America just got a lot worse... again

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Over a month ago, I commented on the absolute insanity of a anti-vaxx and HIV-denier nutjob being in charge of a national health agency Hence why I am not expecting the Trump administration to promote public health in any meaningful way. In fact, I expected the very opposite.

Well… little more than a month later… this happened.

The Trump administration has cut funding to an ongoing 30-year long study which tracked patients with prediabetes and diabetes nationwide. They were working on a landmark Diabetes Prevention Program. Why did they cut this? The Trump administration don’t say this, but it’s very likely related to the broader cancellation of federal grants to Columbia university, apparently because they “failed to adequately address antisemitism on campus”.

Translation: the Trump administration didn’t like the content of the student’s protest, and they retaliated against the university for allowing free speech on their campus. ‘Antisemitism’ is the thin paper straw they grasped to justify their position to suppress speech they don’t like. Are we really going to pretend that they, Trump specifically, cares about antisemitism after he said there were “very fine people on both sides” while one side was fully led and organized by anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists and were literally chanting “Jews will not replace us” in unison.

This story is frankly overshadowed by the horrifying ongoing story of Mahmoud Khalil. He held a green card (making him a permanent legal resident). Of course, the ICE agents didn’t care and he was arrested anyway. So then, on what grounds can they do this? He is not being charged of committing any crimes, nor are there any alleged illegal activities. The argument they have used is they simply have the power to do this, while citing the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 from the anti-free speech McCarthy era. It was proposed by McCarran who first tried to push for a bill to “protect” the status quo in America from “communism, ‘Jewish interests’ and undesirables deemed as external threats to national security”. While this act was primarily used to target communists, but it also ended up barring many European Jews from entering the US. And McCarran specifically was openly antisemitic who opposed allowing holocaust survivors from entering the US. Again… just to show that you should never take the Trump administration seriously when they say they want to address antisemitism. They know they are full of BS, and they don’t care.

So why would they drag this obscure act (proposed by an antisemite) all the way from the McCarthy era just to deport a green card holder with NO due process? The reason is obvious. They didn’t like the content of his speech, and they want him gone and be made an example to all of you. I say ‘you’ since I am not an American and most of you reading probably are. Yet, I am still mortified by all of this and so should you be. If the government can just do this to a green card holder, they don’t need to gain a lot more power to do this the same (or something else) to silence your voice as well.

Never EVER start to think ‘this doesn’t apply to me’ or you will be reciting the ‘first they came’ poem very soon.

A month ago I said:

It hasn’t been a month yet and I am afraid it will only gets worse from here

And it’s indeed only been getting worse. Almost two months now and it feels like it is getting worse at an exponential rate. The US is backsliding towards autocracy fast, and it might lose it’s democracy status sooner than you think. Although in my opinion, the democratic status was already questionable to begin with. The US government was already following the interest of the elite billionaire donors more so than it’s voters, but now the billionaire elite (and receivers of government spending) are directly running the government. That’s called a plutocracy, but MAGA rebranded this under the name ‘meritocracy’.

Hope remains [REDACTED: Not really, I was full of cope when I wrote this].
It’s going to be a grim 4 years for my American friends.

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I completely disagree. There is no hope remaining, and it’s not going to be somehow just over in 4 years. Sure, Trump will have created such hatred for himself and his government in 4 years there’s no way in any possible world in modal logic that he could ever win a free and fair election again. But there’s not going to be free and fair elections in 4 years. Not in 2 years either. Forget the mid-terms. At this rate of destruction of governmental institutions, elections in years from now either won’t happen at all or will have been completely been done away with. They’re already working on how to destroy the media, so opposition politicians and parties will start to become Gulag’ed soon. And you didn’t hear it here first, I’m just re-stating it. Something radical has to happen now.

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I hate to agree, since I’m in the U.S., but yeah it seems America as we knew it is, for all intents and purposes, over. The only remaining question is, what comes after Trump, and how can we in the U.S. work to make that better rather than even worse?

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I have been making 1933 Germany comparisons for a while now. I hope my predictions for the future will be proven wrong. That is my hope. But I’m not so sure there is much evidence to support that hope.

Every morning when I read the news, it is like several more punches in the gut.

