I’m just hoping I’ll be alive at the end of it (and my friends and family are also alive, and their friends and family…)
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Same here.
But I promise you this; no matter what happens, I will go down swinging.
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I’m white and born an American citizen, so they will come for me last.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
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Don’t kid yourself for even this very second that any skew or spin makes it in any way better that the US are developing into a dystopian nightmare. Fuck the very idea this policy isn’t “representing the will of the people”.
The citizens of the US either have to do something about this, or own this. The whole of it.
Please, do something.
There’s a whole collection of things at Slate, AFAIK.
Just get going. Please.
And just FTR, if you happen to be on this continent: We’ll to plan for similar situations in Europe. AGAIN.
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Came to post exactly that, THANK YOU!
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Here here! Huzzah!
Fiction writers are having a hard time keeping up.
Indeed.
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On the plus side, italian goverments rarely last for very long (this is like the 50th post-war gouverment). Its not unlikely that they and their terrible polcies are gone in a few months.
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I’m simply clarifying that the widely reported 45% number is in no way accurate, is not a “top poll” for Trump, and is not representative of America. I’m not kidding myself. Thank you.
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39 confirmations on hundreds of vacancies.
There are currently 147 vacancies in the federal bench and only 80 candidates pending. And there are many, judges slated to retire in the next few years. As much as we’re concerned with GOP efforts to pack the bench. There’s also the more serious “judicial crisis” where in big chunks of the federal bench are just vacant.
So yeah they’ve managed to push through a bunch of unqualified and/or highly partisan judges. But Trump isn’t nominating fast enough. And Congress isn’t bringing them up for confirmation fast enough to keep pace with vacancies.
They created this situation in order to pack the bench. But as with most things our government is up to they can’t get their shit together to do evil properly.
http://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/judicial-vacancies/current-judicial-vacancies
They were only able to do that, And obstruct Garland, because they controlled both houses of Congress. As they do now. But their margin there is slipping and it looks more and more possible to flip both houses in November.
They cant pack the bench if they don’t control the Senate. And given the infighting it might not be too practical if GOP senators in swing states start to worry more about challenges from the left. Than challenges from the right.
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I do not think that it is impossible to defeat the Trumpists.
However, I do think that electoral administration in Redstate America is so corrupted as to render the GOP almost unassailable by conventional democratic means.
Fascists are counting the votes, fascists are running the polling booths, fascists are in charge of the voter rolls.
For there to be any chance of overcoming that structural disadvantage, it would depend on an absolutely unprecedented surge of turnout from the previously non-voting population. If Trump’s election had been followed by the Democratic party honestly and enthusiastically accepting the need for reform, there may have been a chance for that turnout surge to happen.
However, the party establishment did not do that: instead, they have devoted their energies primarily to defending their own power and position, by actively sabotaging any attempts at party reform or leftist organising.
So, because of those factors and others, I think that there is very little chance of the Dems gaining control of the House in 2018, and virtually no chance of the Dems gaining the Presidency in 2020.
I also think that waiting for 2020 is morally unacceptable, as it is very likely that Trump will have begun his war on Iran before then.
—
None of which means that the situation is hopeless, none of which means that people should give up.
The fascists can be overthrown. But it is going to require sustained feet in the streets.
Like this:
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I’d expect that a lot of their recommendations are coming from here:
I think you’re right. And a bunch of the worst were just any asshole Trump was impressed by for 15 minutes. Like there was that one guy who’d never practiced law.
If I remember correctly the whole scheme was a Federalist Society thing. And they were pretty involved when G-Dubs did his packing.
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I sure hope so.
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Not quite.
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There’s a pretty reliable 2 week or so delay between any given event and changes in the approval rating. However weird or unreliable individual tracking polls are. That sort of thing is really well established.
That said Trump’s approval rating has been bizarrely stable for about 6 months. He’s been cycling around ~40% since January. Up from a previous, more volitile period where he bounced around the 30s a lot. But hes within a few point/margin of error of that now. And there he’s stayed. Its a bit weird. His approvals are bad. But they just seem to be staying exactly as bad, regardless of what’s going on.
But the most recently released polls cover the previous week/5 days. So tail end of his Korea “victory” and the very early start of the fight over child detention. The Korea stuff would theoretically drive him up a bit. You’d expect to see impact from the child detention story starting in the next release of polls early next week. Then the full impact the week after. Depending on how long it remains the major issue in popular discussion.
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I just don’t see how that follows. A nominee to the SC is pretty much the one thing that unites all the factions of the GOP. Trump gets a list of young, ultra-conservative names, picks one, and the Senate approves. Trump isn’t going to pick anything other than an extremely conservative judge, so where would the problem come from?
So long as he sticks to the Federalist Society pricks picks for judges, everyone on that side is going to be on the same page.
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