Meanwhile: Trump confirms plans to use military for mass deportations I don't care what you call it, doesn't sound great to me. Sounds martial-y. Maybe the Trump admin will accidentally declare "marital" law, and we can sue for divorce and damages. They learned about this one in the past, but spellcheck won't flag "marital" either. Texas shows off 1,400 acres offered for Trump deportation camp and promises more land. Very generous. Are they planning to build airports? Is the symbolic gesture of this location being very near the border worth more on the public perception market than it is in limiting actual deportation (flights) logistics? I still suspect that if the Trump administration is relatively serious about its deportation goals, it could change my daily life, as the fed presence inevitably builds and camps are built nearer metroplexes, for convenience. Stephen Miller, for one, will be pushing pretty hard for Big Deportation, against the bureaucracy he plans to torch, while simultaneously shoring up a deportations admin structure. I think they'll take anything they can get, and shoot for the moon. What else are they doing? Pulling the down-egg-prices lever? Abraham Accords 2? lol I really didn't want to find out if they were serious about this but we damn sure will. Maybe they'll put 5 million migrants on those 1,400 acres at the Texas border, attack Mexico, and cede the land. I mean look I should be on team Trump; tactical genius, here edit: to immortalize this; if you need a "national emergency" of ever-worsening conditions, going hard into a botched mass deportation attempt lets you blame the immigrants unambiguously and justify removing other civil liberties. If you want to create some good crimes, lock up the asylum seekers (he still thinks they all come from a literal insane asylum, btw, that's where the hannibal lector stuff in his rally speech repertoire came from) and others who have overstayed their visas, etc., in terribly insecure prisons. Maybe even let some out to chase 'em and get on the news. That actually is the whole game! The optics. And MAGA will want big camps and big numbers. Hell, they'll want to join as deputies. But also, the Trump admin may deputize the worst people in positions of authority anywhere in America, local PDs. They've put at least some thought into the deportations. Not enough for it to go well, because that's impossible, and nor is it the intent, actually. But they seem pretty serious, to me. The will is there. Hopefully the legal and bureaucratic resistance is too, but SCOTUS is donezo. Regardless, these ideas for what the government should do are fuckin' terrible. And where is that other guy, JV Dance? edit2: also, do you really think we should be talking shit when South Korea's legal reps in the same party as the president got their asses into congress and said "fuck no you don't"? Some of ours got back into congress and said "Let's see if we can still do it". And then we elected the coup godfather four years later. That president will be impeached, convicted, and jettisoned from polite society, I'll bet you. South Korea showed us all something today.
I will humor you because you spin up unless someone applies the brakes. Trump absolutely wants big dumb deportations. So does Stephen Miller. So does the border patrol. So do a majority of Americans - but only in a couple cases. They're absolutely going to go for it. But then what. There's a sock gnome gap in most of Team Trump's plans. Not all, but more than some. That space between "we intend to" and "we have" has been glossed over by the whole of the transition team which the media has duly reported. Nonetheless, liberal pundits have duly taken everything at face value because, after all, they did implement a Muslim ban! Absolutely zero air is given, however, to the reality that not only was the Muslim ban a total clusterfuck, not only was it vehemently opposed by the overwhelming majority of society, but that absolutely no planning or forethought was given to it. It took six months - during wartime - to get Japanese Americans into camps (even though FDR was racist as they came). Mexico would need to bomb San Diego to get Trump the mandate FDR had and even then, there aren't any poor white dust-bowl-driven Okies eager to steal Mexican farmland. Team Trump lacks a Henry Stimpson or John DeWitt - they've got a Stephen Miller. Your flight of fancy presumes this will go well for Trump and Miller. As a studied armchair historian of the Trump presidency I can think of two things that went well for Team Trump: The Abraham Accords (which were very much MBS' idea and implementation) and the Executive Order on Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare, which you've never heard of. Both of them were 'everybody wants this' situations. I agree - Team Trump is gonna go hard into deportations. But they went hard into rousting ANTIFA too and that ended up being a dozen border patrol dipshits without insignia in a rented minivan. You sit there going bu-bu-bu the local COPZ as if the MAGA movement wanted something other than sanctuary-city skull-cracking. We've seen how that plays out; I refer your attention to a dozen racists in a Hertz. We're about to see four years of every liberal mayor and governor running for president on free press courtesy the Trump administration; the only reason Bob Ferguson ran in WA is he spent 4 years limelighting his Trump opposition as WA's attorney general. Are we looking at a 190-0 impeachment? Sadly, no. But a "national emergency of ever-worsening conditions" requires worsening conditions and "there's nobody to pick the lettuce" doesn't quite get us there. Here's two questions to ask yourself. "Will he get to brag about it at a rally?" 'cuz if he can, he will. "Will this interfere with his golf schedule?" 'cuz if it will, he won't. Project 2025 is a laundry list of toxic notions promoted by the worst people in America, dependent on a pliable and willing autocrat eager to further their agenda. This guy just wants to stay outta jail and he doesn't give the first fuck about anyone else, let alone their agenda.
