I wish it were openly acknowledged that Trump would have never been able to retain the US Presidency no matter what the outcome of Jan 6. Sure, he might have been President of a handful of red states for some time, but there's no way in hell that he would have been recognized as President of the 50 United States. I often wonder if Trump got that far in his thinking. I joined a tennis league that runs this month. I'm the only 2.5 player on the team of 3.0's and 3.5's. I'll be playing up as a 3.0 as they say. Here's hoping.
How do you know that? Isn't that such uncharted territory that it's impossible to determine how public opinion would evolve if Trump refused to leave the White House, and had enough Secret Service and Pentagon flunkies to hole up in there for a few weeks? The legitimacy of the presidency is something we the people grant, if the perception is there, right? I'm sure that Trump would rather be president of some states than none, but I mean... there are tens of millions of people who still genuinely believe that Trump is the rightful president, and believing or pretending like Trump was wrongfully denied a second term is literally the only litmus test for holding public office in the GOP. Difference between them and us? We are objectively correct. But does that really matter? Maybe only insomuch as being a motivating force, and I really, really, realllllllly don't wanna have to experimentally test whether or not the left is too soft to riot in the streets, should the situation call for it. I'm interested to see how mobilized the Trumpists are during the midterms for poll watching/intimidating, but I'm 100% sure Trump intends to whip them into a frenzy by the end of 2024. He could even legitimately win the election and just decide to have some fun, like, in December of '24: "IF SLEEPY JOE LOST THE ELECTION THEN WHY IS HE SLEEPING IN THE WHITE HOUSE??? MAYBE WE WILL HAVE TO KICK HIM OUT OURSELVES!!!". Especially if DoJ indicts, he'll go for broke. And DoJ has to indict. Making decisions based on the fear of violence from Trumpists is letting Trumpism win. I breathed like 10,000 sighs of relief in the early AM of Jan. 7th, when they finished certifying the election. Some relief was because, yes, our democracy survived, but a lot of relief came from the fact that I wouldn't have to travel to DC on the 20th and attempt to extract Trump from the white house myself, because he'd just shot his shot, and it failed. I guess that's another big difference between me and the Trumpists: I'm not jonesing for violence, but we also probably can't defeat fascism by politely asking the fascists to stop fasc'ing. In the meantime, it's time to talk about letting an international team of election workers help us out for the next several election cycles. The rubber stamp wouldn't sway any Trumpists, of course, but it will help out "independents" and foreign perceptions of our democracy's health. edit: btw, I suspect that Trump used a burner phone on Jan. 6, and ordered the deletions of J6 records, including texts. Probably tried to order the deletion of the order to delete records. And DoJ is probably going for Trump, there's no other good reason to seek Cipollone. Also; Alex Jones. lolI wish it were openly acknowledged that Trump would have never been able to retain the US Presidency no matter what the outcome of Jan 6.
Mile High View Trump managed to subvert or destroy everyone he touched, and he managed to rally all those with a personal interest in his success. But the United States is a bureaucracy, home to a culture that lives by bureaucracy, with a bureaucratic economy, a bureaucratic society and a bureaucratic way of life. "Let me speak to your manager." "I'm going to sue." "People will hear about this." We are not swashbucklers, us Americans. We firmly believe in procedure and place. Not everyone, of course, but everyone who matters. Thing about bureaucracy is it's the safest, most secure method for power distribution because everyone will protect their fiefdom first and foremost and if they dream, they dream of a bigger fiefdom. We tell stories of the janitor who stormed the boardroom but they're bullshit, ours is a society of incremental improvements sprinkled with a few rags-to-riches stories to keep us all hustling. I think the first notification I had of the Jan 6 riots was BFX commenting that they'd stormed the capitol in chat or something. 'cuz yeah - Josh Hawley is going to object to the election or whatever and the Republicans are going to be sore losers about it but HUNDREDS of bureaucrats, Republicans all, had again and again and again and again gone "this is my fiefdom" in response to the question "do you want a coup". Great. You took a shit on Nancy Pelosi's desk. What's your 100-day plan? Yeah - the rabble-rousers are never gonna let it go. Oswald didn't act alone, the Towers didn't fall because of jet fuel and Trump won the election. They're rabble-rousers, though, and if they were any fucking good at interfacing with a bureaucratic society they wouldn't slurp down chemtrails videos. It's much easier insisting that Trump is your true president while continuing to pay your taxes and stop at traffic lights. Ultimately? We love the bureaucracy. We love the system that continues to work even when the president advises people to drink bleach. "don't take him literally, take him seriously." Okay, whatever rich sociopath the main thing the Trump presidency accomplished was hollowing out government for a generation of Democrats with an axe to grind. There's a bunch of missing text messages now because the little people went along with the coup because they weren't high enough up to recognize how little was in it for them. That's the whole of the Trump administration - pie-eyed rubes who couldn't do political calculus. Those opposing? Needn't like Democrats in the slightest, they just need a nagging suspicion that a cabal that doesn't keep its word is a cabal you don't gain from joining. You aren't supporting Trump, you're supporting the destruction of the system that got you where you are, dipshit, and this new system doesn't seem to benefit anyone who isn't named Donald Trump in the long run. Trump. Was NEVER. Going to retain the presidency come hell or high water. The minute the court challenges started going against him it was all over. Even if he'd won half the ones he'd brought it would have been fuckin' done. Liberals don't want to talk about this. Conservatives don't want to talk about this. But fundamentally, we adore process and the process, broken as it is, selected Joe Biden.
