To me it's crazy how many went from "we favor the Republic" to "all power to a singular person, what could go wrong, he is cool" pretty fast.
Zooming out of the 24h news cycle, "all power to a singular person" concerns seem far too overblown. Half the country hates Trump. He won the popular vote, but not by all that much (despite what he may assert). By comparison LBJ, FDR, and Nixon won ~60% of popular vote. Even if he were a young man, I don't think we're in any danger of a caesar.
The number of Americans willing to check the other person on the ballot is a lot lower than the number of Americans willing to pick up arms when he ignores the law like all the other laws he ignores.
80% conservateives at worst still support trump, while 7% liberal at best support him. Maybe someone can bring up polling to prove me wrong, but that is utterly unheard of levels of polarization. The only solace here is that independent voters are tanking, so in polls this close that can be the breaking point for all of this.
>Even if he were a young man, I don't think we're in any danger of a caesar.
The scary part is that he's not a young nor healthy man. He can blow the world up and not live to see the utter destruction he triggered. At least Caesar was assassinated and had to be on edge for years. Trump will have lived a full life never being punished and the world will burn afterwards.
Instead, both parties display an obstinate lack of compromise and wishy-washy, unworkable platforms while the media is only happy to make all of it worse.
Increasing polarization is surely a symptom of problems and that needs to be analyzed, explained and addressed, not excused.
You make it sound like a civil war is a walk in the park, you do need more history and more imagination in order to understand the human cost of obstinance and shallow thinking.
Tell that to the Republicans in Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court.
And the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation:
Trump is unique in that the previous folks predated the massive standing army and propaganda capabilities that exist today. The intangible magic is brave individuals and institutions. It’s harder for those individuals with the secret police and army running around.
What is this statement even appealing to, and what are you getting at by saying it?
In the post constitution era, 17 amendments were passed by the house, including an amendment that would make states supreme by law. 6 years after the constitution was ratified, Marbury v. Madison established judicial supremacy for interpreting law, 11 years after that, the court ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland that states are subordinate to federal power.
Political compromise got it done, but centralized power is necessary for survival and prosperity. Congress and the courts realized this immediately. Most of the realpolitik of “states rights” is really about wielding tyrannical power locally.
I thought it was so states could knowingly house illegal aliens or illegal drug businesses without doing anything.
Normally states wouldn't have that right, but I see many who think they should have it. Marijuana is still illegal and those undocumented immigrants are also illegal, more federal influence would make it so states cannot legalize those any more, is that what you want?
So states rights goes both ways, it lets states both be more progressive and more conservative than the average.
> Normally states wouldn't have that right, but I see many who think they should have it.
The states are not compelled to enforce federal law. Doing nothing about people violating federal law has always been a right of the states. You are trying to, or already have in your head, conflate non enforcing federal law, with actively violating state law.
Where marijuana is legalized, it means the State made it legal in terms of State law, not that it superseded federal law.
Zero States have made illegal immigrants legal. Some states stop going after them and assisting the federal government in their immigration duties.
You are talking about state's rights and have no idea what the boundaries of those rights even are.
All of those things you’re mentioning are state services that they can offer to anyone because it’s not a federal issue.
This is what states rights look like and why the right is mocked for referencing it when they foam at the mouth once it’s used for things they don’t like.
It’s similar to people who claim the civil war was over states rights when southern states were pushing to have other state sovereignty ignored over their own laws when it came to returning slaves.
Protection would be actively circumventing the feds instead of saying “neat”, when presented with a request.
Unless you are operating under the mistaken belief that a “request” from the feds means mandatory compliance by the states.
This is why everyone rolls their eyes when conservatives crow about states rights. They don’t actually want state rights, they want their views enforced on the other states.
I’m actually for less of states independence from the feds on a bunch of areas, and immigration is probably one of them, but as long as this is a tool in the toolbox that conservatives are eager to use, I’m going to call them out for bitching about someone else doing the same thing.