I'm worried about Trump and his followers biting off more than they can chew. It would be easy to sweep up more people on the front end than they are logistically able to process and care for on the back end. There will be plenty of experts telling them realistic numbers of deportees that can be handled and maybe there will be a gatekeeper who can control the flow. If there isn't we might end up with some grisley high mortality camps. Trump is gonna have a hard time implementing his full policy agenda. Everything is going to take a lot more time than Republicans hope and Democrats fear. I'm still hoping is sunder the union, but I'm an optomist.
I honestly don’t read the MAGA types in general caring, they just don’t. If we end up having more people than they can feed, it’s not like tge people cheering it on are goin* to demand that something be done about it. And that’s assuming that we get honest reports, which would require a press willing to challenge Trump. That seems unlike given how major press outlets are already sucking up to him pretty hard.
MAGA have all sorts of new legal tactics, like judge shopping in the 5th circuit of appeals, a completely normalized open and obvious appearance of corruption (Cannon), uhhh just not giving a shit? about laws? And never getting reprimanded, only occasionally stopped. Oh, and the, um, SCOTUS. 7-2, probably the rest of the time it is relevant. But I'm not gonna claim the incoming admin retained any sort of know-how regarding weaponizing and ruining government from last time's attempt, that trade knowledge has largely wandered off. Uhh speaking of, what's Bannon gonna be appointed to? How 'bout Flynn? MyPillow? ("people love mike!") Oddly, Chevron being repealed would mean a disempowered congress (maybe if the house flips in 2026), a sidelined executive, and an overpowered (and overwhelmed) judicial, but now it will mostly cease to be an issue at the federal level, unless dems rally like 4 GOP for a climate change bill or something. The executive will be granted additional power, obviously, when it asks for it. He'll ask. He'll also die and.. do you know how to program bro? Thielco's got a new federal division of atheist (w/ christian culture) h4x0rs I do not share your unTied states vision. There is a madman with nukes advancing on the world stage. What is your thought process? Again, Alaska is calling. That's fuckin' cold man Update: I've just found out that Joe Biden has pardoned his son for a crime every serious legal analyst balked at, to possibly keep him out of jail an extra year or two, and I can see now that it was Joe Biden that's the fascist dictator, sorry everyone. Here's why me, Gavin Newsom, playing right of Kamala's campaign when obviously that was fucking not working, is disappointed in President Biden edit: #1 thing I meant to say was: Yes, Trump admin will quite likely try to bum-rush deportation before it can be ruled illegal/unconstitutional. Dunno how that pans out. Could be wayyy more consequential than the Muslim ban attempt, which some in the admin may see as analogous, but this time with better odds of favorable legal ruling in the courts. I'm honestly just so glad to see so many people showed up to think about this. Thank you everyone, I know it sucks real bad.
But now the people around Trump have spent four years plotting to dismantle everything that stopped Trump the first time. That’s what Project 2025, and the nearly 20,000 résumés it reportedly vetted, is really all about. That’s what Trump’s inner circle is spending its time and energy doing. Don Jr. told The Wall Street Journal, “We want people who are actually going to follow the president, the duly elected president, not act as sort of unelected officials that know better, because they don’t know better.” From this overly long Ezra Klein essay. We’ve seen how it plays out, but isn’t there a pretty solid argument to make that this time’s different? That the GOP inhibitors are replaced with Yes Men this time around? Because the cabinet picks sure seem to me to be that way. Donald “let’s get the army to shoot protestors” Trump doesn’t seem to have people who will stop him at his worst anymore. Donald “I like the oil industry because they gave me money” sure seems to pave the way for special interests to screw everyone else over. I don’t think it’ll get to mass deportations, but I highly doubt Trump will be able to resist his inhibitions to ruin the country in favor of golf this time around - because it won’t be as frustrating for him as the last time.The best argument you can make about Trump’s first term is that there was a constructive tension between his disinhibition and the constraints of the staff and the bureaucracy and the institutions that surrounded him. Yes, some of his ideas were bad, dangerous and unconstitutional. But those mostly didn’t happen: They were stopped by his aides, by the so-called deep state, by the courts, by civil society.
