What? With complete sentences and proper grammar? I doubt it.
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no. from the beginning the party (DAP, not even renamed to NSDAP) had mostly companies as financial backers. the outstanding socialist point of the party platform (a land reform) was justified by Hitler to gain more plebs votes. the SA was a powerhouse for left ideas in the NSDAP, but as early as 1934 the party organisation was disempowered and the left-wing bigwigs (Strasser, Röhm et al) killed.
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Preclearance was taken away. I’d disagree that preclearance is “THE key provision” of the Voting Rights Act, given that the Act’s substance remains in place; i.e., all the actual prohibitions on poll taxes, literacy tests, or any other obstacle to voting. The lack of preclearance is certainly a huge obstacle to enforcement, though.
As someone who is living through the result of this ruling in North Carolina, I have to say that if it’s not “THE key provision” it’s frightening that there are even more important ones. Redistricting along racial boundaries (cracking, stacking and packing), and immediately eliminating early (and weekend) voting and registration improvements are just some of the changes states immediately put into place following this ruling.
Some of the changes that NC implemented were reversed by a later federal court ruling, but (as the state legislation knew) those changes remained in effect for the 2016 election. Correcting the gerrymander won’t occur until later this year, which the state has already appealed to the supreme court.
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The Nazis weren’t leftists. Conceded.
I can’t begin to say how much on the Left I am. I just don’t want the Left’s criticisms to be easily dismissable as the lunatic ravings of a bunch of crazy people who make hyperbolic comments about everything. At least you’ve disabused me of some of my own ravings, which I now won’t repeat in public company. This is what workshopping is all about.
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To be fair, it’s not a “leftist” thing… the partisans on the right are and always have been just as hyperbolic (especially the current right wing of the GOP - we got a black president and they lost their damn minds). Some over the topic rhetoric goes with the territory, I think, and should be expected. But we’re seemingly living in a world where things like FACTS are in dispute, which is just crazy, I think. Sometimes, I think it’s helpful and cathartic to get together and rant about our worst fears in this environment, as long as at the end of the day, we’re addressing the facts in evidence and dealing with those.
We all make mistakes! ;-)[quote=“fitzador, post:25, topic:93633”]
This is what workshopping is all about.
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Agreed. It’s always good to learn something new, and this is one of the best places around the web to do it. We’re a diverse enough group, with enough specialized knowledge that we can all learn something…
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The President can only get away with what we let him get away with. And “we” includes all public servants including the military and police. If the President orders the National Guard to fire on unarmed protestors it’s up to them to be good citizens. . . and refuse the order.
I’m curious to see just how far the GOP will let him go. As unreasonable as they can be, a lot of them will be reticent to approve anything obviously unconstitutional.
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You have far more faith in them then me! 
I think they won’t if their constituents consistent put pressure on them. And in some districts, they won’t because whatever unconstitutional thing that is getting passed won’t directly impact their constituents, because the districts are racial and economically gerrymandered.
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Not to mention that, since those acts were repealed or expired rather than being knocked down as unconstitutional, there’s nothing* really stopping congress from passing similar acts.
* Other than we the opposition.
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OH! Good point! I hadn’t thought of that one!
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How would the President strip Congress of authority? The beauty of the US constitution is that the president does not make laws - congress does. I am also not that sure that all of the GOP back up Trump on all issues. I think many are not in favour of restricting trade, and quite a few are not in favour of a improving relations with Russia.
As Gwynne Dyer says “the real US government - the tens of thousands of senior civil servants and military officers who actually make the machine work - are people with a lot of real-life experience, and they instinctively resist extreme policies and grand visions.”
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I like it though.
Oddly, one of my favorite pre-war authors was Fitzgerald Scott…F.
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Again… you have an awful lot of faith in the rather top-down GOP. If it suits the leadership, they will make the rank and file fall in line.
Again, these are the same people who passed the Patriot Act.
True enough. But I’m not sure if we should hang our hats on that meaning we can trust them to really resist trump. I’d guess the tea party wave is probably more amenable to trade restrictions and rapprochement with the Russians (since they think the Chinese are the real problem).
So we have two problems with Congress - the first that the party leadership is pretty keen to keep people in line and to follow the president. Second, the people who DO resist that top-down party mode support Trump and his agenda entirely.
So, imagine a situation with a terrorist attack or some such, and what do you think happens then? What does Trump do and what does congress LET him do? [quote=“petr, post:32, topic:93633”]
As Gwynne Dyer says “the real US government - the tens of thousands of senior civil servants and military officers who actually make the machine work - are people with a lot of real-life experience, and they instinctively resist extreme policies and grand visions.”
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Which is why Trump is working hard to alienate them and get as many of the people he thinks will stand in his way out of their jobs.
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Well, ya see, if the prospect of transferring power to the likes of Trump is that terrifying, then perhaps we should have arranged over the last half century or so for there to be less power to transfer.
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Remember though that since this is Mark’s blog, he is looking out at you from the screen, so from his POV the Lewis is really on the right of the Sinclair. What is more problematic is that the letters are all reversed.
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Agre. Also, fascism is about authoritarianism, which can be from the extreme left or right. Those kinds of distinctions don’t really matter.
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The only real obstacle is that he’d need to convince other people that he had the power to do so. At the end of the day it’s not words written on paper that determine what a ruler can do. It’s what the people believe he can do.
To quote Lord Varys from A Game of Thrones: “Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”
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I, for one, am disappointed that @frauenfelder is not able to modify his omniscience to include a “Las Meninas” effect. Velasquez rolls in his grave!
I think they do… especially as the “Hitler was from the left” is specifically employed to delegitimize the left, and not just the totalitarian left, but anything that smacks of the slightest bit of progressivism. I think the language we use matters.
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Hitler did not come from the left. I don’t care which side a dictator comes from, but I one of those idiots who thinks the horseshoe theory has merit.
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