigence. The alternatives, if they fail to find a way to use that power, are clear — “not neutrality, but victory” for the forces of repression, as a hard-right blog editor put it. All I can do is to refer the liberals back to the Kreyòl — to stop looking at paper institutions that your enemies already disregard, and start looking for ways to use your existing power instead.

https://theracket.news/p/power-is-how-you-use-it

Quote

 

.... As anyone actually familiar with Haiti can tell you, the proverb is the opposite of a call to violence: it’s an ironic comment on the exercise of state power, which uses paper laws as a pretense but in actuality rules by force. The three liberal justices made the same point in their dissent to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health:

So how does that approach prevent the “scale of justice” from “waver[ing] with every new judge’s opinion”? It does not. It makes radical change too easy and too fast, based on nothing more than the new views of new judges. The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them. The majority thereby substitutes a rule by judges for the rule of law.1

This won’t be theoretical for long. Dobbs will be implemented by the armed wing of the state: police with guns trained on abortion providers and patients, maybe even border checkpoints confining anyone suspected of being pregnant to their home states. Merrick Garland has claimed that the latter is impossible — that, as the Washington Post paraphrased, “the Constitution was unequivocal on the legality of crossing state lines for medical treatment.” But until last week every federal official thought the Constitution unequivocally guaranteed a right to abortion up to “viability” too. Paper is easily torn.

That’s been the theme of this most epochal of reactionary Supreme Court terms: illegitimate justices arbitrarily substituting their will for decades of case law, with no concern for consistency or logic. Are you a state legislature trying to control the proliferation of guns in a way your state’s citizens see fit? That’s unconstitutional (because of Dred Scott?). Are you a group of Black citizens trying to keep your state legislature from stripping the power of your vote? Whoops, that’s unconstitutional too, for undisclosable reasons. And abortion? That’s a matter for each individual state to figure out! (Unless, perhaps, a future Republican Congress just decides to outlaw it for everyone.)

The session ended with an Avengers-style post-credits teaser for next term: The Court granted cert to Moore v. Harper, a North Carolina case that could end with state legislatures — the same ones that Republicans have spent the last decade-plus gerrymandering — having an absolute right to draw electoral maps, suppress votes, and even throw out their entire state’s presidential vote (say, in Georgia, Pennsylvania, or Arizona) and substitute it with their own slate of electors in 2024. Four of the conservative justices (Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch) and probably a fifth (Barrett) are expected to rule in favor of the so-called, made-up “independent state legislature theory.” ....

 

 

[Ran]

54 minutes ago, Zorral said:

I highly suggest for such to read in detail the accounts of Europe in the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries, for almost everyone, not only the vast majority of the truly immiserated in terms of food, clothing, housing, climate crash, disease, constant war, and the rest.

What a bizarre comparison. The US isn't going to go anywhere, it's not going to vanish, the globe is not going to plunge into a dark age, it'll keep ticking along as it always has. 

This thread is giving me serious doomsday cult vibes.

[JGP]

Doth the King troll

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Those who say 'this too shall pass,' seem to have no idea how long this is likely to last.  I highly suggest for such to read in detail the accounts of Europe in the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries, for almost everyone, not only the vast majority of the truly immiserated in terms of food, clothing, housing, climate crash, disease, constant war, and the rest.  As Poobah says.

Unless we get a massive volcanic eruption or a meteor strike that darkens the skies over half the planet, this comparison is not so good. Yes, climate change is happening, but it's at a steady(ish) state over many decades. That being said, I also agree with the above message from Poobah.

[Zorral]

The latest says otherwise, that it is a steady state over many decades.  The climate experts think 2050 is fairly likely for full climate collapse.

You think it can't really be that bad, that fairly comfy conditions will still be in place for many?  Look at what just 4 years of romperisto and 3 years of covid have done to living standards of so many, right here in River City, er, the USA.

 

[Ran]

13 minutes ago, JGP said:

Doth the King troll

Nope. People are entering increasing states of hysteria when they start talking about a Supreme Court ruling as harbinger of some sort of Fall of the Roman Empire-like dark ages to come. It’s being blown wildly out of proportion. 

 

[JGP]

That surprises me dude.

[King Ned Stark]

3 hours ago, Poobah said:

I've seen this sentiment a few times in reading the past couple of threads over the past week so I feel I have to ask: Those minimising current events and mocking posters pointing out/worrying about how bad things have gotten for US democracy and the current trajectory, you realise that there are more states than "the end of the world" and "not the literal end of the world so it'll be alright eventually" right? When you say "this too shall pass" you gotta consider the fucking cost of the passing, sure bad times have never lasted forever, sure authoritarian regimes may eventually fall but you do realise that they tend to do all kinds of abhorrent shit in the meantime, kill a lot of fucking people, right?