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And that only ended as soon as it did because Hitler got greedy and started invading the rest of Europe. Even so, it took a World War. And we didn’t have nukes then…

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Yeah, I finished the writing and I was like:
“This seems too depressing, better add one sentence with the word ‘hope’ in it.”
It was me huffing cope. Sorry, but it’s true.

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In retrospect, one of the biggest mistakes was when Biden failed to treat a person who had just attempted a coup (and also stole state secrets) in the way such people are usually managed, and instead left it to the justice system to sort out just like any other ordinary crime. The Dept of Justice then proceeded at a stupifyingly leisurely pace, seemingly more concerned about being seen as “partisan” than with the well-being of the nation. And when it did act, it encountered a judiciary that was often biased and corrupt (e.g. Aileen Cannon, and most of the SCOTUS). Throw in some very silly and avoidable own-goals, such as a DA having an affair with one of her fellow attorneys, and you have a perfect storm of venality, incompetence, and indifference that has led us to this present moment.

Brazil and South Korea, OTOH, seem to know how to handle such criminals. It’s not really that difficult.

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I am caught between a sense of total shock and the realization that none of these latest travesties are all that unpredictable. So I shouldn’t be shocked. After all, this is what fascists do. (Sadly, America got exactly what it voted for. And he wasn’t at all dodgy about what he planned to do.)

An update for those who may need it:

It is obvious that the White House has promoted those videos—which look like something out of a film-version of a dystopian novel—to proudly display their brutality and to strike fear into all who may oppose them. The lack of due process was sure to produce exactly what happened: plenty of people with no criminal record or any evidence of gang affiliation sent to a third world hell hole. And because a federal judge has expressed displeasure at Trump’s attorneys, Trump and his fans are demanding the judge’s impeachment (and, some are outright demanding imprisonment.)

This is no surprise:

Some of Trump’s loudest supporters seemed unsurprised that some of those swept up in deportations and jailed in El Salvador had no criminal record. “Guess what, if there are some innocent gardeners in there, hey, tough break for a swell guy,” Steve Bannon said Monday on his show War Room . “That’s where we stand. We’re getting these criminals out of the United States.”
— What We Know About the Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador | TIME

Chilling: “. . . tough break for a swell guy.” Is this from a nation with a Statue of Liberty and a plaque on its base with very different sentiments?

We who participate on Peaceful Science are clearly united [Aren’t we?] in our horror at recent events. Perhaps we have some readers who feel otherwise. I don’t know. But it sure seems like the nation is not all that angry about these events. I’ve not heard of mass demonstrations at the collapse of rule of law.

And, frankly, I would even like to see our ex-presidents make a rare joint appearance to awaken the country out of its lethargy at the threat to the Constitution. (There’s even more and more talk about Trump having a third presidency, perhaps by exploiting a potential wording loophole whereby he runs as the VP nominee on the Republican ticket and then steps into the President role when that stooge resigns.) Yes, I probably haven’t fully thought through the idea of the ex-presidents stepping up. I’m always leery of the Law of Unintended Consequences biting one in the proverbial gluteus maximus.

I’ve been thinking about Machiavelli and what he said about committing many atrocities all at once. The main point was doing all of one’s “bad stuff” on one day so that most days seem uneventful. But overwhelming a people’s sense of outrage with countless acts nearly day after day can make them commonplace and even seem routine. I know of people in my community who look around and basically see nobody overly upset and they decide, “I guess it must just be me. Things can’t be that bad or there wouldn’t be so many nice people who are my friends being so common about this. And my pastor hasn’t said anything. I guess everything is fine.”

I’m usually a relatively chill guy. But I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night finding myself stressed out about these events. And I’m already losing friends over these matters—and not because I’ve been loudly vocal against what the administration is saying or vehemently disagreed with anyone. I’ve simply said things like, “I’m very concerned about what this tariff war is going to do to my farming friends and extended family.” I get angry pushback for something as mild as that.

It reminds me of WWII Germany where someone couldn’t safely say aloud to a friend in a food market: “With these high prices, I don’t know how we can get enough to eat this week.” That was an arrestable offense for “undermining war morale.” I’m finding myself carefully moderating my words. I don’t want my car vandalized in the restaurant parking lot.

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Yes, and private encrypted communications will be needed.

I recommend Signal.

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Hi Allen
I think it is very hard for us to know the real situation and the nuanced reasons for all the action taking place. Our sources of information are very limited and sometimes less than truth. The leadership seems to ebb and flow between republican and democrat with both sides having their own set of baggage. We have survived a long time as a country with bumps a bruises along the way. We seem to self correct over time. Hopefully this ability to self correct is still with us.