I agree with almost all of that! Rare, kinda, on the subject of Trumpology. I guess you're right that the military largely passed the test (excepting Flynn, Pompeo and other ex-military traitors), because I imagine there's stuff he tried that we still don't know about. There was talk of seizing voting machines, but I mean like "Hey, Kash, what if we... what if I get a thousand of the good guys, get the best guns for the good guys, only the good guys, and have them here around the property to let everyone know I'm still president. Will the other guys shoot? No, right? They're friends? Don't shoot friends. Kash: How many good guys did you say you've found, so far?" is a totally believable scenario. Yeah, I noticed that too. Wolf, Cuffari, other Trump-appointed and often acting people. Idiots. I mean seriously, if DoJ decides to prosecute, 'cuz cases like e.g. destruction of records are kinda open and shut, Watergate becomes almost laughable, in comparison. Comparisons to the civil war seem more appropriate. Yup. System sucks. Problem is, the idea driving the only political camp seemingly capable of taking radical action is that we should change the system to a theo-fascist enthostate. The left has had a few W's lately in policy, but is largely incapable of any action at all, much less radical action. The left is corporate elitists policing progressives. Super amazeballs stuff. Love voting dem. I think if we get DeSantis instead of Trump, we slip into a slower decline, but it'll give an opportunity for the next carnival barker to rise up on the right. I don't think DeSantis will prove radical enough for the base. Or charismatic, like you've said, or maybe both. Six more years of almost guaranteed ongoing radicalization of the base? Dude they are going to need to freebase AOC head-exploding deepfakes by fall of 2028. The country will obviously be going to shite from DeSantis, who is too meek and mild to nuke Ukraine for us. We'll obviously need someone willing to purge femininity like DeSantis's from the country. Who knows where we'll be starting from by the time Trumpism has run its course? Maybe we should think about that, and what we'd wanna do at e.g. a Constitutional convention. Find additional ways to place checks on the executive? Re-codify and amend or recommit to enforcing/preserving human rights? Economic restructuring? Ranked. Choice. Voting.?There's a bunch of missing text messages now because the little people went along with the coup
I've been grappling with this. I've been grappling with the naysayers who insisted American democracy would die November 2019. I've been grappling with all the journalists and pundits born under authoritarianism or whose countries slipped into authoritarianism pointing at the US and going "you're next." I've been grappling with Tim Snyder, who wrote an entire book about the rise of Hitler and then taped on a couple dozen paragraphs that went "because Germany therefore USA." And by god it's made me an American exceptionalist. There's a bit in last night's For All Mankind (no spoilers) where the president is dealing with a very Lewinsky-like dilemma and says "but if I do that it will weaken the office of the presidency for me and every president who comes after" and I almost said "like that's a bad thing" aloud. 'cuz that's how we got William Barr. Dude wanted a unitary executive, Trump wanted a unitary executive, and Barr lied to himself about whether or not Trump was fit to lead. I think Trump has weakened the office of the presidency, and I think that's about the only good thing he did. Much like Congress didn't want anybody running for a 3rd term for president after FDR won it, a lot of shit Trump did won't be doable in the future. But more than that, I think anyone with a sober understanding of American politics wouldn't have done most of the shit Trump did. He didn't have a plan, he was probing for weakness. Dude took a pop quiz on executive authority and failed. And I think the only way we end up with another Trump is if somehow everyone on both sides of the aisle manages to not learn a single goddamn thing and we somehow stumble into another feckless, vainglorious narcissist in a time when both parties are offering up heaping plates of bullshit for the