There's this idea that the guys behind Project 2025 are the Spectre of conservatism, a crack team of evil visionaries blessed with the intellect and fortitude to shake the foundations of democracy. this despite the fact that the entire world watched everyone with a little intelligence or skill get sidelined by loyalists. There's also this idea that the Republican Party is hell-bent on serving Trump's ends, rather than being hell-bent on their own survival. Trump tried to overthrow the government - it didn't work - his voters wish it did - let's move on. The through-line of everything written about the Republican Party under Trump is they're a bunch of feckless yes-men who wring their hands in private and rubber-stamp everything Dear Leader says. There's a simple reason for that; they want to keep their jobs. Nobody has written any articles about how much better Trump's team is this time around. It's all been about how they're more subservient. And nobody has written any articles about how Trump has broadened his appeal and is more willing to work with his own party. It's all been about his enemies list. So there should be some introspection about what, exactly, the various and sundry feckless Republicans get out of a second Trump term. Who's the heir apparent? JD Vance? Vance was chosen for the exact same reason as Pence - he's a lickspittle supplicant bereft of charisma who won't outshine Trump. Don Jr? Puhleeze. DeSantis? We watched how that went. What else you got? Who's the more-charismatic demagogue that will step into Trump's shoes? Because he's already coming apart at the seams. there's this idea that they'll 25A his ass and do whatever they want through Vance and allow me to say with no quaver in my voice that Reagan was absolutely coming apart in his second term and nobody thought to prop up George Bush. As a reminder, here's the electoral map from '84: I think it will absolutely get to "mass deportations." I guess what sets me apart is I expect it to be an unpopular clusterfuck. I am absolutely at a loss as to why this is a minority opinion.
Isn't the argument not about Trump and his team being better, but about them being more effective? I don't think they need to be any better than last time to wreak more havoc, just simply not being inhibited from almost every branch of government due to subservience will probably be enough. To draw a parallel to our extreme-right Wilders government coalition - 3 out of the 4 coalition parties are objectively incompetent at governing. The Farmer's Party managed to be so incompetent they gave away €20B in farmers' subsidies during coalition negotiations in exchange for nuthin'. The party who ran on better governance managed to admit to hide documents in their third week. It is absolutely a clusterfuck, it absolutely leads to stupid and ineffective policies. There's a debate now about whether we can impose border controls again, which we can't and everyone knows it but Wilders wants his version of The Wall anyway. There, however, will also be inhumanely policies because that's what we're now facing: things like taking away passports from second or third generation immigrants, things like changing visums to be for a few years at most, things like making refugee camps so sober the line between camp and prison is almost entirely blurred. I thought we couldn't go this inhumane, this low. I hoped their incompetence would prevent them from hurting too many people. But we can go this low, they'll dare you with how low they can go, and there's little we can do but watch in pain and hope. And the general public doesn't seem to mind, or is happy that something is being done even if it doesn't work, will never work, will be hard to undo and repair. So I'm not so sure about that 'unpopular' part of the clusterfuck.
The argument is that Trump 1 didn't understand how to work the system properly to accomplish their mayhem which kept them from being truly effective, but now that the heritage foundation has published a playbook and thought about it super-hard everything will be super effective. Allow me to introduce you to Grover Norquist. Ole Grover there founded the Americans for Tax Reform. Since 1986, you have to pledge to oppose tax increases in any way shape or form or you get no money from any Republican cause. On May 25, 2001, he famously told NPR "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."Isn't the argument not about Trump and his team being better, but about them being more effective?
I agree with you on all counts, I guess I just don't see why that precludes them putting the thumb on elections heavily, or calling for the military to do deportations and break up protests etc. I also think that when it's predictably unpopular, they'll need to be more undemocratic to stay in power
sigh Most of the election workers who ended up getting terrorized by Trump were Republicans Most of the military who kept Trump in check were Republicans We're three comments deep on how it's all about self-interest and you persist in assuming Trump has god-like powers
I feel like that is why their appointments now are about being maximally subservient, over other priorities like basic competence. If you think that there's a lot of Rep voters that wanted a coup, I'm not sure why you think its so hard to find one that's willing to get appointed. I don't think Trump has godlike powers! But he has the pretty complete backing of the courts and a new interpretation of Executive Privilege, and control of who is assigned leadership of every part of federal government.
