this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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the_dunk_tank
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It's the dunk tank.
This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.
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The best summary looks to me like:
You could say much the same for abortion, too.
There are some differences, but not nearly enough, and it's easy to see how one person can look at this and say Dems are obviously better (focusing on state stuff, rank-and-file attitudes, proposed national legislation) while another can look at this and say whatever Dems are doing (focusing mostly on national politics and losing the judiciary) is not nearly enough.
i would just order the military extrajudicially execute transphobes with drone strikes, because i was legally authorized to drone strike US citizens that are part of terrorist movements
"BUT BIDEN CAN'T JUST MURDER THE SUPREME COURTERINOO!"
Why? Why not? No one gave a shit when Obama was hunting down and murdering American children, why do you care when it's a bunch of crusty old fascists?
"BIDEN CAN'T JUST BLACK BAG MANCHIN AND SHOW HIM LIVE FEED OF HIS DAUGHTER'S CAR FROM A PREDATOR DRONE!>!!>!!"
Why not? He can drop hellfire missiles on weddings and ambulances, slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians in Yemen, and god knows what other atrocities, but one pharma crook is off limits? Why?
We're going to vote Blue in '24, and Blue isn't going to do shit. The Democrats have always had options.
It's a good bit, but presenting "drone strike the Supreme Court" as a legitimate option is silly.
If you want a take along those lines but realistic, ask libs why Biden hasn't nationalized the Texas National Guard and torn down the horrific shit we're doing at the border.
It's a bit hyperbolic, sure, but he could easily pack the court, and if Roberts refused to swear in new justices, he could have him arrested. Obama should have done something similar with Garland: when McConnell refused to have a hearing, he should have given a speech about the Senate failing to complete its duties, ordered Roberts to swear Garland in, and then arrested Roberts if he protested the move (along with any other justices who tried to be stubborn). The president has men with guns, and SCOTUS does not, full stop.
Lol packing the court is categorically different than assassinating them.
I agree Democrats should at least be trying to do more (specifically with Obama and Garland), but it's not as simple as you're describing it. At minimum, what you're describing would lose a bunch of Democratic support, and if a bunch of your own party is against you it's ultimately not going to work. Now of course the fact that a bunch of Democrats would defect over this is itself a problem with the party, but that's the reality of the situation. There was no one weird trick that was guaranteed to work, and there are consequences to trying and failing.
It's not "assassination", it's targeted killing, and it's perfectly legal and above board. The Supreme Court said so. The President gets to decide who dies and there's no judicial review possible because it's a "political question".
Master statesman Saddam Hussein had a solution for that specific problem. You get all your party members in a room, demand they pledge personal loyalty to you, and then force the ones who did pledge to shoot the ones that didn't. Bam. Party discipline secured.
I'm not asking for much. Just for the president to exercise the same tactics to control uncooperative democratically elected governments at home that he uses abroad. Biden allegedly couldn't do anything because Manchin and/or Sistema just couldn't be brought to the table for some weird reason. Somehow the guy who controls the army, the intelligence aparatus, the justice department, the DEA, the IRS, and the Post couldn't find any way to make them move even a little teeny weensie bit.
Sounds funny, but it rings quite true. I am not sure with the decisions of the supreme court how one could stop those actions legally.
AFAIK Congress could pass a law explicitly stating it's illegal for the president to murder people on a whim, but under the current legal regime I don't think there's any recourse at all. When al-Awlaki's father tried to represent his son before the court, arguing that al-Awlaki couldn't come in person because the US would extralegally shoot him in the head the second they had him in custody, the courts told him he had no standing and to fuck off. That was a whole ass moment.
See I don't agree with this kind of thinking. You win votes by doing things, not by not doing things. Biden is letting himself be hamstrung by concerns about "los[ing] a bunch of Democratic support."
All it would take to turn Manchin into a reliable ally is a little J. Edgar Hoover style blackmail--there's no way the dude has a skeleton-free closet. And taking SCOTUS, by whatever means, would do a lot to win Dems over. Then force through statehood for DC and Puerto Rico and/or Guam, and you've got a solid, long-term Dem majority in the Senate. Power does not flow from a 236-year-old piece of fucking paper, and I'm sick of political discussions that continue to ignore that, as if that damn piece of paper is somehow going to maintain stability in this country over the next decade. I'm sick of Democrats being too afraid to use strongarm tactics like McConnell did, proving again and again that they don't really care about their supposedly preferred policy outcomes at all. Yes, there are consequences for trying and failing, but there are also consequences for not trying, and thus failing by default.
Same. But what you're describing involves more than "get a guy to point a gun at John Roberts," which wouldn't work. Discussing ways to play hardball with conservative Dems makes sense; banging the table over an oversimplified solution doesn't.
A country that took itself seriously wouldβve lined up and shot members of the GOP after Jan 6th just to prove a point
The difference is
no more half measures walter
There could be a legal case be made for that, when the people drone striked have spoken to organized movements that are transphobic. Needs one or two executive orders before that though.
Whatever support Democrats give to trans people is nothing compared to the money they dump on the transphobic fascist police and military. The Democrats and Republicans represent the same class interests. They might sometimes talk a different way, but the policy outcomes are indistinguishable.
I get your point -- it's not enough -- but this isn't nothing. The article talks about people coming in from other states to take advantage of these laws, so we have evidence it's not nothing.
We have to understand how disconnected we look when we say "this is actually no different from Florida." The better approach is "sure, Democrats are better, but they're awful in 10 other ways and they will never do enough, fast enough."
Yeah I'm thankful I live in Communist Minnesota and would be devastated if it flipped red. Yes they are libs like the rest, and yes they will lay down and let us die when push comes to shove, but for right now I vastly prefer being allowed to get my medications and exist in public over not being able to do those things.
Re: The Judiciary; Democrats mostly just let it happen. McConnnell's project to seize control of the Judiciary was in the open for at least a decade, probably much longer but I don't want to look it up.
Goes back to the Federalist Society founding in '82.