electorate to swallow. I don't like Mitch McConnell, but I recognize that he's an exemplar of how an effective legislator becomes a powerful man. I don't like Dick Cheney, but I recognize that he's an exemplar of how a backroom dealer becomes a powerful man. I don't like Paul Ryan, but I recognize that he's an exemplar of how a charismatic politician becomes a powerful man. And I draw the conclusion that Paul Ryan hung up his spurs because there can be only one. We don't talk about the National Front, we talk about Marine Le Pen. We don't talk about Fidesz, we talk about Viktor Orban. We do talk about the Five Star Movement but only in terms of spoilers now that Conti's out. And we do that in a legendarily fractious political system that elected a porn star in the '80s. When a populist took over Italy? He took it over again and again and again. Berlusconi knows what to do with power, and he knows what he can do with it. In a political system like Italy, he's got a lot of room to run. Trump is like a fail version of Berlusconi. He couldn't assume the presidency without conditions being perfect, and once assumed, he accomplished fuckall. I don't even think that's Trump's fault - in order to govern a bureaucracy you need to be a decent bureaucrat but in order to run as a populist you must eschew bureaucracy. I've come around, more and more, to contemplating Trump as a vaccine for democracy. It was fuckin' rough, we thought we were gonna die, but we're in the process of generating a fuckton of antibodies. Fuckin' Kansas, dawg. Kansas should have been a shitshow: So the anti-abortion legislators behind the Constitutional amendment were hoping for a smaller electorate that was skewed toward opponents of abortions rights. Then, they made the text of the Constitutional amendment itself incredibly confusing: The proposed text makes it seem like the Kansas government funds abortions, which it does not. It also makes it seems like voting for the proposed amendment means voting in favor of allowing abortion in cases of rape, incest, or life of the mother. But that isn't true either. The impact of the proposed amendment would be to allow the legislature to ban abortion, with no requirement that the ban include any exceptions. If that wasn't confusing enough, a PAC run by former Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp (R) sent out deceptive text messages to Kansas voters falsely stating that voting YES would protect abortion rights. Things went better than expected: Eventually, all this bullshit has to hit the bulk of the population. The bulk of the population of Kansas does not want the legislature to revoke their constitutional right to abortion. And the bulk of the population of the United States did not want Donald Trump to take away any part of their American experience. And I don't think that's an anomaly. I think that's the system at work.Why would members of the legislature schedule a vote on a proposed Constitutional amendment for a primary election? In Kansas, primary elections are closed, meaning normally only registered Republicans and Democrats vote. And in Kansas, registered Republicans (851,882) vastly outnumber Democrats (495,574). Registered independents in Kansas (560,309) could vote on the Constitutional amendment but aren't in the habit of showing up to primaries. Further, in the high-profile Governor's race, incumbent Laura Kelly (D) was running unopposed.
Because Kansans value both women and children, the constitution of the state of Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion. To the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States, the people, through their elected state representatives and state senators, may pass laws regarding abortion, including, but not limited to, laws that account for circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or circumstances of necessity to save the life of the mother.The number of people who voted against the Constitutional amendment (534,134) exceeded the combined number of Democrats who voted in the primary and independents who just voted on the Constitutional amendment (445,155). That means that a significant number of Republican voters — in excess of 20% — also opposed clearing the way for an abortion ban.