I always love getting your yin to my yang. Truly :)! And this is true, the blue states will serve as fed agitation ops, and it is the red states that will see The Camps, whatever form they take. Newsom will never allow anything of scale, but they'll need to do it at "the border" to do the optics optimally. Does anyone in the admin want to explain to viewers that Florida has many asylum seekers arriving by means other than a "caravan" on foot and/or "reward" DeSantis with some sweet, sweet federal deportation slush funds? We will see how little or great of a legal resistance there is now with so many MAGA judges and with the admin loyalty tested to blood hound level, self-selected. Yeah I wrote most of this 15 hours ago now and others have got many of the other points covered that I had planned to make. I liked that a lot, actually :). Wait though, nuh uh. I explicitly said that they'll probably use a badly botched deportation in any way they can to acquire additional power. Think I said "steal civil liberties" (don't make me read me, I hate me). You know reactionaries better than I. But I've no real way of knowing if they're planning for it to be botched intentionally. However, I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that it will indeed be thoroughly and completely botched, either way. But yes, how far they will dare to will go in disrupting the migrant worker employers will be super interesting. Maybe subsidies to farmers, construction businesses, etc., it's all about appeasing the "small business owner" (read: mostly billionaires, holy shit that cabinet bro, NASA is now billionaire'd). Btw, it's pretty wild how over-represented the small business owner was at J6. Seen't it somewhere on a recent philosophy youtube (like no it was legit, trust me), maybe I'll find it later. And yeah all Trump really has to do about it is rhetoric though, right? Does anyone think he gives a shit about the day-to-day? No he wants to see the day-to-day make Fox News and CNN primetime every single night, a new heroic raid of "illegals" at 7:01 PM, and at 7:03 PM the announcement of another "crime wave". He's also definitely pretty racist. Not motivated enough by it to do more than seize power with it, mostly, but securing and nurturing that power may require MSAGA (or just the boer great again, we mean) and the camps. In hindsight, not seeing the coming alignment of ex-apartheid south african billionaires with the white christian theocratic movement was stupid of me. But it is a shaky alliance, methinks... I love having this conversation, even if I am deadass wrong. Again, it is utterly pathetic how the media have glossed right over it.Your flight of fancy presumes this will go well for Trump and Miller
He wants to, sure. But I’m not sure he can get his way on this. There are, to quote Dune, “plots within plots”. Blue states and cities are absolutely looking to resist here. This probably means no cooperation or even actively hiding people. There will be court cases beyond that. And even if they lose, there might be a situation that’s the reverse of the border stuff from last year, where Blue areas call up the National Guard to protect people from deportation, giving Trump no good options. You can’t simply order your troops to fire on the National Guard, you might have a hard time arresting them. You can’t arrest sitting governors or mayors or whatever if they haven’t broken the law. And so what we have is a standoff and I’m not convinced that if he goes full retard and tries this stuff it goes the way he thinks it will.
I think if Trump's use of martial law is less dramatic than a takeover of the government, then it will work, easily. The close to half of Congress on board with Jan 6 is cool with basically anything at this point. I expect at some point Trump will want to do something, gets blocked, and calls for the military to 'just do it anyways' and gets away with it
But that's because it's what your fee-fees want, not because it's what the actual threats are. The United States doesn't have a federal provision for "martial law." states can impose martial law. The Feds can suspend habeas corpus. Could the supreme court back up Trump's notion that he can "impose martial law?" Sure they can. At which point you get to find out which states think states' rights matter more. The supreme court is aware of this - in many, many ways they rule by the consent of the governed. And they probably don't want to deal with roughly 50 governors going "wait that's my job." There's a pretty big air gap between "things the libs are afraid of" and "things Trump can do effortlessly." We've never had to go "I wonder what happens if a president declares martial law" before, granted, and I don't think it's great either. But the Senate already played "you are not the boss of me" with Gaetz and Hoggseth. You think they're going to go 'well okay I guess we're powerless pawns of an incompetent dictator now?' Why do you think that?
I'm expecting, if it happens, it will be used to send the military to hassle people in states that are doing things Trump doesn't like. I do not think that the supreme court cares in the slightest about state's rights, and I'm not very hopeful that some governors will be meaningfully able to do anything