Not when something within a stone’s throw of those views make up a majority of voters in a democracy. Those who have been broadcasting out into the world that anyone who makes it in has a good chance of staying indefinitely under some previously obscure loophole do not have clean hands.
Yeah, I mean they just... what, should have ignored the huge public opinion surge against immigration enforcement during the last Trump Administration, which was still less cruel, less brutal, and 100% less lawless than what we're seeing now?
Or is backlash against unpopular policies only a a mitigating factor when it's lawless Republican backlash against lawful but annoying Democratic overreach?
You will be arguing against people who believe that the starting point is that Garcia should never have been here in the first place. From there, the deportation is rectifying an error.
This applies to literally any due process claim in any circumstance. It's an immediate jump--no intervening slippery slope, you're just there--to "criminals don't deserve due process", because the actual proof of the underlying premise, i.e., that this deportation is rectifying a legal error--is a critical part of that process, and one the Administration is ignoring
Unless, of course, the law itself has nothing to do with the error. In which case my assessment of those partisans and (LOL) fence-sitters is going to be even less sympathetic
So it's the fault of the Democrats that the Republicans are gearing up a campaign to systematically erase the Fifth, Eight, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights of people like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, because the Democrats... spent well over a decade looking for compromises that would allow for normalization of status for guts like Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the people who decided to pay El Salvador to enslave him sabotaged every one to ensure that, someday, they would have the opportunity to to pay El Salvador (or some other fascist crony state) to enslave him.
Ah I knew I wouldn't have to dive too far into the comments to find very concerned people who are in no way Trump supporters blaming the people who are truly at fault for the Trump Administration illegally trafficking a person who has not even been so much as charged with a crime to an El Salvadoran gulag: the Democrats who oppose illegally trafficking people who have not even been so much as charged with a crime to El Salvadoran gulags
I don't really know why I would have expected better of the place that gave us, "It's not anti-semitic to say that Adolf Hitler was right about Jews spreading dialectical hatred against the West, as long as you also say that Jews are stupid."
It has nothing to do with agreeing with them, and everything to do with believing that malicious liars are not being truthful when they tell you what their grievances are, especially when they use those grievances to advance policies--like these--that make everything they claim to be upset about worse!
Should we also cater to their insistence that Barack Obama was a secret Muslim and that measles vaccines are just as dangerous as the measles, or are we only supposed to attribute and credit invented motives to Trump supporters because those are the ones we need to make them seem sympathetic?
Given that the signature feature of Trumpism is wildly dishonest conspiracy theorizing, my baseline assumption is that any Trump supporting claiming they were defected against is that they are lying outright, using that imagined betrayal as a cover for the vicious, stupid bigotry that actually motivates them
The way to deal with Nazis is to crush them thoroughly, until they recognize that Nazism is suicide, not to accommodate them because they feel they were stabbed in the back by Judeo-Bolshevism
We learned that lesson the hard way the first time, and it looks like we'll have to learn that lesson the hard way the second time, too
Yeah, I mean they're not bringing their Liz Trussalike to heel now as he does his level best to crash the global economy, but most of the Congressional Republicans who are committed to nonfeasance now also voted against holding him accountable in February of 2020 after he sent a mob to murder them
The story of Trump's rise to power is also a story of every American institution failing to meet him with appropriate resistance, and the institution that failed first and most thoroughly is the Republican Party
Should there have been *ANYTHING* done differently in the runup?
Yes. I've actually given one example: ten more Republicans should have voted to convict Trump during 2021's impeachment trial.
There are other examples I can think of but they're a good deal less certain. Merrick Garland should have been more aggressive in pursuing Trump for his role in January 6. Fani Willis should have been less of a spectacular idiot.
Then there's stuff even less certain than that. Like, maybe if Biden had decided not to run in 2019, the ensuing primary would have gotten us a better candidate or the same candidate with a better message. But maybe not.
Or is even asking such a question appealing to Murc’s Law?
