I still don’t feel sorry for the police. Assholes vs. Bastards.
I mean, they are functionally identical in his case.
If they’ll do that to other cops; what would they do to me?
Yeah, plus in terms of extremism, “Trump is Jesus” and Q are fast and away more toxic and dangerous than “a picture of Trump with his mouth replaced with an anus”. If the latter is an example of dangerous extremism then all of Rob’s mouth-eye shops are gonna get us in so much trouble. 
We can has MTG next plz?
In fact, multiple developments in the scandal that he has asked us to refer to as “Gaetzgate” suggest the guy should be extremely worried about his future as a free man.
He didn’t even understand the pun Elon Musk was making. A completely unnecessary self own.
They’re not even waiting for their transphobia to pay off before they try driving the wedge in further.
Texas is attempting a soft secession wherein they ignore federal laws that they find inconvenient or distasteful, but retain all the financial benefits of statehood. When blue cities pushed back on the Trump administration’s racist immigration policies by declaring themselves sanctuaries, Trump tried to strip them of federal funding. It’s time to revive that concept. If Texas wants to opt out of participation in federal laws, the feds should opt out of sending any more money their way. Shut off the spigot to bigots.
ETA: To mitigate the harm that ending federal supports to Texas would cause folks like @TornPaperNapkin, @navarro, @orenwolf, @j9c and all the other Texas mutants I’m forgetting right now, here’s what I propose: take all those federal monies (~ $39 billion, about 1/3 of the state budget), and repurpose it to the resettlement of any and all who’d like to leave the state. Call it something catchy like The Timely Exfiltration of at-risk people in Texas Act, or TEXIT for short.
I think they are too . My god it is a terrifying time to be living here.
I guess that’s the thing though… I’ve been watching this from here along with the rest of the people here and I think the goal is to make it necessary to live here for work while making sure the people who live here are left with only an option to leave if they fit certain undesirable demographics.
this means women and lgbt people who are most aversely affected may not take top jobs here.
this means people will be driven out of the economic boom that is actually happening in the cities here based on race, gender, and sexual orientation at a time when there is fierce competition for certain jobs and other jobs are so low pay that no one wants to do them anymore.
this is about destroying the lives of people to drive the economy and this is the vision for the whole US that is currently being pedaled across the board.
what is being contested is a lucid well-orchestrated planned economy around oppression of key demographics rooted in and justified by bigotry imo.
Also I think people tend to lose sight of the fact that Texas is a hugely populous state that does in fact have a lot of value… like as in real-estate value, economic value to the rest of the US as well as social value through the rich communities of people with cultural value that, believe it or not, exist here…
I don’t think there is any way we can “just move” people around and fix any of these problems in the US.
I was being glib; you’re completely right that “just move” is no kind of solution. What Texas and other so-called “red states” are doing now is filling in the last space of a picture they’ve been drawing for decades. With the current Supreme Court, they see an opportunity to codify years of systematic disenfranchisement into law and they’re going all-in.
I’m not sure how we stop them. Facile formulations aside, there seem to be few options that don’t actively make things worse for everyone who isn’t already actively trying to make things worse for the people they don’t like.
To paraphrase @VeronicaConnor from last week- I’m sure the answer is more organizing, more voting, more supporting people like Stacey Abrams, who has shown how effective community outreach can be. But that’s such a slow process, the change is so incremental, that it feels unsatisfactory. The harm is happening now, people need help now. I keep hoping for a grand gesture, something that echoes across our legal and political landscape; instead we have bitter lawsuits that try to hold the line and the incessant drip of water on foundation.
While also seeking an injunction in the federal court system, so that when they do it again, the feds can just show up and arrest the Texas House of Representatives.
Oh I know and I don’t mean to be tedious or anything about it. It’s just that there seems to be a lot of that kind of talk but … more ambiguous… in terms of goals. So I think it’s worth the risk of belaboring the point a little.
I understand you’re trying to find the perfect solution, but some people have generations of ancestral pride in Texas, so even if their moving (and new-job-finding) expenses are paid, they’re not going to want to leave the place they know as ‘home’.
I know. Posting the Bugs-Florida meme or telling people to leave [fill in red-state America here] is blaming the victims for the actions of their persecutors. I expanded a little on my thinking in a response to @TornPaperNapkin above.
Everyone who has had a moment where survival is weighed against pride will have regrets. Staying alive is not or ought not be one of them.
This dire cost-benefit analysis came to both of my immigrant parents at the end of World War II. They chose to leave their home countries, their home languages (neither was part of the Anglosphere) and they legally emigrated to the U.S.
Walking away from my own friends, my own projects here would be more painful than this English major has words to describe.
But.
If it’s down to survival or living in a fascist, hostile place that means me and my kind real harm, well… just let me get the suitcase out and give me a few minute to pack.
footnotes
“Parting with people is a sadness. A place is just a place.”
–Thufir Hawat
“Oh, there was a surviving son, I think. And a few mad relatives. They were banished. That’s supposed to be a terrible fate, for royalty. I can’t see it myself. I like the city, but if it was a choice between banishment and having my head chopped off, just help me down with this suitcase. No, we’re well rid of kings.”
–Sam Vimes
Same nonsense conservatives have been pulling for hundreds of years. As if the Supremacy Clause didn’t exist and state nullification wasn’t decidedly rebuked in the War of Southern Aggression.
Very much agree that some sort of consequences are due, however…
While I think abandoning the state economically does hit that need to hurt, I think an exodus of people who have every right to live there, and very probably more than the people passing these laws, isn’t yet the solution. Anyone who wants out, great, but don’t abandon those who can’t or won’t.
ETA: Oops, the conversation has moved on since I wrote this…