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I appreciate your reply, Bill, because my interest in diverse opinions is sincere.

Unless the White House press releases on their webpages, news conferences videos, and Trump’s live and recorded statements are all forged/corrupted/A.I.-generated, I would say that much of the “real situation” can be known.

I think our sources of information are more voluminous and easily accessible than ever before in history. Indeed, with everything from CSPAN to 24/7 news networks, we have more “access” to government officials and their statements than ever before. I would agree that there is much stated that is “less than truth” across the spectrum—whether it be Democrat efforts to prevent the public from knowing the truth of Biden’s decline or Trumps rapid-fire self-contradictions (which by definition must be “less than truth”) and pathological lying. (Fortunately, Trump’s cognitive decline has been fully public and NOT covered up through countless campaign appearances and day-to-day utterances. I found it interesting to read some medical specialist analyze the behaviors of both Biden and Trump and they agreed that Biden’s most blatant lapses were primarily physical traits/incidents while Trump’s were cognitive. I am not a professional so I am unqualified to resolve the question with finality but I certainly came to the conclusion that neither was/is cognitively qualified for the office. That said, I do get the impression that Trump is getting more rest as President than he got as a campaigner because he is word-salad nonsense and dying-off-into-oblivious sentences are less common than last fall.)

When people tell me that whatever news they don’t like is “fake news”, I consider it a convenient way to IGNORE the truth. (Besides, commentary is not news—even if it is broadcast on a 24/7 news network.) Indeed, this reminds me of my past experience within the Young Earth Creationist community. Contrary evidence was usually simply ignored or denied. One of the examples which brought things to a fork in the road for me was when I would hear Duane Gish admit to an audience during a Q&A that his popular bombardier beetle example had been proven wrong—and he promised to remove it from future printings of his books—but a few weeks later at another conference he would repeat the falsehood anyway. (And when I checked later printings of his books, the example was still there.) So what I originally attributed to ignorance I eventually had to attribute to deceit and gaslighting his audience.

So I have lost my patience with the “post-truth” rationalizing nowadays that “It is impossible for us to really know what is really happening and what is true.” Yes, I will probably never know what happened in closed meetings of cabinet officials or what exactly was said in phone calls with the Kremlin. But when I listen to presidential addresses and press conferences, I do believe that what I am hearing is most likely what they actually said. And that is enough to scare me.

And I say that as someone who for most of my life called myself a Republican (and a political conservative.) Now I want nothing to do with either term, in part because the labels are stoked in ambiguity and confusion.

I hope you are right. But what I see happening currently is a fundamental erosion of rule of law and Constitutional fundamentals unlike any other era. I would classify the present crisis as every bit as dangerous to the nation as the Civil War.

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I fear that the average person is simply unaware of these chilling events. Even those who know about it are too complacent to do something.

I confess that I myself haven’t participated in anti-Trump demonstrations, not least because I’m afraid the potential cost to myself would be greater than any benefit to the nation as a whole. But I know that if everyone else has this attitude, nothing will get done, so I’m racked with not a small measure of guilt and cognitive dissonance.

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Lordy, lordy.

A part of having serious intellectual judgment is knowing when nuance is needed and when it’s not. There is a naive philosophy which takes various forms, which supposes that all disputes have two actual sides and that there is some plausible case which can be made for each. But while it is often the case that there are two or more plausible sides on an issue, the generalization that it is ALWAYS the case is a complete failure of judgment, masquerading as judgment.

So, for example, take the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. There were, to be sure, “arguments on both sides” of that one. But only one of those arguments was consonant with American values and only one of those arguments had any merit at all. AT ALL. Treating a question like that as though it is a kind of difficult balancing of interests, and assuming that the “real situation and the nuanced reasons” need to be given breathing room, is not a triumph of level-headed, careful judgment over knee-jerk reaction. It is a case where level-headed, careful judgment would say things like “this is America, and we don’t believe in discriminating against people on the basis of their race or ancestry. Japanese Americans who commit acts of sabotage, should that ever happen, should be punished in accordance with our laws, but those who are innocent of any such act must not be punished merely for sharing parentage with people we merely imagine to be capable of such acts.”