No, but I think dismissing my answer and implicitly excluding Senate Republicans who voted to acquit Trump from the people who had a responsibility to act differently--that does seem to be well in line with Murc's Law.
EDIT to add: I think the problem is the assumption that it's just 100% fine to rely on what voters find "attractive" to keep the likes of Trump out of office.
And in such a case I am confident that I could remind a sensible and reasonably well-informed person of critical details about the second impeachment (such as when it happened) and they'd feel a touch sheepish about being misled by their fuzzy recollections.
Whereas if I reminded them of the details of the first impeachment, I would be unsurprised if their opinion didn't change a whit.
I can see how the first impeachment would look that way, with (or even without!) the benefit of hindsight, fuzzy or sharp. It is an opinion that a sensible and well-informed person could have.
I do not believe that a sensible and reasonably well-informed person could have that opinion about the second impeachment.
It's self-refuting: "The anti-Trump opposition was throwing a temper tantrum because, um, they had just beaten him in a Presidential election!"
As craven as most of the Senate GOP was in 2021, I don't think it counts as a "temper tantrum on the part of the opposition" when there were 7 votes for conviction with "(R)" after their names.
On “The Lawless Lying Duplicitous Bastards of Abrego Garcia”
Not when something within a stone’s throw of those views make up a majority of voters in a democracy. Those who have been broadcasting out into the world that anyone who makes it in has a good chance of staying indefinitely under some previously obscure loophole do not have clean hands.
Yeah, I mean they just... what, should have ignored the huge public opinion surge against immigration enforcement during the last Trump Administration, which was still less cruel, less brutal, and 100% less lawless than what we're seeing now?
Or is backlash against unpopular policies only a a mitigating factor when it's lawless Republican backlash against lawful but annoying Democratic overreach?
"
You will be arguing against people who believe that the starting point is that Garcia should never have been here in the first place. From there, the deportation is rectifying an error.
This applies to literally any due process claim in any circumstance. It's an immediate jump--no intervening slippery slope, you're just there--to "criminals don't deserve due process", because the actual proof of the underlying premise, i.e., that this deportation is rectifying a legal error--is a critical part of that process, and one the Administration is ignoring
Unless, of course, the law itself has nothing to do with the error. In which case my assessment of those partisans and (LOL) fence-sitters is going to be even less sympathetic
"
So it's the fault of the Democrats that the Republicans are gearing up a campaign to systematically erase the Fifth, Eight, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights of people like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, because the Democrats... spent well over a decade looking for compromises that would allow for normalization of status for guts like Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the people who decided to pay El Salvador to enslave him sabotaged every one to ensure that, someday, they would have the opportunity to to pay El Salvador (or some other fascist crony state) to enslave him.
"
Ah I knew I wouldn't have to dive too far into the comments to find very concerned people who are in no way Trump supporters blaming the people who are truly at fault for the Trump Administration illegally trafficking a person who has not even been so much as charged with a crime to an El Salvadoran gulag: the Democrats who oppose illegally trafficking people who have not even been so much as charged with a crime to El Salvadoran gulags
I don't really know why I would have expected better of the place that gave us, "It's not anti-semitic to say that Adolf Hitler was right about Jews spreading dialectical hatred against the West, as long as you also say that Jews are stupid."
"
You’re also ignoring what will be the most important factors for those who support what Trump is doing.
It is a good thing to ignore the opinions of the stupid and wicked
On “What To Expect When You’re Expecting a Trade War”
It has nothing to do with agreeing with them, and everything to do with believing that malicious liars are not being truthful when they tell you what their grievances are, especially when they use those grievances to advance policies--like these--that make everything they claim to be upset about worse!
"
Should we also cater to their insistence that Barack Obama was a secret Muslim and that measles vaccines are just as dangerous as the measles, or are we only supposed to attribute and credit invented motives to Trump supporters because those are the ones we need to make them seem sympathetic?
