by hayst4ck | 2025-04-07 05:07:28+00:00
> The jury is still out on whether what you are saying is hyperbole

The president of the Heritage Foundation said “we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” https://archive.is/Ku2KG -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/03/heritage-...

This is a direct quote from a major institution behind the current administration that is well known to be a major force for choosing judicial candidates for the GOP. I understand it feels like hyperbole, but that's not because it's hyperbolic, it's because it's hard to accept. Accepting it would cause a lot of grief and grief is disabling. Accepting it creates a sense of responsibility or a sense of helplessness, neither of which feel good. Accepting it means that we aren't just in a bad situation, we are in a literal emergency. It means action is necessary now.

A secretary of defense and a chairman of the joint chiefs of staff have said he is a threat to the constitution and the country: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/29/milley-farewell-spe... https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-m...

4 prominent republicans have Sieg Heiled including musk and bannon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E9pXCuJnbc&t=10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfYjPzj1Xw&t=18s

Here's the head of the OMB saying he wants to put government workers in trauma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBH9TmeJN_M&t=6s https://www.propublica.org/article/video-donald-trump-russ-v...

These are primary sources... This isn't hyperbole.

> We can't assume the worst-case outcome despite the serious danger of that outcome should it occur.

We don't have to assume the scenario to ask if it is possible. What prevents that scenario? That is the real problem. Without rule of law, there is nothing that stops it. The problem isn't that one particular story will come true, it's that there is nothing preventing any of the atrocities we have seen authoritarian regimes commit from happening because there is no red line, and no un-corrupted enforcement authority, and there is no substantive resistance. Nobody is even treating the end of rule of law as the emergency it is because it's not observable until the lack of law is abused, for example to send people to El Salvador without due process. Without due process, it could be you going to El Salvador. There have been no consequences for this. This is an emergency. We can't know for sure, but if the atrocities do start, this will have been the proof of concept.

> It is extremely hard to change the constitution.

I don't know how it was done in Turkey or Hungary, but I strongly disagree that it is hard to change it. It has been ruled that the constitution is not a document to be interpreted by you and me, but by the supreme court authoritatively, and only by his DOJ authoritatively (even against the supreme court) for the executive branch.

Law is just paper unless enforced. China called the agreement with the UK "was a historical document that no longer had any practical significance." That type of thing can just be declared when you have the power to do so. Who will stop you? The enforcers on your payroll?

If the supreme court rules the text on paper means something different, how is that meaningfully different than changing the words on the paper except in how tortured the justifications are?

> It is extremely hard to remove lifetime appointment judges from the opposition administration.

I really think you think you are standing on rock, when you are standing on sand. That intellectual sand you are standing on is the assumption of using rule of law to justify why you have rule of law, which is the thing in question. Without rule of law these statements which might have once been true become hurdles not limits. Maybe you can't dismiss a judge, but you can control which cases go to what judges and constructively dismiss them. Your budget of bad behavior is limited only by the consequences you experience...

You have to have an answer for who enforces the law as it was understood and with the intent it was written.

> Executive orders are easily reversed and laws must be repealed to undo them.

Are you seriously asserting that this tariffs and their consequences will easily be undone? I'm not trying to attack, I am just shocked that you would say this. Will trees in national parks get un-chopped down? Will trails rebuild themselves? Will government workers, like those in the USDS, come back? Will oil go back in the ground? Will rivers de-pollute themselves? Will oil execs get less rich? Will government functions be un-privatized? Will mom get her retirement money back? Will those dying people on medicaid get their life or their family's money back? Will children receiving survivors benefits get the childhood years spent more stressed than they needed to be back?

I get what you're saying in the literal sense, but I also think it is very wrong to talk about executive orders with this little weight.

> Just because the current administration is acting like it completed a successful coup doesn't mean that it actually has in reality. Don't take what they say to be truth, because they constantly lie. The would love for the opposition party to think that they have taken over and that there is no hope. All they've done is won one single election by very slim margins and tossed out a bunch of executive orders.

They are literally going through positions of authority and replacing them with loyalists. That is a coup. Here is a historian telling you that not only is it a coup, but if this happened in a foreign country you would recognize it as one: https://archive.is/fNpSS -- https://snyder.substack.com/p/of-course-its-a-coup

> The current administration loves tariffs simply because it's the most impactful lever the president can use without congressional approval besides commanding troops. The current administration literally cannot do much else in terms of lasting policy and they are too lazy and incompetent to approach congress with any actual ideas (something that the Obama and Biden administrations excelled at, e.g. the ACA and Bipartisan Infrastructure bill).

This is ignoring what is happening in the bureaucracy. They tried to just not give states money, which in defense of your previous points, is currently a check on power, but doesn't have to remain so.

> The US constitutional system has survived authoritarian-minded presidents before. And of course, that's not to say the US system is perfect or even an especially fair and representative system. But it has very strong protections against permanent dictatorship or an outright coup.

Denial happens when the consequences of understanding reality causes negative emotions, so rather than accepting those negative emotions, you reject reality until reality asserts itself in to your life.

Timothy Snyder would call what you said the politics of inevitability: Politics of Inevitability, Politics of Eternity (12m) -- Timothy Snyder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eghl19elKk8

It is very worth a watch, and it was recorded in 2018.

Complacency is a problem. If nobody thinks they have to do something, then nothing gets done, and what we once thought was inevitable, is proven not to be, someone should have acted, but by the time we realize that someone is us, enough power may have been consolidated to make the cost too high.