You know, as one does.
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“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”-George Orwell.
For previous entries, click here.
You know, the normal way that presidents should deal with elected officials in the opposition party.
If you prefer text, here’s a run-down via Axios: Trump says he’d arrest Gov. Newsom.
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If anyone should be arrested, it’s Gavin Newsom. Unlike most of us, he has the resources to fight this fascist bullshit. It’s only going to get worse. Personally, if I were Newsom, I’d be frothing at the mouth and praying to be arrested. Maybe parade me in arm and leg cuffs and with a full-on SWAT team flanking me like I’m a terrorist while a bunch of witless balding morons talk about how a kid throwing rocks at SUVs is an insurrection.
What’s happening in Los Angeles is going EXACTLY as Trump hoped it would – major opposition to the ICE raids, coupled with his planned show of force, and news coverage that highlights flames and rock throwing protestors. Of course all of this is gleefully framed by Republicans as the actions of ‘lawless liberals’ and ‘a Democratic governor supports lawlessness. Trump couldn’t ask for more.
Democrats have by now forgotten the widespread Black Lives Matter urban protests, but the lasting images of days/weeks of chaos in Portland and other cities were used effectively by Republicans to brand Democrats as weak on law and order and incapable of effectively governing their cities.
Democrats better wake up and figure out how to deal with Immigration, because it looks like they’re willing to die on the hill by letting lawless actors run with this. It’s one thing to fight this in the courts, it’s another to take it to the streets where bad actors give Republicans fodder for the next round of political campaigns.
Get smart … fast.
If Homan and Epstein-bestie rapist Trump see evidence that Newsom illegally disguised hush money payments as campaign donations, illegally stole government documents, or illegally tried to stage a violent coup to overturn an election, then Newsom should be arrested. Post haste.
Seeing as Newsom has committed no such crimes — unlike fascistic, pathological lying thug and incompetent, unqualified career criminal Trump — I’d much prefer Newsom not be made a to look like a heroic martyr and put on a glide path to the 2028 Dem nomination with baseless arrest. I’d much prefer Gov. Beshear at the top of the ticket. Beshear is not just more electable, he’d be a better president, imo.
@al Ameda:
Democrats better wake up and figure out how to deal with Immigration, because it looks like they’re willing to die on the hill by letting lawless actors run with this.
Meh. Trump, a convicted felon, incited a violent terror attack on Congress and still got reelected, after Republicans fundraised for and sided with the terrorists. Trump’s approval rating still hovers in the mid to high 40s after he pardoned and released the insurrectionist criminals.
Doesn’t appear any determinative slice of American voters care about “lawlessness.” Americans vote on egg prices.
Personally, if I were Newsom, I’d be frothing at the mouth and praying to be arrested.
Slick Gavin is gleefully practicing his perp walk already, no doubt.
@al Ameda:
What exactly can the Democrats do here that they aren’t doing about violence? Are the guys setting Waymos on fire working for Karen Bass? Are they interning for Newsom? Can they tell them to knock it off? Because it can’t possibly be that people independent of party politics are furious about ICE and the police, and their tactics. And as far as forgetting about BLM, the Democrats spent four years reminding the Democrats of how bad it is to throw a brick. Probably the worst crime of all, to be honest. Nobody forgot a thing.
You know, the normal way that presidents should deal with elected officials in the opposition party.
The thing is, Trump alleges it is normal for the law to be weaponized against the opposition party. That is the underlying premise of his continuation in politics – he’s not a felon who has “illegally disguised hush money payments as campaign donations, or illegally stole government documents” (hat tip to @DK for the concise summation), but rather (Trump claims) he is a victim of Biden’s lawfare against him.
Newsom’s “Arrest me, tough guy” is the right idea, though I believe he needs to do a little more work to make clear the differentiation between Trump’s actions and what Trump alleges has happened to him. “Arrest me, tough guy, but you better be able to prove what crime I committed in a court of law. Because if you can’t convict me before a jury, I’m going to rub your face in it until 2028 and beyond.” Taunt Trump with the comparison and TACO.