Whether or not the states help them be authoritarian is orthogonal to the chaos in the streets.
If you just want blue states to bend the knee and capitulate, you should say so.
Not helping them is not hindering the feds, unless you feel entitled to the help.
Actively getting in the way is something like when Texas started trying to implement their own national border policy.
Tell me you at least recognize the difference between actively doing something against some group, and merely not helping them?
> Look, I’m not the one who supports street raids, that’s you.
lol, you sound like a wife beater “look you just gotta do what I say or I _have_ to hurt you. There’s no other alternatives babe”
This is the outcome that you appear to believe is optimal, and you are intentionally using emotionally loaded words like "lenient" to attempt to guilt me into retreating from my position that this is, in fact, not an optimal outcome. In many cases like this additional crimes are committed before the offender is apprehended, crimes which are of course 100% preventable, without you and your "leniency".
>Tell me you at least recognize the difference between actively doing something against some group, and merely not helping them?
Technically speaking, you are right. These states are actively working against their own citizens, not the Federal government.
> Technically speaking, you are right. These states are actively working against their own citizens, not the Federal government.
If that’s your view then we’re never seeing eye to eye. Good luck with the new world order you’re getting.
Feds: hey you arrested individual_x, he's in the country illegally and oh by the way has a few other outstanding warrants, can you please hold him at the jail house, we're going to pick him up for immigration proceedings.
Cops: sure thing, let us know when you get here
And now we get.
Feds: hey hold that guy you arrested, he's got a standing deportation order from years ago, hold him until we get there.
Cops: No, in fact, we're going to let him go.
You continued to imply that banning the former is somehow preferable, even though the latter results in ... street raids.
I'm not really seeing how I'm the bad guy here, and honestly I think your real policy preference is simply that no immigration law is enforced at all. You should have the courage to say so, since that is quite clearly the policy preference for a large portion of the electorate, and possibly a majority of the Democratic Party.
> Cops: sure thing, let us know when you get here
> And now we get.
> Feds: hey hold that guy you arrested, he's got a standing deportation order from years ago, hold him until we get there.
> Cops: No, in fact, we're going to let him go.
You’ve accurately described how states who do not want to assist the federal government, send instructions to their employees on how to not assist the federal government
> You continued to imply that banning the former is somehow preferable, even though the latter results in ... street raids.
The latter results in street raids because of the choices of the federal government and the current leader. It is not an immutable law of physics that street raids have to happen.
This is abuser logic. Do what I want or I _have_ to hurt you.
> I'm not really seeing how I'm the bad guy here, and honestly I think your real policy preference is simply that no immigration law is enforced at all. You should have the courage to say so, since that is quite clearly the policy preference for a large portion of the electorate, and possibly a majority of the Democratic Party.
My preferred immigration policies are ones that brain drain the rest of the planet for my countries benefit.
I am calling out how states not enforcing federal policy for free is an example of states rights.
This comment chain started with me responding to `Jensson stating
> I thought it was so states could knowingly house illegal aliens or illegal drug businesses without doing anything.
> Normally states wouldn't have that right, but I see many who think they should have it.
Which is patently false if you believe in states rights unless you are a hypocrite or belief that states only have the right to believe in the federal governments commands
Marijuana is illegal. The states have largely chosen to change their laws on the subject as it was determined that it was creating more problems than it was solving. Additionally, the Federal government, while incapable of changing the law, loosened some of the disincentives for the states laws on the subject.
Well, and the isolation of the country by oceans on both east and west, and by the glaciers to the North, which make invasion by any but Mexico or Canada unthinkably expensive.
As for prosperous, a vast, then-untapped swath of forests, thick humus deposited by glaciers, and mineral deposits, all serviceable by waterways unprotected by competing nations, did play a minor role.
American exceptionalism is always a falsehood.
Still, 250 years is pretty short on the grand history of humanity.