THAT is nuance. That’s judgment: taking your core values and applying them with reason to the facts. If that judgment leads you to the view that one side is entirely right and the other is entirely wrong, that view is not somehow a failure to see balance or nuance or what-have-you.

There were a lot of people in Germany who once agreed that there is a thing called the “Jewish problem.” And once it is more or less agreed that this problem exists, the discussion shifts to what we should do about it. That discussion may, within its own limits, be filled with nuance, but it doesn’t matter. Actual judgment – judgment based upon core humane values – said, to people of better conscience, that there is no such “problem” and that even if there were, all solutions to it would be worse than the problem itself.

And in every era there are people who see it. You can read Korematsu v. United States and see how some people thought that internment of Japanese Americans was a reasonable solution to a difficult situation – one requiring, from their point of view, some sort of deference to others’ views of the “real situation” and some nuance. But you can also read the dissents, and when you do it becomes clear that there are people who know what REAL judgment looks like: people who understand that human rights are paramount values, always, and that our whole system of liberties depends upon judging people as individuals.

I spent decades as a civil rights lawyer, specializing in a particular corner of civil rights known as “due process.” Due process, in most contexts, protects a person (mind you, not a “citizen,” but any “person”) from deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process of law, and while the requirements of due process are somewhat flexible, they essentially always require notice and opportunity to be heard. You may be accused of the gravest and most heinous of crimes, and the prosecutors and police may be completely convinced of your guilt, but you have the right to be given notice that these accusations have been formally made, and the right to a criminal justice process which affords you the opportunity to contest them. The government may wish, for one reason or another, to seize your private property; you have the right to notice, again, and an opportunity to contest the grounds for that seizure.

Now, the details of due process can indeed require nuance. Sometimes we judge that it’s sufficient to hear people’s disputes after the deprivation commences; other times we judge that they must be heard beforehand. Sometimes we think a full judicial hearing is the only thing that will suffice; other times we think that something less will do. But in all cases, the deprivation of liberty triggers due process protection. In all cases, there is a right to timely redress. This is not some narrow technical aspect of constitutional law; it is the very thing that keeps the whole system glued together. If government officials can declare you an outlaw, and do what they wish to you, without these protections, then they can do it to anyone. Innocence is not a defense, if you are not allowed any procedure by which to offer a defense.

And so, having toiled for decades in those particular fields, I have got judgment. I have got nuance. I have a wide range of applicable case law firmly lodged in my craw that represents the fulfillment of the promise of constitutional liberty, together with such cases as Korematsu, where we have failed the test and disgraced ourselves. And I am here to tell you that this which is going on is not within the range of permissible judgment and nuance. Deporting people without hearing, straight into a forced-labor concentration camp? Firing employees because of their answers on a survey? Denying entry to visitors because they may have said things against the government? And all of this done in the most summary fashion, without so much as the opportunity to say, “hey, wait, I’m a US citizen, don’t deport me?”

No, no, no. Wise judgment is not the ability to look at such things and say, “well, it all depends, and, you know, nuance.” Judgment is the ability to look facts square in the eye and say the truth. Often, in life, judgment tells one that there is more than one side to some issue. But it wouldn’t be judgment if it were not equally capable of seeing that there is not.

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A post was split to a new topic: Colewd on U.S. politics

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You know, I find it all extremely depressing and yes, hope is hard to come by. But I would say this, in that direction:

One interesting feature of American public life is that elections to federal office are not run by the federal government. And while this does not necessarily immunize them from federal interference, it does make interference considerably harder to carry out. In general, setting aside the actions of elections officials requires the action of a court, and it’s a truly extraordinary remedy when it happens, which isn’t often.

So I think there is good reason to think we will have fair and free midterms. And the electoral count act requires majorities in both houses to set aside a state’s electoral votes, so the presidential election picture four years out may not be so bad after all.

Assuming those things, it boils down to a question of what the anti-democracy side will try and whether they’ll get away with it. Obviously the fact that consideration was given to seizing voting machines, et cetera, gives one some basis for thinking that they will be limitlessly ruthless, and that they may be able to convince the army to go along in an all-out coup. But I’m not convinced that’s what will happen.

My worry, though, is that even if we survive these four years, we can’t last long if we’re going to ping-pong every few years between leaders who are trying to run a traditional US government and leaders who are aggressively burning down every institution and practice they can. We need a clean break from fascism, and while there are things that might cause that, they are not causing it yet.