I have to wonder how many people advising stoicism in the face of "hard times" will actually be facing those hard times? Are you straight? White? Cisgendered? Relatively affluent? How many of you will merely be uncomfortable in for foreseeable future, and while you're uncomfortable how many people will die? How many people of colour? How many women? How many queer people? How many trans people? How may poor people? How many more jailed, harassed, and discriminated against?

There is possibly 10% of the population that’s believes the opposite; that if the democrats controlled all three branches of government, and the Supreme Court, then the end is here for humanity.  Ran’s posts are some of the most reasonable, and intelligent, I have seen in the politics thread in years (granted I seldom visit and post less).  Things will swing back, as he said “this will pass”.  Nothing so far; WW2, the Cuban missile crisis, the Black Plague has ended us.  I disagree with a lot of you of some issues, but don’t let this cause you trouble, it will swing back in your favor in a few years.  

[Corvinus85]

6 minutes ago, King Ned Stark said:

There is possibly 10% of the population that’s believes the opposite; that if the democrats controlled all three branches of government, and the Supreme Court, then the end is here for humanity.  Ran’s posts are some of the most reasonable, and intelligent, I have seen in the politics thread in years (granted I seldom visit and post less).  Things will swing back, as he said “this will pass”.  Nothing so far; WW2, the Cuban missile crisis, the Black Plague has ended us.  I disagree with a lot of you of some issues, but don’t let this cause you trouble, it will swing back in your favor in a few years.  

Sure, but Poobah's post is clear - what will be the cost? Because WW2 killed about 60 million people. That's how it passed.

We must look at all aspects of history, the good and the bad, when we attempt to make judgements about our current situation and how it will evolve in our lifetimes. 

[JGP]

3 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

We must look at all aspects of history, the good and the bad, when we attempt to make judgements about our current situation and how it will evolve in our lifetimes. 

Try to be encouraging. Please.

[Zorral]

There is this other thing too -- that for girls and women the collapse of this world will be far, far worse than for men.

Which, one cannot help but suppose, is the point.  Cruelty is always Their point.  They say so, you know.

Hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last week, a man with a wiry, squared-off beard and a metal cross around his neck celebrated with his team at a Brazilian steakhouse. He pulled out his phone to livestream to his followers.

“We have delivered a huge blow to the enemy and to this industry,” the man, Jeff Durbin, said. But, he explained, “our work has just really begun.”

“Even the states that have trigger laws,” which ban abortion at conception without exceptions for rape or incest, did not go far enough, Mr. Durbin, a pastor in the greater Phoenix area, said. “They do not believe that the woman should ever be punished.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/01/us/abortion-abolitionists.html

Been hearing the same thing all my life from everyone who want to look away: "Be more hopeful.  Things aren't that bad. Things can't get that bad." And then, by golly they do get that bad, and keep getting worse.  I'm tired of listening to people who put their fingers in their ears.
 

 

[King Ned Stark]

2 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Sure, but Poobah's post is clear - what will be the cost? Because WW2 killed about 60 million people. That's how it passed.

We must look at all aspects of history, the good and the bad, when we attempt to make judgements about our current situation and how it will evolve in our lifetimes. 

I agree.  But what can you do (vote, protest, donate aside) except try to be happy with who and what you have.  People, by and large, in my bitter and cynical opinion; are selfish and greedy, and pretty terrible when it comes to concern for their fellow person.  I love history, but reading this thread I know I’m not as smart as any of you.  However, my novice study of history has led me to believe that humanity is brutal and cruel.  I think that’s why in 1996 when I was in high school detention, I read Game of Thrones straight through. Brilliant book, Martin is brilliant.  That’s why I picked my username, though, I was kind of old and outdated, “too serious”, when I was a teenager.

I could be wrong, normally am, but I believe that things will swing back closer to what you want.  And if not, just be a good person (I’m sure you are).  Don’t let the dealings of those in power ruin how you feel.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

26 minutes ago, Ran said:

Nope. People are entering increasing states of hysteria when they start talking about a Supreme Court ruling as harbinger of some sort of Fall of the Roman Empire-like dark ages to come. It’s being blown wildly out of proportion. 

 

Are you not taken aback at all by the increase in speed everything's moving at? I recall being at Obama's Minneapolis HQ a decade ago and some of the junior staffers were saying that if Romney won it would be the end of democracy. I thought it was a shockingly dumb comment. Five years ago around this time I thought Trump was a wannabe autocrat and that's why it was a dangerous mistake to ever let him win the presidency, but I didn't think he could actually end our democracy. That seemed like a fairly common opinion among the academics on TV. Now it seems like it's a certainty Republicans will do this the next time they have unified power and that opinion is widely shared. And it's not just happening with free and fair elections. Across the board Republicans are turning things up to eleven and are moving with alarming speed. I do think we over state how individual acts are leading to America's downfall, but when you combine everything and look at the direction it's moving it's hard not to conclude that this country is about to enter a very dark period of time with no end in sight.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Some actual good news?