I think Snyder's legitimized himself at least somewhat a little with his warnings on Ukraine borne out. Until he and other leading scholars of fascism stop sounding the alarm bell, I'll probably be unsuccessful at ignoring them. LOL no, he got a 100, you dimbo!! "Article 2 allows me to do anything I want" "Grab 'em by the pussy, they'll let you do it" motorboating Rudy Giuliani in drag... Seriously, how hard is it to edit those three audio-video clips together (he says, but doesn't do it)? The "they go low, we go high!" shit is so incredibly ineffective right now. It's just wild that this is still up for debate in the body politic. We've had this talk before, and yes, Trump should have wised us up to every glaring flaw in the assumption that the people (even a sizeable minority) will reliably elect someone even relatively fit for POTUS. Or a POTUS who'd perform his duties in good faith, maybe sometimes. Rather than the libertarian ("thus, government itself is always doomed to failure") or the aristocratic interpretation ("thus, elites should elect and govern"), I think it's most salient to focus on what's driving the departure from a U.S. model that's generally worked, at least in recent American history. What has changed most is the information ecosystem, obvz. 90's talk radio, then Fox, then alt-right + social media. There has been no real progress made on combating this threat. The Biden admin task force to target disinformation got slain in the press via disinformation, and was promptly abandoned. Classic 21st century dem. Eventually, all this bullshit has to hit the bulk of the population. I've been thinking the same thing about Texas. The six-week ban with vigilante enforcement went into effect in December. Now it's less of "have any family out of state?" and more of "lucky enough to have any family in this subset of states, and/or $$$'s to blow??". I confirmed with my doctor that TX hospitals are now withholding healthcare from women in even higher numbers since the Roe repeal. Advised by corporate legal to perform no abortion until the woman is measurably dying. It's fucked because it'll take a while to build the statistics, and by the time you have a study saying "yes so Samuel Alito has killed several thousand vessels", we're at 10k+ or whatever. In a few years, this court will probably be empowered enough to strike down any congressional attempts at litigating abortion rights. It's so shitty that the Trump years gave us not only the enduring big lie bullshit, but a fundy, delusional SCOTUS. He's back to praising SCOTUS at his rallies after doing the "didn't have the courage" thing with them too last year. I gather that he might finally understand they never had a chance to take up a case, literally everything fraud claims-related was thrown out in the lower courts, but, more importantly, he understands how valuable of an asset they might become for him. However, Trump is not currently claiming credit for SCOTUS. Reportedly he's worried about public opinion on Roe. We'll see. I still think it's prolly too late to stop the fascist theocrat coup. It will go "OK boss, one government, here ya go. All yours!", then "Hmm, and what is it, exactly? Can I whack people with it?", then "Oh no!! It's gone. It's fine though", then "OK, maybe things are worse than ever, but the groomers did it!". The seeds of transphobic paranoia are so clearly being planted, there's like a new burst of trans-hate disinfo every few days. It's fucking disgusting. Trump's longest segment in every rally now is one in which he amps the threat of trans athletes, because a fascist can never pass up an opportunity to repeatedly misgender trans females. The entire "intellectual dark web" (hahahhahah) right now is completely obsessed with genitalia. Even my mom regretfully conceded to me that anti-LGBT sermons and messaging has been noticeably increasing in their church. The alt-right probably finds the most important benefit of stoking transphobia atm is capturing the TERF "centrists". NYTimes even had a TERF op-ed. I think the campaign has been more successful than most realize, and it's probably intended to mitigate some of the losses they'll incur from Dobbs. I do agree that the loss of GOP voters will still very much outweigh the gain. Sure, just like with abortion, the vast majority of people want to preserve LGBTQ+ rights, but the White Christofascist minority will damage the election process to whatever extent required (or further!) to preserve minority rule. I think we're probably above critical threshold for the amount of big liars who've won their primaries. Many could go on to have close November counts that are also varying degrees of artfully sabotaged, simply because it was helpful to the GOP. And I betcha ~ 40% or more of all GOP losers refuse to concede. Like at every level. Obviously, everyone should still vote. We will usually have ways of knowing, sooner or later, if any Trumpers tamper with the counts. I think if the dems lose either branch of congress, that could be "the fat lady sings". Congressional GOP will try some outrageous maneuvering to win the electoral college. I agree that you at least gotta try to legislate against it, but apparently it's damn near impossible to make them not ultimately break the law. They'll also begin congressional hearings to fabricate a narrative for a future nutzo DoJ AG to prosecute the J6 committee with. That should be fun.a pop quiz on executive authority and failed.