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For most of my life, I would have agreed with you. While political junkies hyperventilate and cry the sky is falling, most people just get on with their lives.

Which is why I am so presently unsettled. I’m now a senior, and for the first time in my life it feels like things are not normal. Then I look at human history and realize that peace and security are not normal, and things may returning to normal.

William Yeats, The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

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I plan to buy some Guy Fawkes masks, just in case I might need them.

Really tho, facial recognition and location tracking databases are so well developed by now, I’m not sure anonymity is even possible any more. I don’t have any data on that, I just don’t see how it can fail to be true.

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Sigh… Oh dear…

Even if we assume this statement at face value.. you should be absolutely outraged that you aren’t provided sufficient information to understand the “real situation” and the “nuanced reasons”. We are all witnessing the warming signs of (among other things) the elimination of ‘due process’ and an executive no ‘checks and balances’… the worst form of BIG government. Don’t assume there must be some unknown “nuance” to justify all of this. If you do, then I all you are doing here is choosing to willfully to ignore the writing on the wall that says “The American constitution is dying before our very eyes”.

But I also can’t take this comment seriously when Trump is openly calling for the impeachment of Judge Boasberg for a judicial decision he doesn’t like… that being… the temporary restraining order to prevent the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans who were alleged to be Tren de Aragua gang members. Now, as a side note, these were deported to El Salvador (not Venezuela) where they would end up in a ‘tropical gulag’ where human rights are likely violated. To me, this is already an act of inhuman cruelty and should be enough justification to stop these deportations, but that’s wasn’t the reason behind judge Boasberg restraining order. The deportations were enacted without due process; so no evidence provided, no hearings allowed, no input from judges… so we don’t know if they even were violent gang members. Some of them had scheduled hearings but they were simply whisked away. And at least one of them (Linnette Tobin) was in all likelihood no gang member, had no criminal record, he entered the USA legally to seek asylum, and the only reason why ICE deemed him gang member was a tattoo based on a Real Madrid CF logo (a soccer club) and a social media picture of him doing a ‘throwing the horns’ hand gesture… but the Trump administration saught fit to skip due process entirely citing the controversial Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which is only envoked during wartime, and last time in WWII it was used to justify the interment of Japanese, Germans, and Italians… which I also find morally repugnant. But the legal issue is that this act can only be invoked when the US is in a declared war or when it’s being invaded. Neither of which is happening… which is why Boasberg directed the government to turn the planes around which were carrying the deportees. The Trump administration sought fit to just ignore judge’s order providing weak excuses like the fact the initial order was “oral” and not “written down” or that the planes were already in “international waters”. It’s absurd and they are doing this just because they feel like they can get away with it… and they probably will since there is no reason for them to listen to the judicial branch anymore. This whole thing is just a s**t show… no matter how you look at it. And this is just ONE of the bad things that happened in addition to what I wrote in my OP.

Absolute asinine. The transfers of power in the US can no longer be described in passive words like “ebb and flow”… the peaceful transition of power ENDED… FULL STOP… on January 6th 2021. At least, from one side of the proverbial aisle. The democrats peacefully transferred power to Trump a few months ago… unsurprisingly… but Trump and his supporters have proven that they won’t return the same courtesy. Yes, both sides have their own “set of baggage”, but the Trumpian set includes an unabashed opposition to the US constitution. The other side does not. Stop pretending dems and trumpers are on equal moral grounds. The US had it’s chance to self-correct after Jan 6th by prosecuting, convicting, and jailing Trump and his co-conspirators for his fake electors plot to subvert the presidential election. He got special treatment, and chance to self correct has passed and it’s over. Because he got away scot-free even after his attempt to maintain power after losing the election, Trump and his cronies know that they can get away with anything, and they are right… especially since the Supreme court granted him immunity… that sealed it. We are now witnessing the result of an executive government that feel they can get away with anything… even ignoring a direct order from a judge… because they can. The damage this has inflicted is not a “bump” or “bruise”. It’s a deep, gaping wound which is hemorrhaging blood as we speak, and it may even be beyond saving.

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I call January 6 “Fox Guy Day,” as they did more or less try to blow up Parliament, or at least Funkadelic.

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Didn’t you hear? That’s what they WANTED you to think. January 6 was an ANTIFA operation.

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