Republicans get away with pushing their narrative because they own the largest media organs and are shameless about pushing propaganda. The supposedly liberal media is addicted to clicks and both-siderism and never push a coherent counter-narrative (even when it’s objectively more accurate). And most of America ends up with a very distorted view of what’s actually happening. It’s not “the Democrats” fault-it’s modern technology and media in a time of late-stage capitalism.
Free speech is critical to a functional democracy/republic. Propaganda is poison to it. Propaganda has won in this country.
Eventually reality will reassert itself-it always does. The damage along the way will be devastating though, and mostly fall on people who don’t deserve it.
Was binging Andor and Rogue One this weekend and was struck by the repeated line that rebellions are built on hope. I have no hope left.
So, I feel like large a protest should be held in locations slightly adjacent – just out of reach of federal buildings and property. Have large aggressive protests but make it clear federal and guard troops are guarding thin air. Of course they need to be somehow engaged with those being detained, but at a distance to be a speech presence but no physical danger to the federal officers.
@al Ameda: Exactly. I don’t know why people hand wave it away, but this is exactly how Democrats continue to lose. It’s poor optics, regardless of the underlying righteousness of the cause…
The “riots” are mostly loud civil protests which indeed include trespassing. The few incidents of torching and looting that I have seen so far are misadventurers taking advantage of a grim situation. When BLM marchers were happening they were a good number of opportunists, from right and left, taking advantage of the unrest. Little did I know in my own bubble that there are probably hundreds if not thousands of such people on the sideline ready to take advantage of such situations. Another thing, among some MAGA people, sending the military to any situation inside the United States, rubs them the wrong way, not to mention the libertarians. There is a reason why Noem was able to project forcefully against Biden calling the National Guard when this issue arose previously (of course no need to bring up her hypocrisy on the matter). As to the MAGA evangelists, I’m sure they think calling the marines is God’s calling.
https://bsky.app/profile/jamellebouie.net/post/3lr7bluthxk2g
i simply do not understand those of you who look at the white house and say to yourselves, “these are hyper competent people who are executing a sophisticated plan with high odds for success”…what i see is a white house whose ambitions outstrip its resources, who did not count on facing mass resistance, and which is scrambling to escalate the situation in hopes that a display of force will make people shut up
I’m not — and I’m pretty sure they are not — trying to reassure people. The present situation is extremely dangerous, and a lot of very bad things are extremely possible. Including some very grim outcomes. The good outcomes may not be all that good, and they may go through a lot of damage to the nation in general, and to a lot of individual people as well.
And yet the idea that it is simply a given that Trump will inevitably succeed in what he’s doing is flat-out wrong. He’s defeated all the time. He chooses battles badly, doesn’t prepare for them at all, hires unqualified incompetents to run things and then interferes without bothering to learn anything about the situation. He believes that he’s best served by people who will go along with whatever he wants — unlike his first-term White House staff and executive branch choices, many of whom turned back his excesses. He is not.
At best, he’s embarked on an incredibly high-risk strategy of attempting to rule like a dictator without anything like the kinds of popular policies and competent administration that might make people accept it. But in reality calling it a strategy is a vast overstatement. He follows his impulses, and whatever happens, happens.
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Has Trump considered any of this? Has the Attorney General, the secretarys of Defense and Homeland Security, or anyone else? Or is it all Trump’s impulses, perhaps manipulated by various White House staffers and GOP-aligned media talking heads with a variety of agendas, while the rest of the administration competes to salute quickest and jump highest? Evidence that it’s the latter and they’re just making it up as the go along: reported failure to even figure out where National Guard troops would sleep in LA. Or: Deploying troops without first putting together rules of engagement and fully coordinating with law enforement.
For all of the pundit obsession with what the Democrats and the protesters should be saying and doing, the far more important questions are the president’s choices. Such as: Is he capable of focusing on the portions of his policy goals that are broadly popular and split Democrats? Perhaps because we all know: He isn’t. He’s going to bully his way forward, and all of us — himself very much included — will have to live with the consequences. But we shouldn’t act as if he and his administration have no choice but to do so. They very much do.