Trump as a vaccine for democracy
Kansas
the system at work
It's worth an entirely new comment to point out the recent hijacking of monkeypox public health guidelines with anti-gay disinfo. The attacks are dialed up and more frequent, lately, with the emergency declaration. Running the AIDS playbook. GOP fascists are comfortable demonizing larger and larger groups. It's really progressing fast.
This is the direct consequence of isolationism. The fewer people there are in your group, the more enemies there are in the outgroup. This is a point I keep making, and you keep not hearing: the more you isolate yourself from the mainstream, the less the mainstream supports you. Take the GOP's recent misadventures in Kansas, for example: 20% of the GOP electorate decided they didn't trust the GOP legislature with abortion. Tom Hanks had AIDS thirty years ago. Antonio Banderas was his boyfriend. The GOP can absolutely run the AIDS playbook but Ryan White would be fuckin' 50 if he hadn't died prior to the Gulf War. They might as well run against miscegenation. Yeah - there will always be people for whom AIDS is the gay plague and yeah - of late, they have a lot more voice than they used to, and a lot-lot more voice than they should. But that voice is growing hoarse and faint.GOP fascists are comfortable demonizing larger and larger groups. It's really progressing fast.
Snyder's schtick is "Hitler is everywhere" which was not borne out in Ukraine. Oliver Stone tried real hard to make the argument that Ukrainians are natural Nazis and events since the 2014 invasion have gone exactly the opposite way. Literally no one thinks this. Literally no one has argued this. The beef since the 13 colonies has been that the peasants will elect fools. It's literally why the Senate exists. My argument, for purposes of quotation, is that the un-elected officials are more interested in their jobs as they know them than in their jobs as imagined by populists. That is the nature of bureaucracy - like cancer, it does what it wants, not what the body wants. Read WEB Dubois. The model doesn't "generally work" or else Kennedy wouldn't have had to deploy national guard troops against George Wallace. The model is contentious AF, you just grew up in Texas in an era where the Republicans were busy winning one for the Gipper. The information ecosystem is always changing. From broadsheets to subscription journalism to unregulated radio to the FCC to the Fairness Doctrine to the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine to Cable to Internet to Social Media, stability lasts 10 years max. Rush Limbaugh has fuckall on Father Coughlin. The Supreme Court is not inviolate and unchanging, it's just that the investment necessary to change it has been too great. The recent overreach has likely changed that calculus. I keep coming back to that quote from Active Measures: nations that govern by consent don't get to lie to their populace, nations that govern by fear can say whatever they want. Fundamentally? Donald Trump gambled that the transition between "governance by consent" and "governance by fear" was achievable with his resources. When you look at it that way, he was MILES away. Something that hasn't come up is the assumption that if Trump had managed to pull off the presidency he would somehow hold the presidency. This is like Bush seizing Baghdad and then presuming the US would be welcomed as liberators, The End. Fuckin' Trump couldn't bring the goddamn FDA to heel, you think liberals would fall in line with a coup? Why, exactly? You think the military would cheerfully crack skulls? You think the police would deputize enough Proud Boys to unleash the 4th reich? Then what? There's a really annoying belief on the left that Trump nearly overthrew America, rather than recognizing that Trump couldn't even overthrow the fucking Secret Service. There's an even more annoying belief that having shown his cards, he's somehow going to whip out six extra decks and somehow convince the country that he got a royal straight flush with his next hand and everyone will go "oh, okay, guess my kids are growing up in a kleptocracy now." Bitch I grew up with legitimate gay-bashers. Guys who would find homosexuals to rough up just for being homosexual, knowing they could do it with impunity. I grew up with everyone mocking kids that talked with so much as a lisp or used hand gestures a little too effeminately. Go look up some of the moral hand-wringing over Annie Fucking Lennox, let alone Boy George. Fucking Dee Snyder had to testify before fucking Congress. Would the Republicans like to go back to 1961? A lot of 'em would, hell yeah, just without the taxes and unions, please. But you're literally talking about great-grandparents remembering their childhoods fondly, not a master plan for a theocratic oligarchy. A furry went into space. Just four years ago you were allowed to openly mock furries. I care not what the "intellectual dark web" obsesses over so long as they make no traction with it. And them fukkas are sliding down the hill. Everything else you have to say is reflexive doom-scrolling. None of it is based on anything, other than the fact that you live in Texas. I hosted a couple from Texas yesterday. They reminded me of the Serbian girl I dated 2 years after NATO bombed her house. One of them life-long, the other 30-year, both of them ready to jump in the wheel well to make it through Checkpoint Charlie. And that's the thing - there's a pain point for this shit. Here's a question everyone can answer: are you happier now than you were before Trump was in office?Trump should have wised us up to every glaring flaw in the assumption that the people (even a sizeable minority) will reliably elect someone even relatively fit for POTUS.