"
Given that the signature feature of Trumpism is wildly dishonest conspiracy theorizing, my baseline assumption is that any Trump supporting claiming they were defected against is that they are lying outright, using that imagined betrayal as a cover for the vicious, stupid bigotry that actually motivates them
"
Then we defect against them harder next time
The way to deal with Nazis is to crush them thoroughly, until they recognize that Nazism is suicide, not to accommodate them because they feel they were stabbed in the back by Judeo-Bolshevism
We learned that lesson the hard way the first time, and it looks like we'll have to learn that lesson the hard way the second time, too
"
Yeah, I mean they're not bringing their Liz Trussalike to heel now as he does his level best to crash the global economy, but most of the Congressional Republicans who are committed to nonfeasance now also voted against holding him accountable in February of 2020 after he sent a mob to murder them
The story of Trump's rise to power is also a story of every American institution failing to meet him with appropriate resistance, and the institution that failed first and most thoroughly is the Republican Party
On “He Got Away With It”
Yes. I've actually given one example: ten more Republicans should have voted to convict Trump during 2021's impeachment trial.
There are other examples I can think of but they're a good deal less certain. Merrick Garland should have been more aggressive in pursuing Trump for his role in January 6. Fani Willis should have been less of a spectacular idiot.
Then there's stuff even less certain than that. Like, maybe if Biden had decided not to run in 2019, the ensuing primary would have gotten us a better candidate or the same candidate with a better message. But maybe not.
No, but I think dismissing my answer and implicitly excluding Senate Republicans who voted to acquit Trump from the people who had a responsibility to act differently--that does seem to be well in line with Murc's Law.
EDIT to add: I think the problem is the assumption that it's just 100% fine to rely on what voters find "attractive" to keep the likes of Trump out of office.
"
And in such a case I am confident that I could remind a sensible and reasonably well-informed person of critical details about the second impeachment (such as when it happened) and they'd feel a touch sheepish about being misled by their fuzzy recollections.
Whereas if I reminded them of the details of the first impeachment, I would be unsurprised if their opinion didn't change a whit.
"
I can see how the first impeachment would look that way, with (or even without!) the benefit of hindsight, fuzzy or sharp. It is an opinion that a sensible and well-informed person could have.
I do not believe that a sensible and reasonably well-informed person could have that opinion about the second impeachment.
It's self-refuting: "The anti-Trump opposition was throwing a temper tantrum because, um, they had just beaten him in a Presidential election!"
"
Can you be specific as to who you think was throwing a tantrum during the second impeachment, and why you think it qualifies as a tantrum?
"
As craven as most of the Senate GOP was in 2021, I don't think it counts as a "temper tantrum on the part of the opposition" when there were 7 votes for conviction with "(R)" after their names.
"
The gain is that he doesn't get to run again.
The pain is an election two years down the line.
"
If 10 more Republicans in the Senate had shown a glimmer of a backbone in January of 2021, we'd be fighting about President-elect Haley right now.
"
Unusually bad take from Andrew.
Like, you argue it after Trump's first impeachment [1] and it makes sense in that context. It's not a slam dunk argument but it's colorable.
After Trump's second impeachment, though? Nah bro.
Senate Republicans weren't conserving political gains, he wasn't popular at that point like at all, he'd just sent a mob to murder them, etc.
[1] People barely even remember that the motherfisher was impeached twice, do they?
On “2024 Election Day Live Stream, Reaction, Open Thread”
Well that sucked
Gonna step away for a while until the urge to pick fights with people whose fault this isn't passes
"
100%
"
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.
"
In 2016, Trump was one of the very many people who thought Trump didn't have a chance.
"
Unlike Charlie Kirk, I think there's a meaningful chance Trump is responding to something he's hearing from his campaign here.
"
In addition to Charlie Kirk, my obsessive Election Day blog refreshing has reminded me of the existence of Ian Miles Chong and Catturd2
So that’s nice
"
I feel you bro but it’s Charlie Kirk
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.