I think it's most salient to focus on what's driving the departure from a U.S. model that's generally worked, at least in recent American history.
What has changed most is the information ecosystem, obvz. 90's talk radio, then Fox, then alt-right + social media.
In a few years, this court will probably be empowered enough to strike down any congressional attempts at litigating abortion rights.
The seeds of transphobic paranoia are so clearly being planted, there's like a new burst of trans-hate disinfo every few days.
Trump's longest segment in every rally now is one in which he amps the threat of trans athletes, because a fascist can never pass up an opportunity to repeatedly misgender trans females. The entire "intellectual dark web" (hahahhahah) right now is completely obsessed with genitalia.
Fun context on Coughlin is that his audience is estimated at ~30M when the population was 120 to 130M, while Rush had an audience of 15M while the population was 300M+.
These people are also all individual humans, trying to do their job. Look at the Secret Service. The Secret Service stopped Trump from going to the Capitol. They knew what would happen if he showed up and the couple hundred security police were met with 10,000 rabid MAGAs. On the other hand, they also knowingly deleted all of their communications from those days, because they knew they had also broken laws and protocols. I can't fathom how hard it must be to be a Secret Service agent for Trump. You want someone to take the shot and off the guy, but then you are also a proud Secret Service Agent with a sworn duty. Sometimes your better angels win, and sometimes the devil takes the reins. That's humanity. Self-preservation changes as the terrain changes. I suspect we are about to see a flood of information coming from the Secret Service about all the misdeeds and policy failures within the organization. And still, to his death, Trump will have US American citizens as his Secret Service detail, being continually mistreated and abused by the Fuckwit In Chief. Man ... to dedicate yourself to a life of service ... and then that service is assigned to the most selfish, worthless human being to ever sit on the throne... that has to hurt. Bad.
I'm still very unclear as to the actual extent of fascist/Trumpist sympathies in the Secret Service. On the one hand, obviously you're selecting for top-tier professionalism and competence, but on the other, you're selecting within a group of people for whom authoritarianism tendencies are already self-selecting, right? And, possibly, you're pitting the lower ranks against Trump-appointed administrators (linking bcuz the SnapChat shit is legit hilarious after the deleted texts saga). Makes you wonder. And I'm not someone who has ever even remotely thought "huh, yeah, I guess it's true that all cops are bastards!", because I've previously been indoctrinated by the jedi order, so I know that only a sith deals in absolutes. Perfect sentence. I wish we could free his non-SS underlings, but I can't even seem to convince them that they're being abused, which is step 1.And still, to his death, Trump will have US American citizens as his Secret Service detail, being continually mistreated and abused by the Fuckwit In Chief.
Occam's Razor suggests that there was a widespread case of "we can't do this because it's illegal, but we have to do this because it's the most expedient way to actually do our jobs." If I had to guess, a number of agents/units got conflicting orders from different parts of the org chart and someone with some authority decided that the cover-up was better than the crime. Especially if you can nuke text messages from people who did nothing wrong and followed the law entirely - if you delete your text messages you're guilty. If you delete your entire team's text messages... I mean we'll never know, will we? It was cute when it was Shirley Maclaine and Nicolas Cage. this would be a different movie.Perfect sentence. I wish we could free his non-SS underlings, but I can't even seem to convince them that they're being abused, which is step 1.
I don't want to get into this, but I will say, I know somebody who though recently retired, was formerly very high up in the secret service spanning multiple presidencies and this hypothetical you're throwing out there definitely would not have happened.How do you know that? Isn't that such uncharted territory that it's impossible to determine how public opinion would evolve if Trump refused to leave the White House, and had enough Secret Service and Pentagon flunkies to hole up in there for a few weeks? The legitimacy of the presidency is something we the people grant, if the perception is there, right?
Yes, it was very much a hypothetical, designed to encourage people to explore the relationship between themselves and the social contract that is government.